Mentors and coaches
Quick reference guide
Pamela Barclay
Accelerate Her
Pamela is an entrepreneurial brand builder, product developer and business leader who has worked in retail brands of varied scale for 20 years. She was instrumental in leading the growth success of global sportwear brand Endura as Director/Co-Owner through to exit in 2016 to Pentland Brands. Her responsibilities combined design, marketing, international sourcing and commercial negotiation. An early pioneer of sustainability, she now applies that philosophy to ventures in the property sector as well as the charity Endura Lifecycle Trust which she co-founded, delivering thousands of mountainbike sessions to vulnerable groups each year.
Tricia Bey
Accelerate Her
Tricia has an Engineering Science degree from Durham University and an MBA from The London Business School. In her early career Tricia worked in the pre-internet world of patent information. She then spent 14 years with Deloitte Consulting building and leading different practice areas including two years as the Managing Partner of the Dutch consulting practice. She was later Managing Director of a London-based management development school. Tricia subsequently set up her own Ayrshire-based award-winning cheese making business and is a member of Investing Women Angels.
Rhona Campbell
Accelerate Her
Rhona is an expert in global product management and product marketing, with over 20 years' experience working with SME's and multinational technology companies at a senior level to achieve growth and success in global markets. Her practical know-how has helped companies to commercialise and launch new products, enter new markets as well as develop and implement international product and marketing strategies. Rhona set up her own consultancy, Rhona Campbell Associates, working with start-up and investor-funded technology companies to assess commercial strategy/ roadmap and take leading-edge technology to market.
Dr Jen Jenkins
Accelerate Her
Jen specialises in empowering her clients to live a psychologically informed life that enables them to thrive. Jen's work as a consultant has been built by combining her academic background in Psychology with over ten years' experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries culminating in roles as International Director in the areas of Commercial Operations and Learning & Development. As a consultant for the last eleven years, Jen has worked with CEOs and senior leadership teams across a wide variety of sectors including, financial and professional services, pharmaceutical, biotech, oil & gas, food & drink, luxury brands, travel, business consultancies and higher education.
Catherine Muirden
Accelerate Her
Catherine is a leader in Human Resources. She’s a former HR Director at Barclays, has led the people function during the rescue and re-building of the Co-op, and most recently was People Transformation Director of the John Lewis Partnership. She’s an experienced mentor and coach, Non-Executive Director and Chair. She has a long history of championing and developing women leaders, and she’s known for connecting people within her wide business network.
Jackie Waring
Accelerate Her
Jackie is a pioneer of women angels 'changing the face of investing', bringing more women angels into Scotland's dynamic angel investment community. An active and experienced angel investor herself, she established Scotland's all-female angel group Investing Women Angels whose members have invested over 80% of their funds in highly innovative female-founded companies.
Jackie is an entrepreneur with a passion for helping other entrepreneurs. It was this passion that inspired her to establish AccelerateHER, creating a channel and direct help for female founders going for scale. Publicly recognised by Scotland's First Minister, she is a major player in shaping the ScotCanDo eco-system
.
Celia Francis
All Together
(For businesses generating revenue over £400k Per Annum)
Celia Francis is an experienced, purpose-driven tech CEO. Most recently, Celia was CEO of Rated People, an innovative online marketplace connecting millions of homeowners with 50,000 skilled local tradespeople across the United Kingdom to complete £3 billion of work every year. Before Rated People, Celia served as CEO of social games and networking company, WeeWorld, which entertained over 70 million users.
Gabrielle Hase
All Together
(For businesses generating revenue over £400k Per Annum)
Gabrielle Hase is an experienced portfolio Non-Executive Director and board advisor for both PLC and private companies including Ultra Commerce, Planks Clothing, K3, Tate Galleries and Sook. As CEO of Soleberry Advisory, Gabrielle sits at the intersection of consumer brands and retail technology, and helps companies navigate digital transformation and maximise eCommerce opportunities to create shareholder value. Gabrielle received her MBA from The Wharton School of Business.
Jules Hydleman
All Together
Jules has broad business experience. He’s supported the development of start-up organisations, business scale-ups and turnarounds within B2B and B2C models, across FMCG, financial services, durable consumer goods and apparel (inc. sustainable fashion). Supported 6 MBO’s and 7 Exits as an Exec. and Non-Executive and sits within the upper quartile of UK Chairs with this volume of transactions. These exits have averaged at >8x EBIT and include landmark events including the sale of Innocent Drinks to Coca Cola.
Tim Lee
All Together
Tim is a creative and practical business leader with a passion for building businesses. He is currently CEO at Mindful Chef. He has a proven track record of starting up businesses and driving change both within large Plcs and in the charity sector. Tim has held senior leadership roles in digital, commercial, marketing, and strategy, and has a deep understanding of the food industry across farms, markets, factories and stores/online. He also has extensive experience within successful businesses such as Marks & Spencer and Tesco in the UK and Internationally.
Jamie Mitchell
All Together
Jamie is an entrepreneur, a serial CEO and Non Executive Chairman. Over a 30 year career, Jamie has founded, invested in and managed some of the UK's best known entrepreneurial businesses. He has lectured on Entrepreneurship at London Business School, and developed government policy for both the Treasury and the Labour Party on enterprise, entrepreneurship and education. He is currently managing a portfolio of non-executive and pro bono roles.
Tony Page
All Together
Lasting impact Interim Turnaround Chair/CEO, expert in solving challenging situations (particularly PE-backed businesses), and transformative leadership mentor/coach.
Babita Devi
CJBS
Babita Devi is a coach and entrepreneur with over 25 years' experience from a broad range of industries where she has helped with marketing and business development. Her marketing company bStrategic helps individuals get clear on how to make strategy part of every day, with a direct impact on the bottom line. She is founder of mySircles – an app that is designed to build stronger communities in a digital world and she has lectured Entrepreneurial Marketing at Lord Ashcroft Business School and Lincoln University. Babita also heads up marketing for coworking company CambridgeSpace and is a coach at the Judge Business School, where she works on the Accelerate Program helping entrepreneurs nurture venture creation and turn ideas into commercially viable companies.
Marco Donzelli
CJBS
Marco is a senior business leader with international experience in business development, entrepreneurship, business transformation and change management. His main industries of expertise are professional services, online marketplaces and consumer finance. Marco is the Global CEO at HLB, a leading mid-tier advisory and accounting network with combined turnover of US$ 2.93bn, presence in 158 countries and 30,000 people. He joined HLB in February 2012 as the Head of Strategic Network Development and then moved to the position of Chief Operating Officer in August 2015. As a result, Marco has over 8 years of senior leadership experience in the professional services industry, at a global level. He started his career in Italy, where after a brief period with Deloitte, he moved to Deutsche Bank, where he spent over six years in both commercial and internal consultancy roles within retail and consumer finance, before moving to the UK.
Emmanuel Carraud
CJBS
Emmanuel Carraud is an entrepreneur and investor in Mobile Application, Digital Marketing and Property industry. He is the co-founder and CEO of AppChocolate Ltd, the festive mobile apps publisher. As a serial entrepreneur, Emmanuel co-founded MagicSolver.com, the apps discovery specialists, in 2009 and reached over 50 million downloads, ranking #1 on the iTunes App Store in over 40 countries. As a property investor, he manages Maison Invest Ltd, which run a portfolio of residential properties, single lets, HMOs and serviced accommodations across the UK.
Dan Hyde
CJBS
Dan Hyde is a leading authority on tech and cyber regulation. He assisted the UK Government with its review of information security legislation and authored the first books on UK cybersecurity law and practice and the international regulation of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Dan advises banks, universities, entrepreneurs, SMEs, and large blue-chip companies.
An entrepreneur in his own right he founded his own law firm and is a partner at HCR Law. Dan is Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London and a mentor for Homerton Changemakers at the University of Cambridge. He sits on the Board of the Cyber Law Forum and is a member of the Forum of Insurance Lawyers Technology and Cyber Liabilities Sector Focus Group. Dan has a particular interest in entrepreneurship and mentoring start-ups.
Dawn Shand
CJBS
Dawn has worked with hundreds of start-ups over the last 15 years and in a wide range of industry sectors. From wearable technology to World Whisky Day; geothermal energy to ground spices; medtech to blockchain food provenance, Dawn has worked with sole inventors through to SMEs with a global presence.
She also delivers on the Help to Grow: Management Programme as a subject expert on strategy and innovation, and international markets.
Dawn has a strong background in IP related matters and enjoys exploring innovative routes to commercialisation.
Scotland based, Dawn has an extensive network within the business, public and University sectors.
Kamilla Spark
CJBS
Kamilla has been a mentor and a coach to start-up companies and early-stage ventures at Accelerate Cambridge and the Masters in Entrepreneurship programme at CJBS since 2018. Her professional background is in corporate finance, investment management, board advisory services, and lecturing in finance. As a corporate finance professional Kamilla was a Director of Mezzanine Management, a banker with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and Senior Advisor to a closed-end listed private equity fund.
