Thank you to our amazing sponsors and congratulations to all the winners, as well as those shortlisted! Read all about the judging process and what makes a great entry in our guide, and most importantly find out who won!
Without further ado, here are your winners for 2023!
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Founder of The Grafter
Rachel Murphy blazed a trail through the tech industry from her time at the NHS. Kicking off the now 30 million downloads of the NHS App to selling a building and selling a multi-million pound company in a thousand days, Rachel knows how to make an impact.
She’s delivered projects around the world and transformed some of the largest national services in healthcare. All at breakneck speed while overcoming addiction and finding her happy – a strong unbeatable female lead with an authentic Let’s do it attitude.
Frequently listed as one of the CIO100, a member of the Inspired Fifty and awarded CEO of the year in 2020 from CEO Monthly. Off the back of her work within health, Rachel was asked to join UCL as guest lecturer for the Global Business School for Health. Last but not least, Non Exec director for Cancer platform company Careology.
Pre-Seed Investor at Playfair Capital VC
Clare is a pre-seed investor at Playfair Capital. Before VC, Clare was an operator, spending time as a Founders Associate at an early stage B2B SaaS startup and as part of the driver operations team at Uber. She holds a degree in Economics and Finance from Washington University in St. Louis as well as a Masters in Management from London Business School. At Playfair, Clare is a generalist looking at all industries, but has a particular passion for HealthTech.
Yvonne is a founding member of Black Seed, Europe’s first VC fund for black founders by black founders, empowering the next generation of black-founded global businesses. A seasoned professional in Legal and Compliance, she honed her expertise at leading firms like Standard Chartered bank and Bloomberg. Beyond her career, Yvonne’s passion for property investing and leading saving circles showcase her commitment to financial empowerment. Her dedication drives her mission to create a space for black women to succeed and thrive financially.
Head of Startups Relations, South East Angels
As Head of Startup Relations for South East Angels, Jake engages with the startup community and arranges deal flow for the group’s investor members, leading on startup vetting, selection, pitch prep and deal close. Previously Jake’s experience covered strategy consulting, growth roles in tech startups and Founder of Paperound, a student-centred marketplace for on-demand tech talent. South East Angels is an active angel group based out of Sussex, that invests in pre-seed and seed-stage startups across a range of sectors.
Clockwise
Category Sponsor: Rising Startup Award
We provide well-designed, contemporary private offices, shared workspaces and meeting rooms with brilliantly flexible membership plans. We zero in on the details, so you can zoom out to the big picture.
We’ve made it our business to anticipate the needs of our members and their companies from day one. Providing permanent flexibility, ongoing support and proactive service, we make the time and effort to get to know who you are, where you’re going and how you’re growing.
We make sure everything works, so you can do your best work.
With the understanding that innovation and enterprise is not limited only to Central London, Clockwise is well placed to support SMEs achieve their potential with spaces in key business locations across the UK and in mainland Europe.
DELL
Category Sponsor: Early-Stage Innovation
Dell for Startups provides startup expertise from dedicated technology advisors and scalable solutions to ensure your business is always ready to grow.
Queen Mary University Enterprise Zone
Category Sponsor: Outstanding Startups Support
Queen Mary University Enterprise Zone (QME) is an innovation hub, offering flexible, modern workspace for Digital Health, MedTech and AI start-ups in East London. The centre is Queen Mary University of London’s (QMUL) latest innovation space offering, having successfully brought to the market 40,000 square feet of incubation space to support life science companies via the Queen Mary BioEnterprises (QMB) Innovation Centre in 2011 which has created and safeguards thousands of STEM jobs within London since its inception.
Here at QME we are committed to creating the space and environment for start-ups to work, grow their venture, collaborate and pioneer new exciting innovations and are here to support start-ups on their entrepreneurial journey by connecting them to like-minded self-starters, industry experts and investors via workshops, events and networking sessions.
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Tania Diggory is an entrepreneur, international Burnout Prevention speaker and Founder and Director of Calmer, an award-winning training organisation that empowers entrepreneurs, freelancers and business teams to nurture good mental health and wellbeing. Tania is a leading expert in the field of burnout prevention and is the Author of This Is Calmer: Inspiration, support and encouragement for the entrepreneurial mind, and Working From Home: The Complete Calmer Guide To Remote Working. Tania has run three different businesses before the age of 30, and has consulted and trained over 400 companies on their mental health and wellbeing strategy, and frequently delivers public talks, online and offline.
