30th Anniversary of EIS Celebration Speakers

Chris is an entrepreneur, investor, and mentor. He is Managing Partner of Outrun Ventures, and one of Europe’s most prolific angel investors in Fintech companies.

After a ten year career at GE Capital, Chris co-founded a specialty finance company that became one of the fastest growing businesses in the UK, featuring in the Sunday Time Fast Track 100 for four consecutive years. In 2014, his partners and he sold the business to a NASDAQ listed entity and specialist buy-out fund. After exiting he turned his attention to venture investing and mentoring founders, running London’s leading accelerator, Techstars, for five years. He has also invested, personally, as a first cheque investor, into a further 180 fintech companies, many of them now notable, including Atom Bank, Griffin Bank, Kuda Bank, Post Quantum, Quant Network, Marshmallow Insurance, Smart Pension, Cuvva, and BondAval. He was named the UK’s Angel investor of the year in 2018/19 and Sifted named him the most active fintech angel in Europe from 2020-23. In 2022 he was named as the leading Seed Investor in Europe by Business Insider and Tribe Capital and in 2023 was named the Investor of the year in the Great British Entrepreneurship Awards. Although primarily an angel investor, Chris formed Outrun Ventures to facilitate investment into the growth stage round of some of his most exciting growth stage portfolio companies.

Luke Barnett is Head of Tax-Advantaged Investments at St James’s Place, overseeing the selection, monitoring and distribution of products across the EIS, VCT and BR panels.

He joined SJP in 2021, and previously worked at MJ Hudson (Allenbridge), having been covering this market since 2017. Before that Luke has held various research roles across differing asset classes in the financial services sector.

Originally from South Africa, Luke studied economics at the University of Cape Town.

Mark became a Partner at Eos Advisory in 2019 and has helped lead the business through a period of significant growth, investing in predominantly Scottish science and technology addressing key global issues in healthcare and environmental health. He spent the first chapter his career building teams around sporting success and is publicly known as an athlete and BBC broadcaster. He still holds the 18,000-mile circumnavigation cycling record in a time of 78 days. His degree education was in Economics & Politics, and for a decade and a half worked with a UK’s leading mid-market private equity firm. Mark is Patron for Entrepreneurial Scotland, Honorary President for Scottish Student Sport, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was honoured in the Queens New Year’s honours for services to sport and charity. 

Having obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Bernice first started their career in private equity, where they worked for two years. Three years ago, she transitioned to the world of venture capital and is currently, serving as an Associate at Guinness Ventures.

Neil is Head of Private Markets Distribution for the UK market. In his role, Neil is responsible for positioning the full Private Markets offering with UBS clients, including Private Equity, open-ended ‘semi-liquid’ private markets funds and UK tax efficient private investment products. Neil joined UBS in 2012, and prior to his role in the Private Markets Team was Head of Wealth Planning Solutions in the UK. Neil previously worked for 11 years at Barclays Bank, starting as a graduate trainee and gaining experience in roles across both the Retail and Wealth divisions. He holds a Degree in Economics, the CMI Diploma in Leadership & Management, and is also a qualified Financial Planner.

Previously Paola worked for the  London Stock Exchange Group where she led the community of entrepreneurs and the Private Market,  connecting companies with capital. Paola also ran EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award and she set up and ran a programme for the Department of International trade aimed at helping foreign graduates to set up their businesses in the UK providing access to capital, mentoring and business advises.

Paola is a mentor and a regular contributor for RisingWISE, a combined initiative of Cambridge and Oxford University supporting women in STEM who have aspirations to become entrepreneurs.

Justine is Head of Policy and Public Affairs at Octopus Group.   She started her career at the Mirror Group Newspapers and worked at various national newspapers before embarking on a career in public affairs.  She made the jump in 2009, working for Rt Hon Brandon Lewis.  After seven years in Parliament, she went on to work at iNHouse Communications, taking on clients such as Sky, Diageo and NHBC, before joining Octopus.

Justine is also Chair of the Venture Capital Trust Policy Committee and sits on the Advisory Committee of Thames 21.

Peter Evans is Head of Media Strategy at FieldHouse Associates, the communications agency for businesses and investors across the innovation ecosystem. He is the former Enterprise Editor and senior business correspondent at The Sunday Times, where he wrote about high-growth businesses, finance, entrepreneurs and technology. Peter was previously a business reporter at the Wall Street Journal. 

Jeffrey Faustin is a Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Jenson Funding Partners, with an impressive tenure of over 10 years in the dynamic field of venture capital. 

In his role as CIO, Jeffrey assumes a leadership position, overseeing the entire spectrum of the investment management process. From deal sourcing and screening to meticulous due diligence, deal structuring and negotiation, as well as contract execution, Jeffrey ensures a comprehensive and strategic approach to investment management. 