She has held non-executive board roles with various companies, from publicly listed international corporates to charities and not-for-profit organisations. She is passionate about mentoring and advising entrepreneurs, sharing her over two decades of experience and extensive expertise in key business development and value creation areas such as funding strategy, budgeting, financial forecasts, operational effectiveness, business performance tracking, and governance.
Although her expertise is sector agnostic her most recent advisory projects were within SaaS, medical devices, education, alternative proteins, and new materials. Kamilla received her MBA in Finance and Accounting from Columbia University Business School in New York. She has been a UK Chartered Director and Fellow of The Institute of Directors since 2010.
Mark Bloomfield
CJBS
Dr. Mark Bloomfield, Founder of Turbulence Group, helps organisations transform through data-driven innovation strategies. Mark specializes in helping organizations commercialize their innovations. Mark is also a Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School working across innovation and sustainability. Previously, was the Director of Commercial Transformation at Global Media & Entertainment for over 10 years, driving their data science, innovation capabilities and revenue management. Prior to his role at Global, Mark served as the Head of Operations Research at Thomas Cook Group PLC, where he developed proprietary technology across pricing and inventory optimization. Mark holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering with Airbus on next-generation wing design.
Ching-Yun Huang
CodeBase
Ching-Yun Huang is a seasoned professional with over 15 years of experience in the dynamic world of startups and entrepreneurship. She currently serves as the Head of Growth and Product at the Angel Investment Network, the world's largest angel investor network, assisting startups getting what they need to build a sustainable business. Ching's career is defined by an dedication to gaining consumer insights and creating value-driven solutions. This commitment has not only fuelled the growth of the companies Ching has worked with but has also driven her personal ventures. With an unrelenting passion for behavioural science and psychology, Ching brings a unique perspective to the field of company building. Her deep-seated interest in understanding human behaviour and decision-making has proven instrumental in helping startups achieve sustainable growth.For those seeking guidance and support in the startup ecosystem, Ching's multifaceted experience and holistic approach to building startups, growth, product development, investments, and fundraising would be invaluable.
Eileen McLaren
CodeBase
CProduct Technology Leader with a proven track record in nurturing and developing both B2B and B2C high growth and high value start up and scale up organisations. Industry knowledge and practical hands on leadership has been gained through a number of different industry sectors including finance, travel, gaming and healthcare technology. A strong agile advocate with a passion for building and enabling multi-disciplined teams and delivering business value through effective knowledge transfer and simplification. I fully believe in a collaborative approach, working across the business in order to ensure success in achieving strategic objectives and implementing strong operational processes and procedures. Instrumental in the early growth of engineering and product teams in two start-up companies in Edinburgh that subsequently became unicorns. I was also involved in the development of the business strategy in those companies, and led the subsequent planning and delivery of the organisational structure changes and operational working methods. Introduced agile transformation programmes into a number of companies that achieved efficiencies in value delivery. Extensive record of value delivery in a number of businesses through leading both Product and Engineering organisations and ensuring continuous improvement processes are adopted. Coached a number of team members as part of their development plans, to help them towards promotions and new roles.
Fabricio Chavarro
Capital Enterprise
Co-founder of London-based OTRAVISTA LLP (www.otravista.co.uk), a consultancy specialised in income generation via UK and EU grants to support the development of tech startups and London’s business support ecosystem.
Since 2020 and as part of the Barclays Eagle Labs Funding Readiness programme, Fabricio has been delivering the innovation grants mentoring support via webinars and one2one advice. Fabricio has assisted more than 250 early-stage projects and tech startups during this time. With an MA in Knowledge Management (University of Granada, Spain) and 25 years’ experience of fostering the development of specialist business support programmes for tech and creative industries entrepreneurs in the UK and Spain.
Fabricio has developed, managed and evaluated a wide range of enterprise and entrepreneurship focused projects and worked in partnership with organisations and academic institutions in more than 20 EU Member States.
Dr Hannah Forbes
Capital Enterprise
Founder of the Funding Crowd, crowdfunding PhD researcher and our crowdfunding expert. Within the Funding Crowd, Hannah has run over 50 crowdfunding campaigns for early-stage businesses and has a 100% success rate. In 2020, she was named on the Innovate Finance Women in FinTech Powerlist and won a Women in Finance Award. Hannah is also a Researcher at Cambridge Judge Business School in the Cambridge Centre of Alternative Finance where she track and monitors the global crowdfunding and alternative finance space.
David Gilgur
Capital Enterprise
David Gilgur, co-founder of Blue Lake VC, possesses a remarkable talent for identifying promising B2B and software startups. Blue Lake VC specialises in supporting startups led by immigrants in the UK, investing between £100K and £300K. Prior to founding Blue Lake VC, David led an international trade consultancy and held a pivotal role at Bloomberg in the City of London. His unique combination of a comprehensive background in international trade and finance, a sharp eye for potential startups, and a profound respect for immigrant entrepreneurship has informed his approach to investment. David's focus is on devising inclusive investment strategies that not only provide financial support but also aim to make a significant impact in the startup world. His vision is to foster a more diverse and inclusive entrepreneurship ecosystem where talent and innovation are celebrated regardless of their origin.
Paul Grant
Capital Enterprise
Paul Grant is the founder of The Funding Game and Partner to the British Library Business & IP Centre. An experienced entrepreneur, funding expert, and strategic coach, Paul applies his real-world startup and fundraising expertise to help early-stage entrepreneurs fund and grow successful businesses.
With more than 20 years’ experience running angel investment networks and coaching high-growth startups, Paul is a trusted and passionate advocate for business owners and has helped raise millions of pounds in equity finance for the founders he works with.
Paul runs regular mentoring sessions at the British Library in London and other innovation hubs, accelerators, and organisational partners across the UK. He also provides training for entrepreneurs delivering successful pitches on BBC’s Dragons' Den.
Paul’s mission is to help entrepreneurs navigate a clear path to the right investment in the shortest time possible while retaining ownership of their business and a high degree of entrepreneurial freedom.
Alisdair Inglis
Capital Enterprise
Alasdair is the founder of MD Grow which has been featured in publications like City AM and the Guardian. As the British Libraries resident marketing expert, Alasdair has taught marketing to more than 1000 businesses. He taught on the world renowned Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme in partnership with UCL, mentored tech startups at UCL. He is a great mentor for anyone looking for advice on competitor analysis, marketing campaigns, digital marketing and customer relationship management.
Morgan Killick
Capital Enterprise
Morgan is a highly regarded entrepreneur and consultant with 25 years experience in business. Morgan founded his first tech company in his bedroom whilst studying for a PhD and after 12 years of high growth under his leadership, he exited in 2014.
Bringing this wealth of first-hand experience, Morgan now mentors businesses owners from start-ups through to £multi-million companies. Typically focussed on growth and investment challenges,he works for a variety of institutions and accelerators. In one of these programmes alone, the startups he supported have raised in excess of £20m. Morgan is also an alumnus of the Royal Academy of Engineering, holds two non-Executive Director roles, and his latest venture - an AI Startup – has just won Innovate UK funding. Being very familiar with the investment landscape, and what it takes to secure a deal, Morgan regularly assists with common ‘investment readiness’ activities ranging from high level strategy down to the detail of pitch deck slides.
Mentees will find Morgan approachable and enthusiastic but nevertheless his straight-talking style will help you focus on getting results.
Nana Parry
Capital Enterprise
Nana Parry is a serial entrepreneur that uses his expertise in customer insights to build new businesses through validating demand, raising investment and then scaling revenues. He is the founder of Tectonic, a research firm that helps companies understand their customers in extreme detail, working with individual startups all the way to the FTSE250, with clients in 12 different countries. He also ran a Venture Studio, helping large corporations create new businesses from scratch, and has lectured business students at the likes of Imperial College London, UCL, London Business School and Capital Enterprise.
Prior to his journey as a founder, Nana worked for tech companies like Fujitsu and Rackspace, delivering multi-million dollar projects and running large teams. Nana has also raised multiple investment rounds for his different ventures and his aim is to continue to create assets of value, and help as many people as he can along the way.
Nick Slater
Capital Enterprise
Nick has 7 years of experience in VC, working as a partner at both Post Urban Ventures, a deep tech venture builder and AI Seed, an AI focused pre-seed fund. He has also worked at Capital Enterprise on the London Co-Investment Fund as Investment Manager. Nick studied Physics and has a masters from UCL. He also built his own startup, Dibbz, that raised two investment rounds.
Stephanie Alys
Carbon 13
A Deloitte management consultant turned award-winning entrepreneur, Stephanie co-founded leading British sexual health & wellbeing brand MysteryVibe. Over 5 years, Stephanie grew MV from basic concept to pulling in £m revenues, and expanding to over 60 countries.
Stephanie’s previous work in sustainability includes business strategy for large renewable energy infrastructure projects and Demand Side Management, alongside large scale communications and public affairs campaigns. She holds an MSc in Energy & Climate policy.
Stephanie has been featured in publications such as the BBC, Times, Guardian, CNBC and TechCrunch. She was awarded the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman award in 2018 for her achievements in taking sextech to the mainstream.