Lisa Eaton is a dynamic business leader, marketing expert, speaker, and founder of Fabric Academy, an online training provider committed to empowering marketers worldwide. With more than two decades of experience, Lisa is a strategic thinker with a track record of creating and executing successful marketing and communication strategies for public and private organisations.
Lisa is a seasoned entrepreneur, leader, and mentor who has founded and co-founded successful companies and initiatives. She began her entrepreneurial journey in 2002 when she founded SalSeduce, a salsa dance company in the North East of England. Lisa transformed the brand into a recognised leader in the regional dance community and grew the company for over a decade.
In 2014, Lisa co-founded Unwritten Group, an award-winning integrated marketing and communications agency that delivered successful campaigns for a wide range of organisations and prominent UK brands. As co-founder, Lisa’s focus on strategic planning, business development, and stakeholder engagement contributed to the company’s growth and reputation.
In 2021, Lisa launched Fabric Academy, an online marketing academy providing learners with the tools and knowledge to build their own marketing strategies. Their global framework bridges the gap between academic learning and what industry requires, transforming marketers of the future.
The academy’s CPD-accredited marketing strategy course has attracted learners from all over the world, significantly impacting the careers of its marketing alumni and their organisations. As a prominent North East business community member, Lisa’s experience includes being a host of the GINWAG podcast, where she interviewed local business figures about their experiences, a board member of The Key, an organisation supporting young adults to reach their full potential and Deputy Chair of the Board of Trustees for Smart Works Newcastle, committed to supporting women into employment.
Lisa has a strong entrepreneurial spirit, is passionate about women in business and is dedicated to reinventing the education landscape to transform marketers of the future.
Stephanie Melodia, named in the UK’s Top 20 Most Influential Female Founders, is the CEO & Founder of award-winning marketing agency, Bloom – building high-growth tech businesses with clients in the UK’s Top 5 Startups of the country. Bloom’s work has been featured in the likes of The Independent, Forbes and Startups Magazine.
Stephanie is also the host of the business podcast, Strategy & Tragedy (available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify) and the Bloom Presents event series; an entrepreneur-focused series of biannual talks, including the sellout feminist panel events for International Women’s Day every March, and business/marketing sessions in September.
Stephanie is also a contributing writer for Startups Magazine and has been interviewed by the likes of Tech.London, Enterprise Nation, General Assembly, Creative Entrepreneurs, LinkedIn, Roundhouse, Startup Hustle, Authority Magazine and ComputerWeekly.com for her expertise and thought leadership on the fields of entrepreneurship, gender equality, marketing and creativity.
Dragon Argent
Supporting Sponsor
Dragon Argent is a boutique advisory, accountancy, tax and legal firm joined up together to provide a unified customer service for founders and entrepreneurs which is very uncommon for a boutique professional service firm in the UK. We combine this diversity of professional competencies with a specialism focused on the kinds of challenges and opportunities encountered by the founders of tech enabled startups.
We work with over 400+ tech enabled clients across a range of sectors including design, engineering, fintech, healthcare, life sciences, media, property, retail, and SaaS.
We encourage startups and business owners to book a pro-bona discovery call with one of our professionals to answer questions related to the accounts, tax and legal issues they face.
Schedule a discovery call: https://www.dragonargent.com
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Anglia Unicorn
Headline Sponsor
Anglia Unicorn is an independent design engineering focused electronic component distributor with a made-to-measure service. We are a division of Anglia geared to helping companies access the resources and technologies needed to take a great idea from the drawing board to a finished, marketable product.
Whether you are a start-up, entrepreneur, university spin-out, technology investor or an established company looking to design and launch a new product, Anglia Unicorn is tailored to provide you with comprehensive engineering support, extensive supply chain expertise and access to evaluation hardware and software tools along with samples of the latest innovative technologies from our world class partners, all free of charge. Our company ethos is to provide a bespoke service that enables you to be at the forefront of the latest technology trends. We can help you to not just push, but totally redefine boundaries.