Jeffrey has collaborated with more than 140 early-stage high-growth technology companies spanning various sectors. His expertise lies in working closely with management teams, providing invaluable guidance in business strategy, and offering board advisory support to drive sustainable growth. 

Conrad is Chief Product & Strategy Officer at Allica Bank – recently named by Deloitte as the UK’s fastest-growing financial technology firm ever – which is bringing expert relationship banking back to established SMEs, supported by modern technology. Previously Conrad was the sole founder of Funding Options.

James has worked on the frontline of academic commercialisation for the past decade. After completing a PhD in Neuroscience at Oxford James joined the University’s technology transfer office, working for 8 years to support academic founders spin out venture-backed companies in the digital health space. In 2021 James joined Imperial as an Investment Manager, collaborating with Parkwalk Advisors to deploy the EIS Imperial College Enterprise Fund. James is now the Head of Investment Services at Imperial, working to support equity investment into its spinouts and startups through the upskilling of founders and coordinating the communication of new opportunities to Imperial’s Investor Network.

Philip Hare is a co founder of Philip Hare & Associates LLP, a tax consultancy business which specialises in the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), Seed EIS, Venture Capital Trust (VCT) and Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR). He and his team advise small and medium sized companies and their investors in respect of the tax relief available for investment and the conditions that need to be met by the company and the investor. They are in regular contact with specialists at HMRC discussing solutions to technical and administrative issues that arise from the schemes.

Philip is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor. Whilst at PWC, EIS Association members voted his team the ‘EIS Tax Adviser of the year’ for eight years in a row and since setting up his own firm in 2015, Philip Hare & Associates LLP has won ‘SEIS/EIS Tax Adviser of the year’ for each of the last three years.

Lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, Sahar Hashemi has used her deep knowledge of both the corporate and start up worlds to become an internationally recognised thought leader on entrepreneurial mindset.

As founder of two disruptive businesses and the author of a bestselling book on entrepreneurship, she understands entrepreneurial behaviour to the core. However, she also understands corporate behaviour to the core, evolving out of her early corporate law career, then seeing the transformation of culture when her start up grew into a big company, and this last decade speaking to over 400 large organisations. This combination of personal experience in both worlds gives her a unique and deep perspective into entrepreneurial behaviours, what blocks it in big organisations and what it takes to unleash it.

Sahar is currently the force behind Buy Women Built, an incredibly fast growing movement to fill the £250bn gap in female entrepreneurship in the UK by bring consumer recognition to women built brands.  She got the idea during the first Covid lockdown and the community behind the movement has now grown to 1800 brands with a combined turnover of £2.5bn.

In June 2012 Sahar was awarded an OBE for services to the UK economy and to charity. 

I have worked in financial services since 1992 and have been a financial adviser since 2002 providing financial advice to private wealth clients.

I am able to advise on all wealth and financial planning areas which include helping clients with their investments, pensions, protection and estate planning needs.

As an Independent Financial Adviser, my aim is to work closely with my clients to develop a trusted working partnership with them and their family in order to deliver both excellent value and quality advice for the long-term. I offer advice to any age group and I am comfortable dealing with older clients and their powers of attorney, where appropriate.

James Hurley works as the enterprise editor at The Times, writing about private companies and entrepreneurs. He also investigates corporate misconduct. His series of exposés on Royal Bank of Scotland’s mistreatment of thousands of small companies was praised in parliament.

Matt Jellicoe – founder of OnePlanetCapital – Climate Tech focused SEIS and EIS fund.

Matt is an experienced entrepreneur and has successfully exited 3 businesses in the technology space. He has over a decade of investment experience in early-stage companies in technology, e-commerce and climate tech and sits the board of a number of companies within the OnePlanetCapital network.

Ed Johnson is the CEO & Co-Founder of PushFar, the world’s leading mentoring platform. By the end of 2022, PushFar had enabled more than 1.5 million hours of mentoring to take place and in July 2023, PushFar was acquired by London-based private equity firm ScaleUp Capital. Named as one of Forbes 30 under 30 for 2022 in Social Impact, Ed works with leading HR and learning teams, while mentoring startup entrepreneurs and speaking publicly about mentoring, coaching, entrepreneurship and online business growth. Ed’s appearances include the BBC, Forbes, Telegraph, The Sun, The Mirror, Yahoo News, Metro and Huffington Post.

Husayn is the Co-Founder and former CEO at identity startup Onfido, a company that uses machine learning to build trust in an online world by helping businesses digitally verify people’s identities. As a new machine age advocate, he is a believer in how technology can be used to build instant trust and power human interactions. Now Founder and CEO at Quench.ai – an AI twin for every trainer and organisation to supercharge personalised learning, Husayn has been named as one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30”, the Startups Awards’ “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” and a WEF Tech Pioneer. He has a BA in Economics and Management from Keble College, Oxford.