Peter Bannister
CodeBase
Peter has helped build multiple high-growth biomedical businesses, commercializing innovative products for surgery, diagnostics and digital treatment pathways in multiple international markets and leading R&D, regulated product development and strategic business development.
Peter holds a DPhil in medical imaging from the University of Oxford where he also led pioneering commercial development of artificial intelligence technologies since implemented globally by Rolls Royce Plc. He is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and holds an Executive MBA (Hons).
He founded Romilly Life Sciences to help health, tech and pharma organizations implement evidence-led digital product strategy, including technologies such as artificial intelligence, supported by effective cross-sector collaboration frameworks and coaching.
He is also co-founder of Migration Biotherapeutics, Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham Centre for Regulatory Science and Innovation, Fellow and Chair of Healthcare at the IET, an Academy of Medical Sciences Future Leader in Innovation Enterprise and Research (FLIER) and works with HDRUK and NIHR to support leadership development and R&D funding programmes.
Miles Bax
CodeBase
Myles has experience growing the Commercial function at Early-Stage Startups. He was the first full-time employee at edtech startup Robotical, where he played a key role in securing seed investment alongside the Founder of the business. He took the business into international markets and established relationships with distributors and resellers around the world. Subsequently, Myles worked at blockchain technology business SICCAR as Partner Sales Manager and was Commercial Lead at Deep Tech Robotics company Touchlab Ltd. Myles understands the challenges of ensuring technical alignment and customer focus within tech businesses. Myles is delighted to be a Mentor with Tech Scaler and looks forward to discussing all commercial challenges/opportunities for early stage ventures. His current full time role is as Relationship Manager with Scottish Edge, where he looks after a number of award-winning Startups.
Michael Boniface
CodeBase
Michael held a number of senior positions in financial services before making a move into the creative industries. He has worked with global teams and partners delivering gaming products across multiple platforms including raising funds in China to build Skymoons Edinburgh, a mobile games studio focussed on building products that bridged the Asian and Western markets. After the sale of Skymoons to a US publisher Michael spent 3 years as Head of ONE CodeBase in Aberdeen supporting regional tech start-ups and is now Chief Operating Officer at Kythera AI a UK based start-up developing AI tools for the creative industries.
Lee Cairns
CodeBase
Lee has been working in the veterinary industry since 1991, in practice and then as a supplier of veterinary practice information management systems (PiMS).
In 2001 Lee, heading up Operations of Premier Vet, was part of a management buy out, the result of which formed VetSolutions. VetSolutions, under the steering of new management grew both organically and through M&A to become the biggest PiMS supplier in Europe. In 2009 VetSolutions was sold to Henry Schein Inc (HSIC) and Lee remained part of the leadership team for a further 5 years.
Following this, during a period of non-compete, Lee built up Big Data Synergy, a business which developed Apps to bridge the gaps between the Farmer and the Vet continuing to support legacy PiMS.
In 2015 Lee joined a predominantly hardware design and manufacturing business specialising in veterinary diagnostic imaging. Tasked to grow the software side of the business Lee shifted pricing model and built a cloud based licensing solution. After acquisition by a global leader in semen collection, analysis and storage Lee’s role moved more towards Innovation across the wider group.
Today Lee is focused on building his consultancy portfolio specialising in VetTech and AgriTech.
Chris Chapman
CodeBase
Chris founded and led a business that exited on AIM (invested in by Siemens, Logitech and Carphone Warehouse), and been fortunate to lead a 5star University Research team based around user research in the medical market, lecture on behalf of the Design Council on Iterative Product Development, mentored CEOs and founders on behalf of NESTA and many other bodies, and negotiated the first offsite agency delivery to the UN HQ in Geneva for live streamed hybrid events with world leaders
Sam Dickie
CodeBase
Sam Dickie is a Senior Project Manager at Skyscanner. He has 9 years of experience with a variety of founders and their startups, from bootstrapped teams to venture backed high-growth startups. He’s personally built digital products which have been used by millions of people, two of which have been acquired. Professionally, he’s worked with over 30 startups from concept to launch and beyond which has exposed him to a variety of industries, products, and business models. Sam can help with validation, launching, iteration and grow digital products for startups in search of product market fit.
Marcella Donatello
CodeBase
Marcela co-created and runs TMRW, one of London’s largest tech coworking spaces where she regularly supports startup founders with their everyday challenges. She has a decade of hands-on experience in early-stage startups - two that she started herself and two as part of the founding team. Following years of frustration from watching entrepreneurs fail their fundraising process for avoidable reasons, she co-created the ‘Fundraising Bootcamp’, a cohort-based, comprehensive "Investor Preparedness" course that gets founders funded quickly and efficiently. Marcela has built South London’s largest startup community, which has generated over £45 million in economic impact to the local area, and is a keen Community leader.
Valerie Dryden
CodeBase
Valerie is a tech leader with 16 years of experience working in start-ups, scale-ups and agencies. She is currently Director of Engineering at $8.5bn unicorn application security scale-up Snyk, where she defines technical strategy while building and nurturing her teams. Previously she was Head of Engineering for £150m Series D insuretech unicorn Zego, and Director of Engineering at £9m Series A health tech start-up CareSourcer. She has over a decade of hands-on engineering experience, including building critical payment systems at scale with Deliveroo. Valerie cares deeply about building compassionate, kind and empathetic teams that treat each other with respect while adding maximum business value.
Louise Evison
CodeBase
Louise founded Evison Consulting in 2018 and has worked in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, supporting businesses in the start-up and scale-up space for 20 years. She has a passion for entrepreneurship, communities and social impact. Louise has worked with more than 500 SMEs and supported them to raise millions in capital, grants and investment funding. Louise also works as an Adviser to the University of Stirling Enterprise programme and works closely with a number of other ecosystem experts to support her clients to thrive. Specialising in strategy, goal setting, accountability, impact and funding generation, her vision is to support emerging and existing founders to set and reach their goals and potential.
Martin Ewart
CodeBase
Martin has a diverse business experience in startups and university spinouts as well as large corporates. As a successful founder of an Earth Analytics business, Martin holds extensive expertise as a CEO, CFO, and CTO, and previously led software development teams for global finance organizations and analytics teams for Amazon Europe. He is known for building technically strong teams, bringing together good people and creating a successful work environment. Martin is a great product owner, experienced at liaising with clients, owning problems and solving their needs while having a depth of project management experience. Also, as a chartered accountant with a strong background in business and operations management, he adeptly handles financial planning, accounting, and legal matters, along with grant and tender applications.
Vicki Fraser
CodeBase
Vicki is an experienced product leader who loves to collaborate with teams to work through how user needs can be addressed with technology, in a commercially viable way. In her fifteen plus years of product management she's operated in B2B, B2C and marketplace companies of varied sizes, from start-up through large corporate (with a soft-spot for scale-ups), helping to build product teams focused on growth, platform and product evolution. She's worked across the finance, travel, recruitment and security problem spaces in companies such as Skyscanner, Symantec, MessageLabs and ClearScore, where she is currently the UK Product Director.
Julie Grieve
CodeBase
Julie Grieve is the founder of Criton, a guest engagement and integrations platform for the hospitality sector which she sold in 2022. Criton simplified digital transformation in the independent hotel sector. A non tech founder, Julie threw herself into the world of technology and learned a lot. An experienced mentor, she is passionate about helping founders as they start and scale their business. She particularly enjoys Go To Market and People strategies. Prior to setting up Criton Julie set up and was CEO of Lateral City, a luxury serviced apartment operator in Scotland and before that Julie was the MD of Abbey Business Centres, a serviced office company which she turned from loss to profit making and grew to +£22m turnover before selling it to Regus in 2011. Julie is a Director of Women in Tourism and an Ambassador for Women’s Enterprise Scotland and she co-owns a gift shop with her husband.
Anders Hasselstrom
CodeBase
Built and sold 2 tech startups. First product hire at Typeform and MoonPay. Part of the leadership team in MoonPay raised $550m and scaled from 15 to 400 people. Full stack engineer passionate about 0-1.
Scott Henderson
CodeBase
Scott has been described by clients and peers as a natural business mentor and coach. He attributes this ability for helping others to a career as a change-maker, which has given him over 30 years of rich and varied practical business experiences. These span start-up, scale-up, turnaround, acquisition, transformation and divestment environments; entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, and private, public and third sectors.
He has served as a Consultant and Advisor to Scottish and UK Governments and has supported Government digital programmes as a Business and Commercial Lead.
Most recently he has been part of a Scottish Government team that has invested £80m in Scotland's technology enabled health and care capabilities. This included developing and leading a service innovation incubator focused on supporting the adoption of technology in health and care pathways.
Ben Henderson-Palmer
CodeBase
Ben has worked across several SMEs and startups in the Edinburgh tech ecosystem over the last 7 years and is currently the Chief Commercial Officer at Robotical Ltd. In this role he has leveraged expertise in strategy, leadership and customer-centricity to propel Robotical to new heights of success year on year. He has experience in building and leading high-performing commercial teams, fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement. He can help in identifying market opportunities, growth strategy, commercial reporting/analysis, forging strategic partnerships, and implementing innovative go-to-market strategies.