Anglia Unicorn understands that by carefully listening to your needs, ensures we effectively translate your ideas and then using our knowledge we can speed up the success of your tech design in every aspect. We offer support at every stage from design chain through to supply chain from day one to year ten and beyond. As the product moves from the design concept to the manufacturing phase we will be there asking the right questions and taking you through the product cycle, enabling you to take your idea from the drawing board to prototype stage then onto mass production.
Find out how Anglia Unicorn can help accelerate your product design and launch today, visit www.anglia-live.com/unicorn/
Sanj is an award winning multi-disciplined Digital Atelier with over twenty years of experience within the music, fashion and luxury industries.
London-based Sanj has been working within digital and technology since 1998. He has seen the cultural shift in human habit and behaviour as we all evolve into digital consumers.
Some of his successes have been burgeoning, ground breaking and, more importantly, culturally relevant.
Sanj started work in the Music Business developing an understanding of ecommerce and social trends within the web back in the late 90s. From there he started to help Digital Start Ups target Music Industry Professionals during the seismic shift of consumer habit evolution from physical products to digital.
His exposure to luxury began when the Head of Music at Burberry approached him regarding the use of holographic technology for a show in Beijing back in 2011. Over 120 million viewers watched the show live. Since then, he has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world including BMW, Gucci, Charlotte Tilbury and Louis Vuitton.
He has worked with many award-winning artists as well and has brokered some exciting initiatives. His most notable project so far being part of the team that delivered the 2Pac hologram at Coachella back in 2012. This initiative won Titanium at the Cannes Lions and broke Digital PR Records faster than anything before that feat.
Tiger Heart is his agency where his specialty is working with technology to develop new live digital experiences for the purpose of product launches, retail experiences and experiential events.
He believes that we are still in the early stages of the 4th Industrial revolution. That there is a vast amount of great creative technology and digital ideas that are being conceived, designed, developed and delivered into the consumer space. That technology now is a part of everything we do, see and remember. That current technology developments are exciting, exploratory and for some businesses very frightening.
Sanj’s history of future thinking proves that the right application of technology can change the world and can communicate with people in an unforgettable way.
His current clients include: BMW, Gucci and Alphabet.
Tennessee Watt is a Brand Marketing Manager at Google working to inspire marginalized talent to become technologists.
She is also the Founder and Director of Tennessee Watt Consulting, a diversity, equity and inclusion firm, where she supports a wide range of organizations to develop authentically inclusive campaigns, create equitable work cultures, identify minoritized suppliers and influencers, and react to trends within Black culture and social media at lightning speed.
She holds a Masters degree in Management and Innovation from Imperial College London, and a Bachelor of Science in Business and Finance from BPP University. Tennessee has been featured in Business Insider, PR Week, Campaign Magazine and more.”
Saalim Chowdhury has joined Techstars London as their Managing Director in 2020.
Formerly a Partner at 500 Startups, Saalim leads the growth of the startup accelerator in London with a focus on driving diversity in the startup community and building a strong community support network for founders.
His investment approach optimises for high quality execution founders, who have deep empathy with their customers, even if they aren’t the finished product as founders or services.
Griselda Togobo, is an international corporate consultant.
She is also a multi-faceted entrepreneur, engineer and chartered accountant. Her experience as a black woman in the corporate world drives her to help progressive global companies create inclusive workplaces. She works directly with CEO’s and business leaders to embed a culture of inclusion at the heart of their talent strategy. Griselda offers a fresh approach to developing leaders. She is a respected and impactful speaker and is known for her high energy and engaging style.
She graduated from Cambridge University with an MPhil in Industrial Systems, Manufacturing and Management. Before becoming an entrepreneur, she was a management consultant at Deloitte LLP.
Investor, Entrepreneur and Chief Purpose Officer at The Purposeful Project
Simon has spent 10 years as an entrepreneur in the UK and 20 years as an entrepreneur in Hong Kong. He started his first company when he was homeless at 15 years old, and he sold his last company Fluid to PwC. He has also invested in over 70 startups in the last 15 years.
Today Simon is the founder of The Purposeful Project, a platform that helps people learn how to start and scale a business for free. Recently he launched EntrepreneurHouse.com – a place people can stay for free, eat for free and learn business for free alongside other like-minded people.
Founder of Gener8
Sam founded Gener8 to enable people to control and earn from their data. In 2021, he gave the “best pitch ever” – which has been viewed more than 30 miillion times – on BBC Dragons’ Den. In 2022 he won Disruptor of the Year at the Great British Entrepreneur awards.