Hassan Hosseini
CodeBase
Hassan is currently the co-founder and CEO of infracost.io, which is a fully remote company, funded by YCombinator and Sequoia. Prior to that, Hassan co-founded 3 companies, 2 of which were acquired and 1 failed. Outside of work, he travels as much as possible, surfs a little and has been known to jump out of airplanes.
Meghan Joyce
CodeBase
Meghan is a proven product leader and in her 10 plus years of experience has worked in B2B, B2C and marketplace companies, going from start ups through to scale ups and beyond. Her areas of expertise in product are growth, experimentation, AI, onboarding, platform and overall strategy work especially around business models and monetisation. Meghan has worked across the medical device, pharmaceuticals, events management, travel and finance industries and currently works at ClearScore as Senior Product Manager. Meghan is very involved in the Scottish tech community and has her own social networking events company, Tech Social.
Robin Knox
CodeBase
Robin is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for product design, strategy, commercialisation and problem solving. He is also active in the build-to-rent and residential new-build sector. His most notable success was the sale of intelligentpos (B2B SaaS) to iZettle which went on to become part of the PayPal group.
Simone Koo Ishikawa
CodeBase
An entrepreneur, angel investor and startup advisor. She is a founder of ishikoo.us and a lecturer/Tutor/expert at Oxford University Said Business School. Passionate about diversity and mission-driven entrepreneurs, she is a mentor at Accenture Fintech Innovation Lab and their fintech advisor.
Background
- Honorary Fellow at Imperial College London
- Angel Investor & Startup Advisor in various early-stage fintech and impact ventures
- Finance and Fintech Background working in institutions such as OakNorth, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, MorganStanley, Goldman Sachs and others
Tadas Labudis
CodeBase
Seasoned entrepreneur and Product Leader with experience across B2B SaaS, AI/ML, and Mobile. Most recently, I was a Senior Product Director at Playvox (Series B+ scaleup). Before that, I founded an AI text analytics startup, Prodsight, which I successfully exited in 2022. In my free time, I mentor startup founders through Techscaler and Barclays Eagle Labs programs and run a newsletter called the Founder's Newsletter.
Sorcha Lorimer
CodeBase
Sorcha is the Founder of Trace, a global privacy and data security startup where she has extensive client, product and business building experience. She is a qualified coach and trusted board advisor with two decades in tech and business leadership, managing teams, clients, complex governance and multidisciplinary projects. Sorcha brings a blend of entrepreneurial, consultancy, SME, corporate and startup experience, and a global perspective being based between New York and Edinburgh.
Aaron Magnus-Moore
CodeBase
Aaron leads growth product teams at ClearScore, a Series D fintech, where he drives engagement and monetisation across their 3.6m monthly active users. He's a two-time startup founder having most recently raised $1.5m in 2020 for Skills Union, a digital skills bootcamp offering university-accredited programmes. He has experience launching startups from 0-1, and driving growth at scaleups such as Kahoot! (edtech), Lumeon (medtech) and larger organisations such as CNBC, Macmillan and Legal & General.
Ian Marshall
CodeBase
Ian Marshall is an Edinburgh University business graduate and qualified Chartered Accountant (ICAS), with a wide variety of post-qualifying business experience. After qualifying with KPMG in 1999, Ian worked in M&A advisory in London before taking on a number of commercial, business development and operational roles in industry. Ian is currently looking after a portfolio of tech-focused companies predominantly in Dundee and is also a Mentor on the Scottish Government’s Techscaler initiative. Previous to this, Ian was a Director in AAB’s Business Advisory Group working closely with Tech startups and scale-ups and in a prior role was PwC’s representative at Codebase in Edinburgh.
Jack (Guthrie) Murray
CodeBase
Hi, I’m Jack. I’m currently a Principal Product Manager at ClearScore leading new ventures, growth and experimentation. 5 years ago, I left Australia and my career as a lawyer behind, where I worked in corporate commercial contracts and tech law. I moved here to the UK, became a product manager at Skyscanner and haven’t looked back.
I’ve had fun building things with amazing people at Skyscanner and ClearScore, as well as on various side projects. I'm experienced building engaging core user experiences and loops, zero-to-one product testing, experimentation, marketplaces, data and ML features that solve real customer problems, martech & advertising platforms. I’m also a qualified personal trainer, and love travelling and triathlon!
Iain Niblock
CodeBase
Iain is a commercially driven product professional, and former exited startup CEO. Initially, Iain started a tech business called Orca Money, which helped both retail and institutional investors invest in loans. Following this Iain worked at Money Dashboard and became the CEO where he led the sale of the company to ClearScore where he now works as a Head of Product. He's raised over £2m in angel, grant, crowdfunding, and VC funding. Generally, interested in all things startups, curious about new ideas, and understands the challenges of getting new ideas go from 0 to 1.
Finlay Page
CodeBase
Finlay is experienced in building and leading product development strategies within early-stage start-up. Currently the Director of Product at Robotical, an EdTech Robotics company, he has extensive experience bringing both hardware and software products to the global market. As the 2nd full time employee at Robotical, Finlay has been integral to the company’s growth from initial ideation through to a successful multinational brand delivering over 10,000 units worldwide. Through this experience, Finlay understands the intricacies and hurdles of bringing complex products to market and can work with you to support anything from initial concept pitching through to a full go to market business strategy. Finlay however understands that product is only one side of the story and through his experience as a business leader he can support start-ups not only on product strategy but also on growth and expansion. Finlay is excited to engage with early stage start-ups that are looking for guidance on how to make the biggest impact.
Steve Pickavance
CodeBase
Experienced Global Exec. Strategy, Development of Growth Architecture, Digital Transformation. Leader of significant Service organisations, building & sustaining world-class customer solutions across Partners, Service Provider, and Enterprise Segments. With 29 years of business, Cloud, SP, Managed Services, SaaS, XaaS, leadership from technical to executive management. Experienced in the creation of value investments, aligning to business direction and agile execution. Experienced in advising early-stage technology startups, VCs, and angel investors on applying technology within their chosen market segments. High-Tech, Venture Capital, Financial Services, Public Sector, Manufacturing.
Martina Pugliese
CodeBase
Martina is a Data Science Lead with experience matured in the start-up tech space in Edinburgh as well as in larger organisations. She is passionate about bringing data to life via the investigation and communication of results, promoting data literacy and creating actionable insights. Her expertise focuses on extracting quantitative information from data and her pet peeve is the widespread use of "bad data/bad statistics" in e.g. the media world. She has experience with research (academic and non) as she holds a PhD in Physics which started her on her Machine Learning journey. She also worked in software and data engineering, and she built and managed teams in various workplaces - she enjoys leading and values transparency, no red tape, kindness and diversity. In her spare time she produces hand-drawn data visualizations and data storytelling and she writes about what she learns.
Nat Ratner
CodeBase
Passionate marketing professional with demonstrable experience in marketing strategy, digital and growth marketing, brand marketing, and leading high-performance teams. Experience in private and public sector, agency side and in-house.
I started my working life in fashion. I lived and breathed it - event management, buying, communications, e-commerce, graphic and brand design - you name it. But then I realised that the things I loved about fashion, were the things I could apply in practice to lifestyle, retail, hospitality, travel & tourism, food & drink. What I really loved was taking a product, or a service, and distilling it down to its essence - and communicating that with passion and conviction.
I fell in love with the 'world of digital' and honed my craft at LBi (then bigmouthmedia; what some have termed 'Scotland's finishing school for digital marketeers'), servicing high profile clients such as British Airways, Condé Nast, BBC Worldwide and FreeAgent. From there, I moved to public sector where I spent my time building Scotland's international reputation globally, creating award-winning campaigns and digital platforms, and leading a high-performance team.
I currently put my hand to driving growth and building the brand of a first-of-its-kind educational technology resource, with a real human connection at its core. Robotical is working to tackle the attainment gap in education, and STEM skills gap across the UK and beyond.
Andy Robinson
CodeBase
While enjoying the intersection of business development, value proposition design and product management, Andy is passionate about bridging the gap between Commercial and Product, understanding customers to deliver real value. As Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of Cultivate, he developed relationships with numerous startup, enterprise and government organisations including Deliveroo, The Government Digital Service and JP Morgan. Andy led and closed the acquisition of Cultivate by Deliveroo before joining their engineering leadership team and heading up their Edinburgh tech office.
Ben Saward
CodeBase
Ben is a tenured business leader with a wealth of operations and commercial experience in start-ups, scale-ups, and blue chip organisations.
He has led large, engaged teams through transformational projects, fundraising activities, and global expansions. He has worked across numerous sectors, including clean energy, technology, oil and gas, construction, utilities, telecommunications, consumer packaged goods, and consulting.
Most recently, Ben served as Vice President of Supply Chain for Field, a multinational renewable energy infrastructure/tech business. With a focus on grid-scale battery energy storage and optimisation, Field rapidly expanded into new geographies before closing an industry-leading £600m debt and equity Series C fundraise. Ben was responsible for creating, growing, and managing Field's complex multinational supply chain.
Ben is also on the Advisory Board for The 93% Foundation - a leading social mobility charity focussed on levelling the playing field between state and privately educated students.
Ben holds an Executive MBA from the University of Cambridge. He is chartered with the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply Chain.
Outside of work, Ben is a fanatical rugby supporter (Wales and Llanelli Scarlets) and enjoys exploring new beaches, forests and fields with his partner Sapna and their dog Burfee. Ben is outgoing and personable by nature and immensely proud of his upbringing in rural Scotland (Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire).
Callum Stuart
CodeBase
Callum is a leader in high-growth technology companies with over fifteen years of experience in senior roles. He builds & leads teams in software development, pre-sales technical, customer service operations, and finance. These are teams that create the future! His passion is in solving problems, and building incredible teams that challenge the status quo. He has a proven track record in understanding complex problems, creating intelligent solutions, and most importantly, getting stuff done. Interests include software development for innovation, customer product experience, machine learning, AI and data as well as mobile device applications (Wearables, iBeacons, Automobiles etc).
Tobi Tonner
CodeBase
With over ten years of experience working in technology startups, Tobi is passionate about making product and engineering work effectively to deliver against business goals. Key elements for success are building leadership skills, roadmap prioritisation and efficient product delivery.
As a Head of Technology at marketing tech company MRM Global, Tobi was responsible for delivering product and engineering success to empower sales teams of large multinational brands such as Bacardi, Diageo, Carlsberg and Campari.
As Head of Engineering at insurance tech unicorn Zego, Tobi led the teams in finance engineering, claims processing and fraud prevention. Zego's products are used by large multinational delivery companies such as Deliveroo and UberEats.
Eleanor Tucker
CodeBase
Eleanor (Elle) is a former newspaper and magazine features writer and advertising creative. She worked in award-winning marketing agencies before becoming a writer for world-renowned media groups such as the Guardian and the BBC commentating on health, society, sustainability, tech and lifestyle. She went on to co-found the first communications agency to focus on the sharing economy, then a trailblazing marketing agency specialising in two-sided (P2P) marketplaces.
Passionate about the potential of online platforms to democratise, empower communities and help us live more sustainably, Eleanor has recently written the first ever book for consumers about the sharing economy ('Thanks for Sharing', published by Quarto) and now speaks, writes and advises on sharing economy models – working internationally in this space helping start-ups and scale-ups to launch, grow and thrive.
Alan Platt
CJBS
Alan graduated from Cambridge with a degree in Engineering in 1997. He started his career as an electrical engineer, managing infrastructure consuming more than 1% of the total UK electricity supply before moving on to a career leading robotics and technology companies. His experience now covers a wide variety of industries from Construction and Pharmaceuticals to TV Broadcasting and SaaS Software. Passionate about technology, Alan combines a strong technical background in engineering with experience of solving real world problems for non-technical customers. He co-founded CyberHive, a cybersecurity company focused on cutting edge post-quantum cryptography and connectivity. Alan is a non-executive director for The Bradfords Group, a £0.25Bn turnover building supplies group. He also mentors on the prestigious 'Ignite' programme for the Cambridge University Judge Business School and as a consultant and sometime angel investor and also advises and mentors several early stage tech companies.
Marcelo Vilela
CodeBase
Marcelo is a former founder and CEO of a tech/AI startup. Currently, he is a product leader with expertise in product management, data and machine learning/AI. He has led teams to develop product, engineering and go-to-market strategies for tech companies. Marcelo has a proven track record of delivering successful products within small and large-scale organisations, including “0 to 1”, “1 to 100", and larger companies such as Skyscanner and Oracle.
Jason Wagner
CodeBase
Jason is a digital creative and entrepreneur. After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art with a degree in Visual Communication he freelanced for high profile clients such as Royal Bank of Scotland, Subway, Baillie Gifford, and the BBC. On a mission to help people realise their dreams by transcending the boundaries of creativity and technology, and leading through learning to inspire people to build confident futures and create a kinder, simpler world, he founded Ping Creates in 2010.
As a creative studio Ping Creates provides full service marketing and uses world-class animation and design to bring clients' ideas to life on digital platforms like websites, apps, and games. With the Ping Creates team firmly established, Jason founded tech company Kettle of Fish to develop an innovative learning platform to pitch to investors in Silicon Valley.
As a mentor, Jason advises companies on how to become pitch ready, helping them to identify challenges, growth opportunities and market fit. As a STEM ambassador, he works directly with young people, schools, and universities to engage and inspire the next generation of creatives and entrepreneurs.
Phil Wilks
CodeBase
I am passionate about using web, mobile and cloud technology to efficiently solve problems and enhance people’s lives. I have over twenty years commercial tech experience as a board member, CTO, developer, and UX designer. I am an experienced company founder, creating innovative products with a focus on usability.
In 2012 I co-founded FourteenFish, a company providing modern and easy-to-use tools to the primary care medical sector. I was responsible for developing technical aspects of the company’s strategy, as well as executing our tech and product roadmap. This involved the development of web and mobile apps, as well as integration with external systems. As the company grew, my focus moved onto product vision and commercial strategy.
By the end of 2021 we had grown the company to over 100,000 users, and in March 2022 we sold FourteenFish for £16m to EMIS Group. During the sale I was responsible for providing all supporting information and financials, managing the due diligence process on our side, and working with lawyers on contract negotiations.
Alistair Williams
CodeBase
My name is Alistair Williams, and I am the Food & Drink Theme Lead, working as part of the CTO Office at NMIS (National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland) to facilitate, and de-risk innovation for F&D companies as they evolve towards Industry 4.0.
I graduated as an industrial chemist and retrained as a manufacturing engineer. I started working at ABB instrumentation, where I was fortunate to be part of the future leaders, development programme. I achieved my undergraduate and post graduate qualifications whilst working, and have held various executive, non-executive & trustee positions.
Before joining NMIS, I worked for Macsween, the haggis maker, as their operations director and I have worked as an executive board director for 20 years.
My executive & entrepreneurial experience has been gained through running, growing, and selling my own start up. Experiencing a startup where I was the chairman fail and contributing to several successful SME business turn arounds.
I have a passion for personal, team and organisational development. The ups and downs of financial environments and challenges associated with commercial management haves given me a breadth and depth of commercial, financial, and business management.
Typically I have worked in environments with not enough time or money; I understand the challenges that present in the real world and how to evaluate situations to identify & focus on that which matters most. I am smart, enthusiastic and love seeing entrepreneurs, learn, fulfil their goals and ambitions and flourish, which is the reason I enjoy mentoring and find it so fulfilling.
Deborah Wood
CodeBase
Originally a blue-chip marketer covering both b2c and b2b, Deborah has specialised in bringing her customer-focused approach to early-stage b2b tech businesses. In the last 6 years she has worked with founding teams in over 400 startups and scaleups making sure the customer voice is embedded in offer design to create more desirable offers.
As a specialist in Value Proposition Design she is the coach for this subject at some ofthe UK’s leading accelerators such as Wayra, Digital Catapult, Plexal, and the University of Edinburgh’s AI and Venture Builders programmes. Her coaching formats include masterclasses, 1 to 1 mentoring sessions, deep-dive value canvas workshops, bootcamp coaching sessions and the ‘Think Like A Startup’ training for corporate clients. She is a certified practitioner in the Strategyzer Business Model Canvas and the Value Proposition Canvas.
Anthony David King
Codebase
Anthony is the founder of ADK, helping entrepreneurs, funds, corporations and governments in more than 20 countries around the world build tech hubs, accelerators and ventures. This includes designing and running the Airbnb Startup Programme, joined by 750+ entrepreneurs from 170 cities so far. Advising the University of Edinburgh’s AI Accelerator with 10+ AI startups each year. And advising the National Cyber Security Centre startup programme with 8+ cyber startups each year, and multiple venture programmes across the UK, Europe, Africa and Asia. All of this has included mentoring 1100+ startups with a combined valuation of £1.4 billion. With 12+ years of experience in the international startup ecosystem, Anthony began his journey as an innovation programme manager with the UK government in 2006 before joining Startup Weekend as a mentor in 2011 before their acquisition by Techstars. Then joined Google as a startup programme advisor from 2012 to 2013, and founded ADK in 2017. Anthony is also a member of the board and non-executive director of Spring, the innovation accelerator for the UK water sector exploring new technologies for the future of water. And an advisor for Impact X Capital, a London-based venture fund investing in technology startups.