Co-Founder of My Green Pod
In Jarvis Smith two worlds collide with dynamic effect. On one hand a proud hippie, mystic, self-confessed tree-hugger and radical eco-warrior, Jarvis is also a thought leader, media entrepreneur, speaker and renowned online retail businessman. His work gracing global publications, he now partners with and is advising brands including Natwest, HSBC, Deloitte, Citrix, the Parliament Trust, Octopus Energy, Yeo Valley and Weleda.
He is on the advisory boards for the 2022 Initiative, the good business club, WhereFrom, Zero Carbon HR and the One Earth Show. It was in the middle of 14 years’ Shamanic training that Jarvis’ true awakening happened, during the filming of 2007 Channel 4 reality TV show ‘Dumped’. Shot on location on a Croydon landfill, the experience opened Jarvis’ eyes to the vast devastation human lifestyle waste was having on the planet.
Author of CIA to CEO, MBA & startup coach
Rupal Patel’s high-octane career has taken her from military briefing rooms in jungles and war zones to corporate boardrooms and international stages. During her thrilling career as an analyst and field agent at the CIA, she served in active war zones, advised Commanding Generals, and earned War Zone Service Medals and Citations for “superior support to the President of the United States.”
After leaving the CIA, she earned her MBA from London Business School and started her first award-winning business over ten years ago. Called a ‘Power Woman’ by Harper’s Bazaar Magazine, Rupal is a sought-after international speaker who has spoken in front of thousands and worked with top-tier organizations like Accenture, AB Inbev, SAP, and Virgin.
Director, UKI Small Business, Cisco
Áine Rogers Leads Cisco’s Small Business for the UKI theatre. She is responsible for the strategic direction and growth of this segment executing on Cisco’s defined go to market combining global short mid- and long-term strategies with developing existing local routes to market in new ways to best serve smaller enterprises on their digitisation journey whose technology adoption, consumption and needs have changed drastically in recent years. Critical to the overall success and market share capture will be running the business successfully while reimaging small business at true scale.
Working effectively with multiple stakeholders within Cisco and partnering in new ways with channel, distribution and Eco System partners will key to realising continued success.
Apprentice Winner, Digital Marketing Specialist
Mark Wright is an award-winning, influential entrepreneur and digital marketing specialist, renowned for his success in winning BBC’s The Apprentice. In securing the winners title, Mark went on to find and develop one of the UK’s fastest growing digital marketing agencies, Climb Online, in partnership with Lord Sugar.
As the most successful business to have been founded by an Apprentice winner to date, Climb Online is renowned for its disruptive approach to digital marketing, working with household brands to scale growth and generate profit.
Mark’s experience in building and creating a multi-million-pound turnover digital empire has led him to source and invest in additional businesses within the property investment, web development, public relations and hair and beauty sectors, where he has dedicated his time to implementing strategies that have replicated admirable levels of success.
CEO at Subak
Subak’s mission is to accelerate climate action by funding and scaling a global ecosystem of organisations and individuals that use data and tech to create systemic change in policy and behaviour.
Outside of the day job, Amali is a Board member at Ada National College for Digital Skills, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and Unboxed 2022. She was a founding member at Tech Talent Charter, was named as ‘The most Influential woman in UK IT’ by Computer Weekly, and was awarded an MBE in 2019 in the New Year’s Honours list for Services to Diversity and Training in the Tech Industry.
Owner of Bloom
Stephanie Melodia, named in the UK’s Top 20 Most Influential Female Founders, is the owner of brand marketing agency, Bloom – building early-stage, high-growth tech business with clients in the UK’s Top 5 Startups of the country. Bloom’s work has been featured in the likes of The Independent, Sifted, Startups Magazine and Startups.co.uk to name a few.
Stephanie is also the host of the founder podcast, Time to Bloom (Available on Apple Podcast and Spotify) and the Bloom Presents event series; an entrepreneur-focused series of biannual talks, including the sellout feminist panel events for International Women’s Day every March, and business/marketing sessions in September.