David Stewart
Codebase
40 years+ experience in security products, embedded software/hardware products, professional services, design automation tools and semiconductor design. Expertise in sales, marketing, customer support, design/development, strategic partnerships, executive management & board advisory roles. Experience: • 20 years as founder and CEO (raised >$20M, handled governance, built and evolved the team, managed the board) • Hands-on selling of technology based solutions and services (>$25M start-up revenue) • Identification and execution of strategic relationships for early adopter customers • Successful pivoting from initial market focus and/or business model • Product and channel marketing for hardware and software products • 60% of career in start-ups, 40% in large corporates Support to tech start-ups • Developing and validating value propositions for technology products • Business model analysis, evolution and verification • Selling new technology based solutions and services
JP Charles
Codebase
JP is a PR & Communications leader, with more than 15 years’ experience across corporate, B2B, technology and start-up/scale-up sectors. He currently works in the European Communications function at Oracle, leading on applications, content development, thought leadership and customer success. Prior to this, JP spent a decade in some of the world’s largest PR agencies, managing press office and media for global organisations such as Cisco, BT, HP and SAP. Throughout his career, JP has had a strong industry focus on verticals including finance, HR, customer experience, retail, telecoms, security and supply chain and sustainability/ESG. With an Honours degree in Journalism, Masters in Strategic Communications and having recently completed a course in Data Science, JP can offer advice and counsel on a host of topics covering PR, Communication, Digital, Planning, Audience Mapping and Pitching.
Moe Hanafy
Codebase
2x Founder, Host @ Good For Profit and AI enthusiast with a decade's experience in early-stage tech startups.
Rod Richmond
Codebase
Exited marketing agency founder > CMO of a scale up in the EV space (£0 to £1M MRR in under 2 years, acquired) > founder at sidestep.
I have hands on experience in scaling both B2B and B2C companies and I’m an advocate for the lean startup and bootstrapping growth methodologies.
My 15+ years digital marketing, sales and product experience will hopefully provide some shortcuts and practical advice for ambitious businesses looking to unlock their next stage in growth.
Yara Paoli
Codebase
Yara Paoli is a seasoned fractional CGO and mentor in growth marketing, product-led growth, growth psychology, and growth-oriented leadership, specializing in transforming startups into scale-ups and accelerating their growth. With over 16 years of international experience, including pivotal roles in successful companies like Skyscanner, Preply, and Oda, SEMRush, Orbit, DNB Bank, Yara excels in crafting and implementing effective growth strategies, product-led growth, and brand positioning. Her expertise extends to applying psychological theories in business, fostering a DEI-focused and life-centric approach, and mentoring emerging leaders in motivational and leadership psychology. Yara's commitment to developing high-performing teams and her track record of achieving significant revenue growth showcases her prowess in growth-oriented team culture and impactful leadership.
Matt Little
Codebase
Matt is an experienced Chair, Non-Executive Director and board member having sat on the Board of Directors or the Advisory Board of eight fast-growing technology firms and two charities.
He has been a board member on four successful exits and the technology lead on a fifth.
In 2022, Matt assumed the role of Chair at Melius Cyber. In the preceding year, he had been appointed to the boards of two other VC-backed companies, Collabco and Genba Digital. His primary objective was to assess their readiness for potential acquisitions and offer guidance for strategic positioning. Matt skilfully managed due diligence processes and facilitated smooth integrations with their respective acquIrers.
Matt was Executive Director of the cyber security company ZoneFox between 2013 and 2018 and co-led the large-multiple acquisition of the company by the US Cyber Security Firm Fortinet and went on to hold a senior role within Fortinet.
In 2019, Matt founded Blue Ocean Insight with the mission of enabling businesses to scale their value and achieve greater product success through the alignment of technology, people, product, and strategy. Since then, Blue Ocean Insight has collaborated with more than 25 companies, guiding them on their journeys of scaling and growth.
Matt holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of St Andrews and graduated from MIT's prestigious Entrepreneurial Development Programme in 2017.
Patrick Lor
Penache ventures
Patrick Lor is a Managing Partner at Panache Ventures, a venture capital firm with over $150m of assets under management that invests in early-stage technology companies. He is also a Partner at 500 Startups Canada, and has been recognized by University of British Columbia’s Creative Destruction Lab as Associate of the Year in 2019, and by the University of Calgary with its inaugural Big Ideas Bold Leaders Alumni Award. Previously, Patrick was co-founder of iStockphoto, which was sold to Getty Images in 2006. He was also head of North American operations for Fotolia, which was acquired by Adobe in 2014. Patrick holds a BA in Sociology and an MBA, both from the University of Calgary. He is an active volunteer in communities across Canada, advocating for youth, education, and entrepreneurs. In addition, he is an advisor and mentor at several technology incubator programs, and is a charter member of thea100.org and thec100.org.
Scott Loong
Penache ventures
Scott Loong is a Partner at Panache Ventures based in Montreal. He was a co-founder of Covera.ai (acquired in 2019), an InsurTech startup that used technology to automate insurance renewal shopping. Prior to that, he was a Principle and EIR at Ferst Capital Partners, one of Canada’s pioneering FinTech venture funds. Scott is a member of the Technological Innovation Advisory Committee which advises Quebec’s financial regulators on issues of innovation and Fintech and a startup coach at Concordia’s District 3. Scott is a business lawyer and holds a masters degree in business administration (MBA) from McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management as well as civil and common law degrees from McGill’s Faculty of Law.
Prashant Matta
Penache ventures
Prashant Matta is a General Partner at Panache Ventures, the most active pre-seed/seed stage venture fund in Canada. He leads the firm's investment and portfolio management activities and he is a strong advocate for entrepreneurs across the country. Before launching Panache Ventures, Prashant was an investor at OMERS Ventures and prior to that he was a product strategist for Samsung. Prashant started his career in management consulting and holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Chris Neumann
Penache ventures
Chris Neumann is a General Partner at Panache Ventures, Canada’s leading early-stage fund. He invests in Pre-Seed and Seed stage startups, with a particular focus on enterprise software, developer tools and AI. Prior to joining Panache, Chris founded Commonwealth Ventures, a San Francisco-based accelerator for Canadian and UK startups. Before that, he was a Venture Partner at 500 Startups, the CEO and Cofounder of DataHero (acquired by Cloudability) and the first employee of Aster Data (acquired by Teradata). In addition to his work as an investor, Chris teaches Entrepreneurship at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University, is an Associate of the Creative Destruction Lab and an Advisor to The Data Lab. Today, Chris focuses on helping the most ambitious founders in Canada and around the world as an investor and through his blog, chrisneumann.com.
Amy Tez
Capital Enterprise
Amy is an internationally sought-after communications specialist with an impressive list of private clients, startups, politicians and global companies to her name. She has trained over 1000 founders along with VCs, Csuite executives, MPs, diplomats, senior military officers and high-profile actors. As an accomplished actress of 25 years, Amy will help you create message success in any situation no matter the stakes. She will ensure you not only craft a powerful story, but that you speak it with conviction thereby influencing even the most resistant listeners. Whether you’re pitching, creating vision, challenging a status quo or navigating difficult conversations, you will have the techniques to make you shine. She works from her Central London practice, as well as virtually, and will travel to visit clients across the globe.
Phil Foxton
CodeBase
With over three decades of experience in IT roles, Phil is a seasoned professional who has excelled as a team lead, manager, and operational head. A significant portion of their career, spanning fifteen years, has been dedicated to leadership roles, where they have prioritized driving growth while preserving a cohesive team culture.
Phil's diverse career has taken them through various industries, encompassing both commercial and government projects. Notably, they have spent the past two years deeply engaged in the dynamic world of video games, with a strong desire to continue their journey in this thrilling field.
Bringing a wealth of knowledge, they possess a strong understanding of finance, budgeting, and forecasting, enabling them to make informed decisions that drive operational success. Throughout their career, they have adeptly managed relationships with customers and suppliers, demonstrating their ability to navigate even the most challenging situations, always striving to maintain positive and productive partnerships.
Known for their exceptional track record in honesty and openness, they have skillfully navigated difficult conversations with individuals at all levels of the organization, fostering a transparent and trusting work environment.
In addition to their professional accomplishments, Phil has taken on the role of mentoring a startup studio and three individual game developers. Their commitment to mentorship reflects their dedication to supporting the growth and development of emerging talent in the gaming industry.
Furthermore, they have led Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) projects, underscoring their deep commitment to promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace. Additionally, they are a certified mental health first aider, demonstrating their dedication to the well-being of team members they lead and mentor.
Amy Kelly
CodeBase
Amy Kelly is a B2B Growth Marketing Consultant based in Edinburgh. She is also on the Board of Directors of Creative Edinburgh and volunteers with StartUp Grind Scotland community as the Head of Marketing. Amy previously led the European marketing efforts of UserTesting, the Silicon Valley tech scale up, successfully scaling the EMEA business 800% from Q3 2019 to Q2 2022. She also held B2B marketing roles at Meta, YouTube, ITV and different agencies in both London and New York City. Amy now runs her own marketing consultancy, supporting organisations in implementing a customer first and revenue focused approach to their marketing programs.`
A Graduate of the University of Glasgow business school, Amy's further qualifications include a Post Graduate certificate in International Business from St Marys University London and the Digital Marketing Professional Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Amy Wallace
CodeBase
Amy Wallace is a leadership coach, facilitator, and consultant, specialising in startup and scale-up stage companies based in the US and UK. Previously, she worked at Slack where she built, grew, and led global teams including Slack’s App Directory team, which she managed from its inception in 2015. During her 8 years at Slack, she had first-hand experience managing change through hyper growth as Slack grew from a company of fewer than 50 people through IPO and acquisition by Salesforce. Amy is an Associate Certified Coach with the ICF, and has certifications in Somatic and Self-Belief coaching.