Stephanie is also contributing to Startups Magazine and has been interviewed by Tech.London, ComputerWeekly.com, Enterprise Nation, General Assembly, Creative Entrepreneur, Linkedin, Found & Flourish, SheAlmighty, Roundhouse, Tiger Heart, Authority Magazine and The Hunter Collective for her expertise and opinions on the fields of entrepreneurship, the London Tech scene, feminism, and marketing/creativity
Group Technology Evangelist at Harvey Nash Group
David started his career as a technology recruiter, and spent a decade exploring the role people play in shaping the sector, before being asked to step into the role of Group Technology Evangelist for the Harvey Nash Group; he is responsible for helping share the best thoughts and insight from acorss the Harvey Nash Group with the wider market.
A regular event speaker, host and moderator David regularly writes for industry publications, appears on and hosts technology-focus media channels and hosts the ‘Tech Talks’ podcast.
Tech Talks is a regular member of the Apple Podcast top 50 tech podcast chart, attracting thousands of listeners each month from a diverse community of tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. To date over 475 episodes have been published.
His voice and standing in the sector was recognised in 2018, with David being named Computing Magazine’s Digital Ambassador of the Year.
He has a passion for tech, sci-fi, Newcastle United and truly awful films.
Founder of Dreamweaver
From photography to exhibitions, book publishings, and Apple endorsements, Zac Des has become a go-to contact for some of the world’s most renowned brands. His popularity amongst London crowds can be accredited to his signature street style photography which promoted the launch of his book “A Chelsea Story.”
Since then Zac has gone on to host parties, exhibitions, fashion week events, as well as assist brands on various projects, always exceeding expectations. Zac later went on to found Zac Des Brand; which serves as a branding, marketing, and consultancy firm for UHNWI’s and their business interests.
In 2021, Zac debuted the long-awaited podcast, “Would You Like A Podcast” on Apple Podcasts. His latest project, Dreamweaver serves as a multifaceted creative agency working with a vast array of companies, individuals and brands.
Digital Marketing Consultant and Apprentice Finalist
Lewis Ellis is a digital marketing consultant born and bred in the heart of Manchester. In 2019 Lewis featured on BBC’s ‘TheApprentice’ making it to the Final Five in a bid to win Lord Sugars £250,000 investment.
Since the show, Lewis has returned to marketing and has decided to take the plunge and setup his own digital agency with a difference! Fed-up of the uninspired, tedious and quite simply, boring marketing modus operandi, Lewis aims to ‘shake things up’ and harness his naturally disruptive personality to inject brands with a more effective strategy that invites consumers into the business.
Lewis is also working on his side-project travel startup and has co-founded ‘Hiddin Travel’ with Luke, a friend that also used to work overseas prior to studying at university. This brand-new and stylish travel company targets the ever-evolving and complicated millennial/GenZ market now demanding more from their vacations.
Cooden Tax Specialists
Category Sponsor
We are a niche tax consultancy, founded by Simon Bulteel, an ACCA qualified accountant in 2013, to support businesses of all shapes and sizes to prepare robust, successful and financially rewarding claims for Research and Development Tax Credits. Simon has been involved in claims since 2005. Cooden’s first piece of work was to defend an InsureTech from an enquiry from HMRC, whilst at the same time increasing their claim. Since then, the growing team have worked with a number of Tech startups and scaleups operating within Cybesecurity, Payment Data, Virtual Reality Design and most recently a Global Positioning Start-up.
Small Business Research + Enterprise Centre
Supporting Sponsor
The Small Business Research + Enterprise Centre’s history dates back to 1870 where we started as a business desk in Guildhall Library. Fast forward to 2020, midst a pandemic we became the first point of contact for small business enquiries for the City of London Corporation.
Our Mission is to create and grow sustainable businesses in the UK by providing access to essential business data and tailored business support.
Our small business start-up support service is available to all start-ups and small businesses throughout the UK. We can provide you with access to specialist business information and market research. We also offer business support events and provide expert assistance to help you start and grow your business.
Instagram or @businessresearchenterprise
Twitter or @sbrec_
Author & Founder of Purposeful Group
Kay Kukoyi CSM FITOL is a software delivery specialist, global tech startup mentor, author and speaker. She has published 5 books for entrepreneurs and SMEs, and has been recognised on the Financial Times and Inclusive Boards list of the 100 Most Influential BAME Leaders in the UK Technology Sector, and as a finalist for the BTA Lifetime Achievement Award, 2022.
Kay is the CEO and Founder of Purposeful Group, an international community and centre for learning focused on entrepreneurship, technology and digital skills training which includes the Tech Startup Academy™, Freelancer Academy™ and Digital Careers Academy™ brands.
The company supports and empowers entrepreneurs around the world through its bestselling books, professional mentoring, and specialist workshops and programmes, and works on local and national programmes in the UK to support career builders and digital upskillers.
Operations Lead at Uber
Shammi Raichura is an Operations Lead at Uber where he is responsible for unlocking and operationalising growth opportunities for the UK business.
His current role as head of Cities puts him at the intersection between a company at the forefront of building technology changing the way we live, and the external business and policy enviornment evolving to meet its demands.
Investor Relations & Platform Manager at PropTech1.
Tzvete Doncheva is the Investor Relations and Platform Manager at PropTech1 Ventures, one of Europe’s first ESG compliant PropTech venture capital funds. She leads on fundraising and platform activities in non-German speaking markets, fostering connections with property investors, who seek to better leverage technology in their portfolios. Through her work, she helps to strengthen the fund’s brand across the continent. Her experience in VC includes being on the investment team at a supply chain-focused fund and in a platform role at the VC spin out of multinational real estate investment manager Round Hill Capital. Tzvete is a firm advocate for bridging the gender gap in venture capital and technology, a non-exec trustee at Girls in Charge and founder of a project, that aims to help tackle the issue of closed networks in VC and help increase female representation at founder and funder level.
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Liana is the is the Founder & Inspirer-in-Chief at Inspiration Space.
Known as the Inspirer-In-Chief to colleagues and peers, Liana has helped over 150 entrepreneurs transform their business dreams into realities.
A champion for women in business, Liana is on a mission to democratise entrepreneurship for the progress of all.
Founder of the LMF Network.
Sonya Barlow is an award winning entrepreneur, founder of the @LMFnetwork, author of Unprepared Entrepreneur, diversity business coach, BBC radio host and Linkedin Changemaker. Her efforts are focused on bridging the skills gap and creating inclusive cultures.
“Strategically Winging It” is her famous tagline as a result of three successful chapters of LMF Network in 18 months. Utilising social media, she has engaged an audience as far as ~60K with her charmingly witty remarks. All the while carrying her Pakistani heritage proudly, she has drawn attention to the social stigmas faced by the under-represented community of BAME. Having been raised amongst an average working class family, she has understood the importance of leading as a successful role model to encourage inclusion and stapled this to the forefront of all her business collaborations. Sonya is a multi hyphenated individual – sharing her expertise through consultancy, training, community building, workshop facilitation, a 5* podcast and articles.
Author & Founder of Black Women in Tech
Flavilla Fongang is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, an international and multilingual keynote speaker. She is the founder of 3 Colours Rule, an award-winning branding and marketing agency. Flavilla was awarded the “She’s Mercedes” businesswoman award by Mercedes Benz among women such as Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook. She is the author of “99 Strategies to get customers”. She is also the founder of Tech London Advocates – Black Women in Tech.
She published in October 2021 “The Voices In The Shadow”. A book that features stories of black women in tech and is distributed to secondary schools for FREE across the UK and Ireland. The Voices In The Shadow Volume 2 will be coming back in 2022. She is a judge at the AWS Software Startups Awards 2022. Flavilla Fongang is a recognised leader in marketing as she created the D.A.C. system and The Beyond Marketing Approach which have helped numerous brands successfully grow their business. Flavilla is the chosen brand advisor for BBC and provides actionable brand strategy advice.
She has been a keynote speaker for the most prestigious international events, such as AdWeek, HubSpot, DMWF, MozCon, AdWorld, Upgrade100, CTA, MarTech and many more.
Code Untapped CEO
Impact X Founding Member, Principal & CTO in Residence.
A tech founder with over 15 years experience in FinTech. Ez’s journey has taken him from Software Developer to Co-Founder and CTO to Venture Capital.
He is currently a Founding Member, Principal and CTO in Residence at Impact X Capital Partners LLP a venture fund focused on supporting underrepresented entrepreneurs.
He is the Co-Founder of Code Untapped, a digital skills accelerator that helps companies find innovative product solutions by giving them access to diverse and underrepresented technologists through their innovation labs events.