Surayyah Ahmad
Capital Enterprise
Surayyah Ahmad is a dynamic venture capitalist and an exit founder. Surayyah has founded two start-ups and exited one company via M&A. She currently runs a Venture Capital Firm (Aduna Capital) investing in early stage underserved founders in emerging markets. She specialises in elevating startups and has helped many founders navigate challenges including investment readiness (Pitch, Data room preparation, USP etc), refining go to market strategy and developing a consumer driven product roadmap . As a mentor, Surayyah has guided numerous startups, leading to significant milestones such as a 20% increase in monthly recurring revenues and successful fundraising rounds collectively exceeding £7m. She also mentors on other programmes including Turing Innovation Catalyst, Barclays Funding Readiness Programme and Investors. With a strong focus on practical strategies, Surayyah empowers founders to refine their propositions, understand investor dynamics, and achieve scalable growth.
Rosario Di Dio
Capital Enterprise
Rosario is a twice-exited entrepreneur and a former corporate leader in technology sales and marketing. A Lean-Start Up specialist, he helps founders validate the product-market fit, deliver the R&D roadmap and sell pilots to corporate clients.
Thanks to his finance expertise, he has fundraised successfully, supporting funders with their Data Room and with investor engagement. Rosario works as mentor with Capital Enterprise since 2020 and specialises in Deep Tech (Climate, Health and AI).
Felicia Cheung
CodeBase
After a successful career in high growth business to business tech while based in Asia Pacific, I am a now a portfolio board advisor, sales development consultant and angel investor, supporting venture to growth businesses in central London.
I have extensive senior experience in business development and account management, building high performance teams and leading sales and marketing performance for corporate and emerging technology service providers such as Microsoft Azure, Equinix, Oracle. Prior to leading cloud computing solutions, I also led sales at BTG Consulting (talent disruptor), Danaher (security) and Netscout (network performance).
I draw on over two decades of experience of complex deal orchestration in high tech categories for international corporations across investment banking, healthcare and manufacturing. I have built teams motivated by the challenge of transformative business achievements with empowerment through engagement, inclusion and diversity.
Specialties include:
- Creating a B2B and alliance partnership plan with international perspective
- Assisting founders in seed and series A startup stage to execute on agreed milestones, sales strategies and preparing for funding
- Active personal networks in several technology investor communities in Asia Pacific and the UK
Scott Liddell
CodeBase
Scott is a technology leader, board advisor and mentor with over 30 years experience in a variety of industries working across strategy, technical delivery and leadership.
With vast experience of software architectures and software delivery, there is very little that Scott hasn’t built, broken and fixed again. He was worked as a consultant, in a startup and then spent almost 12 years working for Sky TV He then moved into financial services and has most recently been holding a number of senior technical positions in Financial Services, mainly leading large scale digital technology teams
Scott is Trustee to a charity and a Board advisor at a startup and a Fellow of the RSA.
Neil Mackintosh
CodeBase
Neil spent over 25 years as a seminal part of the San Francisco/Silicon Valley tech ecosystem, helping to define the role designers play in the evolution of software products.
He is a design practice leader who has worked with legendary startups (CNET, Quokka, Napster, Topcoder) and agencies (iXL, Framfab, Razorfish) to create some of the industry’s earliest representations of fundamental product experiences such as streaming platforms, social media engagement, and file synching/sharing.Neil has led design for companies backed by top US venture firms (Sequoia, Kleiner, Harlem Capital) at every funding stage to multimillion dollar exits.He continues to work with founders and growth teams to deliver on critical objectives such as product/market fit and overall product vision, empowering startup leaders to focus on what they are building not just how they are building it
Sid Kathirvel
CodeBase
Sid Kathirvel, with 24 years of experience, is a Strategic Growth Partner and Founder at Unlock Growth, known for transforming startups and scale-ups into successful businesses. Sid's approach blends strategic planning, compelling value proposition, and standout positioning to deliver sustained growth and market leadership. As the former Head of Marketing at Krotos, Sid led the company's expansion and launch of its AI-powered sound software, which is now used by Hollywood studios and content creators worldwide. Sid was instrumental in developing and executing the go-to-market strategy, leveraging growth experimentation to secure swift user base expansion. In previous roles, Sid doubled year-on-year revenues for Flavours Holidays and Lenses in Glasses, demonstrating his ability to drive exponential business growth across industries. His expertise in growth hacking and optimising customer journeys significantly boosted these companies' inbound leads and overall revenue growth. Sid's career highlights include working with major brands like Coca-Cola, Cadbury, NHS, and Unilever, as well as collaborating with leaders from FanDuel, Meta, PayPal, Ogilvy, Hollywood, and Bollywood. As a board member at Rowan Alba, Sid supports strategic initiatives for long-term homeless individuals in Edinburgh, contributing his strategic planning skills to the nonprofit sector. Sid is also a lifelong learner who has completed renowned leadership and growth marketing programmes. He holds an MBA from Robert Gordon University and has pursued continuous professional development in strategy, leadership, and board governance. This dedication to learning ensures he remains at the cutting edge of marketing trends and practices.
Nadia Crandall
Captial Enterprise
Nadia Crandall is an entrepreneur and investor. She founded Capshore Partners in 2017. Their principal activity is short-term collateralised lending to growth businesses. Prior to this,
Nadia co-founded Harvard Business Angels of London. By the time she became Chair Emeritus, HBSAL had built a portfolio with a value exceeding £200 MM, with around 20% of companies showing superior to exceptional growth. During this period, Nadia chaired a committee of expert advisors to the World Bank, advising on renewable energy projects in developing countries.
Nadia also co-founded Postscriptum, a diversified venture business with a broad portfolio of investments in start-up and special situations. She chaired Aldwych Holdings, which develops, owns and operates power generation, transmission and distribution projects in Africa. She was also executive director for Alban Energy and for Continental Wind Partners. CWP continues to develop and build utility-scale wind and solar farms and green hydrogen plants globally. Nadia manages her own holdings of early and growth stage impact businesses and is actively engaged with several in an advisory and non-executive capacity. She has also given her time as a mentor for the Said Global Entrepreneur Challenge and the Althea- Imperial Program.
Nadia has an MA from Oxford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ceri Shaw
CodeBase
Ceri (They/Them) has 20+ years experience in the tech industry as a hands-on developer, technical leader, and product manager. They currently work with start-ups to figure out technical and product strategy from the earliest MVP through to exiting the market. They have worked for a variety of industries including EduTech, FinTech and HealthTech. They are tech-stack agnostic and excited about how No Code can be used in the entrepreneur space - it’s all about finding the right tool for the job, not one-size fits all. They are passionate about testing, experimentation and learning in the start-up world and love collaborating with founders to explore possibilities. Ceri’s superpower is translating between the tech and non-tech worlds and back again: To help non-tech founders navigate the tech world with ease and deep-tech founders translate their ideas into language investors can get behind. Ceri has also held C-suite and board advisory positions in local organisations and understands the complexities of running a business on a bootstrap.
Puja Balanchander
Carbon13
Puja is Director of Venture with Carbon13. Outside Carbon13, Puja mentors and angel invests in climate tech startups, and consults with local government on using innovations in policy implementation to accelerate decarbonisation. Most recently Puja was Director of Product at Think of Us, a civic tech company dedicated to systems change in the child welfare system. Before this, she was founder/CEO of Devie (acquired by Think of Us), a venture-backed D2C health tech startup. Prior to this, she was in civic tech, working at local (City of Austin), national (White House Presidential Innovation Fellows), and international (World Bank in Madagascar) governmental organizations to make public services better. Puja has an MBA from Oxford and a BA from American University.
Andy Lobban
CodeBase
Andy Lobban is a design and sometimes product leader. He's been a VP at Cleo, Trustpilot, and FanDuel, leading teams and strategies in startup, scaleup, and public companies. He started as a designer working on all types of design from agency to publishing to product, in print, web, and native apps.
Jim Rae
CodeBase
I have worked in document and information management for 30 years in a variety of small local companies to global businesses. I have a entrepreneurial and solutions focused mindset to helping companies become more efficient in communicating with their internal and external clients.
I have worked in document and information management for 30 years in a variety of small local companies to global businesses. I have a entrepreneurial and solutions focused mindset to helping companies become more efficient in communicating with their internal and external clients.
I am always honest with my clients and they trust me with my assessment of what is good, bad, indifferent or what could be improved.
The solutions i have put in place have saved my clients millions of pounds over the years along with tens of thousands of lost hours and i have a real drive to maximise the return on their investment in my business.