He is a former Co-Founder of Neyber a multi-award-winning Fintech firm focused on financial wellbeing, where he was the founding CTO and held numerous roles during his tenure including brand ambassador and NED.
Ez also advises a number of boards. He is an advisor to the board of UKITL (UK IT Leaders Network), Albany Group and the Venture Studio from Crisis who invest in, support and create ventures to end homelessness. Ez is also on the steering committee for Spring the centre of excellence for the Water industry.
Founder of Klowt.
Amelia Sordell, 31 is a speaker, start-up founder, and personal branding expert living in London.
Originally from Australia, Amelia kicked off her career in Public Relations before, by her own admission she discovered she was in fact “unemployable”.
Her desire to be in charge of her own career and live by her own rules led to launching her first business at the age of just 21. The womenswear brand she founded grew quickly in success and after just 12 months in business was stocked in 12 online and instore boutiques and had large retailers like ASOS courting to stock the clothes. Unfortunately, in year 2 Amelia lost everything. She was forced to clothes the doors on her business and that chapter in her life.
Amelia’s fast-growing agency, Klowt has already made a dent in the space operating on a 100% inbound model and working with Startup Founders to SkyBet’s leadership team. Klowt is set to be the agency in the personal branding space, and the business has big plans to build the personal brands of the next Elon Musks, Mark Zuckerbergs and Grace Beverleys.
Founder of Dream Factory.
Graham has spent the last decade in the world of startups. In his previous company, Startup Van, he interviewed over 3,000 founders face to face, producing the most viewed business content in Europe.
His latest venture Dream Factory is the only content creation house dedicated to founders which has exploded in popularity since it’s launch in September last year. Some of the best UK startups are Dream Factory members and regularly create content in Dream Factory’s film, photography and podcast studios.
Director of Climb Online & Apprentice Winner
Mark is an influential entrepreneur and self-taught digital marketing specialist and speaker, who won the BBC show The Apprentice in 2014.Mark is CEO of one of the UK’s fastest growing digital marketing agencies, Climb Online, which he launched with Lord Alan Sugar’s backing after winning The Apprentice in 2014. After winning The Apprentice, the company went to turning over £1.7 million in his first year of trading.
Founder of Brandable & Co.
Sallee is one of the UK’s leading people-brand experts, founder of award-winning strategy agency, Brandable & Co. and on a mission to make business more human. Professional experience consists of 20+ years navigating the world of high-level business and brand building. Sallee has held CEO and COO positions, headed up international projects and delivered brand strategy and advisory board roles to a high-profile client list.
Consultant for SMEs in Engineering, Science & Technology.
Now an independent consultant, Jeremy is perhaps best known in the industry as having co-launched the UK’s largest annual advanced manufacturing, technology and supply chain event, Advanced Engineering.
He has an extensive background in bringing together OEMs, SMEs, and startups to facilitate innovation in automotive, aerospace, medical technology, energy, and other sectors vital to the UK economy. He continues to contribute to Advanced Engineering and regularly curates its Enabling Innovation Awards, working closely with Innovate UK/KTN, Innovation DB, and Startups Magazine.
Before this, Jeremy spent over a decade working across multiple business units for FTSE100 giant RELX PLC (formerly Reed Elsevier), developing academic and corporate markets for information services including ScienceDirect, The Lancet, and Drug Discovery Today.
Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Fora
Fora is re-imagining the way a working environment can support ambitious, innovative and high growth businesses. The result is a portfolio of design led, premium workspaces that support the needs and ambitions of some of the most exciting businesses in the world, through driving productivity, wellbeing and collaboration.
Founded by Enrico Sanna and Katrina Larkin, Fora’s story began with the development of the first site in Old Street which opened in February 2017. Fora currently occupies 12 buildings, with secured pipeline for 2020 and beyond
A pioneer in the festival world, Katrina co-founded The Big Chill Festival in 1994. The event grew to become an internationally recognised brand. In the process, The Big Chill spawned an entire industry of similar events and boutique festivals in the UK. In 2013 Katrina began working with Brockton Capital Fund II L.P. on the redevelopment, rebranding and curation of Camden Lock Market, with great success. In 2014, Katrina joined Market Tech, overseeing 16 acres of Central London real estate.