My trained background is in sales and marketing, however from managing my own businesses since 2004, this has enabled me to provide wider knowledge to the internal and external processes, which i think has been extremely important and valuable to our clients.
I am never satisfied with what we have done before and will continue to look at new solutions that i can bring to the market, which will ultimately deliver further value to the people i work with. This is what gets me up in the morning and keeps me striving to be better.
Mandy Kerley
CodeBase
Mandy Kerley is a seasoned executive with a passion for empowering new founders and driving operational excellence in the tech sector. As the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Trickle, an innovative employee engagement SAAS company, Mandy leverages her extensive experience to help start-up leaders navigate operational challenges, scale their businesses, and build cohesive, high-performing teams.
In her previous role as Head of Customer Success at Trickle, Mandy gained deep insights into the hurdles organisations face in maintaining team engagement and fostering positive workplace cultures. Her expertise has been instrumental in refining Trickle’s product development, streamlining operations, and enhancing customer service, ensuring that both employees and customers are at the heart of every decision.
Mandy’s diverse career spans executive roles in the property and legal sectors, where she transformed high-stress customer experiences into positive, rewarding interactions. This rich background equips her with a broad perspective and practical solutions for the varied challenges new founders encounter, particularly in optimising operations and enhancing customer experiences.
Balancing her professional achievements, Mandy is committed to empowering women in business. She is a mother of three, a yoga enthusiast, a nature lover, and an avid reader. Her dedication to work-life balance and continuous improvement informs her approach, helping founders manage stress, set priorities, and maintain a healthy equilibrium.
Mandy is known for her ability to inspire and drive growth. She collaborates with business owners, directors, and senior managers to tackle critical operational pains such as inefficient processes, team dynamics, and customer satisfaction issues. Her hands-on experience in tech, marketing, business development, and project management provides a well-rounded foundation for addressing these challenges.
Mandy combines strategic insight with supportive encouragement, serving as a sounding board for ideas and a source of motivation. She believes that the entrepreneurial journey while demanding and often longer than expected, requires persistence, determination, and a collaborative team to achieve success. Mandy is committed to helping founders set impactful goals, stay accountable, and achieve remarkable results by overcoming operational hurdles and fostering a positive work environment.
George Osborn
CodeBase
George Osborn is the Managing Director of Half-Space Consulting and creator of games newsletter Video Games Industry Memo. George has worked in the video games sector across a range of communication and media roles, including as Head of Campaigns and Communications at industry trade association Ukie. George has run globally impactful communications campaigns on behalf of the video games sector and has appeared in outlets such as BBC World Service, The Guardian, Sky News, Times Radio, The New York Times and Politico discussing the industry. He is well placed to advise on developing relationships with media, crafting your company's story and managing reputational challenges.
Stuart Scott
CodeBase
I run a boutique growth, data & marketing technology consultancy. At Mammoth Growth, we provide high growth businesses - typically Series B onwards - with growth & data strategy consulting and fractional growth / data / marketing operations teams. I have led projects for 30+ clients, including Deliveroo, Calendly and Unilever. These days I spend the majority of my time on sales & business development, although I still get hands-on with the consulting whenever I can. I was on the leadership team at Thread from Series A onwards. We raised over £30m to develop an AI powered styling and e-commerce experience. Starting as Head of Operations, I ended up focussing on product management and strategic projects. My projects included leading Thread's international launch, developing our private label brands, launching an iOS app and raising a £2m crowdfunding round. Inbetween, I was CEO of a multi-site Jacuzzi retailer where we launched new e-commerce & telephone sales channels - more than doubling revenue in the process. I've always been hands-on in the practicalities of growing a company. Everything from sales & marketing to building teams and managing cash flow.
Rachel Jones
CodeBase
Founder of SnapDragon Monitoring, Rachel was thrown into the world of brand protection when her own invention was counterfeited, just as it reached its 50th export territory. Horrified, she learned how to remove counterfeit products from online platforms using intellectual property and resolved to build software to empower even the smallest brand to fight back, raising USD$4m to do so to build bespoke tech and an international team in Edinburgh.
Nearly ten years on and SnapDragon’s software and expert Dragons protect some of the world’s most loved brands online.
In 2024 SnapDragon was honoured with a King’s Award for International Trade reflecting 200% export growth over three years, including those of the pandemic, reflecting Rachel’s leadership and tenacity.
Passionate about being kind, ethical manufacturing, open and honest communication, exporting and encouraging female entrepreneurs to raise investment, Rachel is very much recognised for using her network and experience to connect businesses and people.
Rachel was CEO of the SnapDragon business until undergoing treatment for breast cancer last year. She is now an NED of SnapDragon, Co-Chair of the UK’s IPO Crime Group, an NED for angel investment group Equity Gap, a volunteer coach at Smart Works and on the Board of Morebattle Village Community Shop.
Liza Sutherland
CodeBase
Liza is a 3x founder, startup advisor and investor with 20 years’ experience in early-stage fundraising from both sides of the table. She’s advised over 200 tech start-ups who have gone on to raise more than £150M in investments. Liza’s current focus is on helping companies raise their Seed and Series A. Liza was most recently Head of Ecosystem at Techstart Ventures, a seed stage venture capital investor. She previously founded a £1M-angel invested venture focused on revolutionizing audience engagement at live events, was EIR at Wayra’s AI & Blockchain Accelerator, and spent over 10 years advising high growth tech start-ups focused on software, AI/ML, synth bio, robotics and regenerative medicine while personally investing in a few.
Originally from NYC, Liza has an MBA and BA in Psychology. Her entrepreneurial journey began immediately after university, where she spent her formative years co-founding and leading a multi £million revenue music company while simultaneously DJing internationally.
Rosie Hoggmascall
CodeBase
Rosie is a Fractional Head of Growth for early stage startups specialising in product-led growth. She’s a mentor and advisor for TechScaler and Barclays Eagle Labs, having spent 7 years across consulting and early stage startups funded by Index Ventures, EQT Capital, Alumni Ventures and Intel Capital. She also enjoys writing product deep dives to free up brain space, learn from leading tech companies and get an extra layer deeper into user psychology.
Nhamo Mtetwa
CodeBase
Nhamo has been in artificial intelligence (AI) and technology in general since 1999, initially in academia and then in Financial services. AI is a general purpose technology and for that reason Nhamo has been able to apply it to different problem domains ranging from models for predicting which security vulnerabilities will get viable exploits to models for helping a Pest Control company formulate profitable contracts with food establishments. He has worked both in academia and in industry for international corporates which gives him both the theoretical foundation and the practical application of AI technology. Nhamo has both experience and passion for working with startups and SMEs in different sectors.
Gary Crawford
CodeBase
If you need help to turn your ideas into innovative experiences that users love, Gary can help. His expertise around emerging tech (think GenAI, mobile platforms, AR/VR/XR, IoT, etc.) includes business model innovation, value proposition design, product-market fit, experimentation, product vision, strategy and experience design. A mentor to leaders and innovators in startups, scale-ups and corporate startups in some of the world's most recognised brands and fastest-growing companies, Gary brings many years of global experience, operating from board and senior exec level to getting hands-on with teams. Gary believes incredible products come from uniquely blending design, technology and strategy to realise the art of the possible—a belief developed working with world-leading creative innovation company AKQA, tech innovation firm ThoughtWorks and intelligent experiences specialist Waracle. "Thanks to GenAI and other breakthrough technologies, we can now create intelligent digital products that behave more like humans than software. Products that problem-solve, learn and adapt with users in ways that suggest empathy and emotional intelligence. This ability changes what we build and how." A regular on the international conference scene, he loves collaborating with passionate people to push, hone and bring to life their ideas.
Kristine Steele
CodeBase
Kristine is a senior leader with over 15 years’ experience working within a B2B, technology, startup/scaleup environment. Specialising in HR, Finance and Operations Kristine contributed to the company's successful growth trajectory and played a pivotal role in preparing the organisation for a successful acquisition.
Now as a Business advisor and Mentor Kristine draws on her experience of growing a business to support startups and scale ups navigate the critical stages of growth.
An advocate for embedding business skills and entrepreneurship at a young age Kristine is a Business Mentor for Young Enterprise Scotland and a board member and trustee for various charities.
Ella Barkay
Capital Enterprise
Ella is a grant writer specialising in both industrial and academic proposals. She focuses on Biotech, MedTech and HealthTech and holds a BSC in Life Sciences and an MSc in Medical Sciences. Over the past decade, Ella has helped numerous innovative spinouts and startups, securing millions of pounds in government grants for diverse R&D projects spanning life science, engineering, drug discovery, medical devices, and digital health.
With her medical sciences background and role as a grant writer at the Bioengineering Department of Imperial College, Ella excels in translating complex scientific ideas into clear and concise grant applications. She is proficient in writing single and consortium applications for Innovate UK, SBRI, EUREKA and the European Commission. Additionally, Ella is an experienced mentor, guiding and supporting companies in identifying suitable grant opportunities, interpreting the guidelines and agendas of funding bodies and preparing/reviewing applications.