Christian May is Editor in Chief of City A.M., and a former Managing Director at Teneo and Head of Communications at the Institute of Directors.

James Murray has served as the Member of Parliament for Ealing North since 2019.

He has held the office of Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury since 9 July 2024, having been shadow Financial Secretary for three and a half years before that.

He is a member of the Labour and Co-operative parties and served as the Deputy Mayor of London for Housing and Residential Development from 2016 to 2019.

Prior to being appointed Deputy Mayor, he served as a councillor for a decade, including six years as executive member for housing and development from 2010 to 2016.

Earlier in his career, he worked in a management consultancy.

Samantha Niblett is the Labour Member of Parliament for South Derbyshire, and the founder of Labour: Women in Tech, a political not-for-profit campaigning for systemic change in gender equity by elevating women in STEM. Now a leading voice on gender equity and Tech in the House of Commons, Samantha combines 20+ years of experience in the data and technology sector with a personal passion for bringing attention to the voices of women and young people to unite the industry behind campaigns centering on economic growth, diversity and emerging technologies. Her work to smash barriers for women in STEM, tech and adjacent sectors, spans unions, industry, education and government, and her ongoing work in the House of Commons bringing together Parliamentarians will be crucial to achieving economic growth under the new Government.

Jill is Co-founder and Chairman of The Gender Index, a not-for-profit organization that is quantifying the impact of women-led companies to achieve positive and disruptive change.  She is also Non-executive Director of mnAi, an AI-driven technology company that gives real-time research and analysis on UK companies.  Her career has zigzagged across public and private sectors and the enormous impact is that she is now a relentless champion of the need to establish metrics to standardize economic progression led by women.

Previously Jill was Serjeant at Arms in the House of Commons and the first woman to hold this position in 600 years. Her appointment was unusual in that her predecessors all came from a military background, whereas her roots are firmly established in business. 

Jill holds a number of senior roles for organisations including the children’s literacy charity Coram Beanstalk, the global women’s business hub Savvitas Global and the Women and Enterprise All Party Parliamentary Group. She is a major driving force behind the acceleration and empowerment of female entrepreneurship internationally.

Tania is a founder-turned-VC who successfully exited her award-winning restaurant group, Chit Chaat Chai. Now an Investment Manager at Foresight Group, a £12 billion AUM private equity and venture capital fund focused on UK regional growth SMEs. At Foresight, Tania manages transactions from £250k to £10m, driving growth in the UK’s SME sector. Named Entrepreneur of the Year in 2018 and recognized by Mayor Sadiq Khan as a ‘Success Start-Up Story,’ Tania also serves as a Board Member and Trustee at Hatch Enterprise the largest accelerator to support underrepresented founders.

Sharmadean Reid MBE is a founder, writer and creative consultant who in her 20 year career has launched an innovation led salon, a beauty tech start up and now a media company.

Her work explores women’s power, equity and ownership.

She is currently working a series of essays on the theme of EQUITY and a scripted TV show about female founders.

In 2015 Sharmadean was awarded an MBE from HRH Queen Elizabeth.

Her first book, New Methods For Women is published in June 2024 by Penguin Random House.

Sunil Shah is a seasoned biotech entrepreneur and investor, having begun his career in the Life Sciences team at PA Consulting. He co-founded Oxygen Healthcare Ltd which was fully acquired by Piramal Enterprises Ltd (BSE: PEL) in 2013.

Since then, Sunil has co-founded the o2h Group, which includes o2h Ventures, an HMRC approved ‘Human Health’ Knowledge Intensive EIS fund; o2h Discovery, a medicinal chemistry research services company and o2h Co-Work Labs, a 2.7Acre Science Park under development in South Cambridge.

Sunil has won the UKBAA Angel Investor of the Year award in 2019 as well as the OBN Special Recognition Award for his significant contribution in the life sciences industry.

He is serving his second consecutive term on the boards of the BIA as well as Cambridge Angels.

Recently, Sunil has also won the CEO of the Year award at the Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards.

As a fund manager at o2h Ventures, he has co-founded multiple successful life science companies and is a leading figure in the UK biotech ecosystem. His expertise spans drug discovery, investment, and business building. He is either Chairman, Non-Executive Director, Board Observer or an investor in over 20 biotech companies in the UK.

Sunil holds a degree in Biochemistry from Keele and an MBA from Cambridge University.

Christiana Stewart-Lockhart is the Director General of the Enterprise Investment Scheme Association (EISA). She previously spent more than a decade working in Westminster including ten years at the Institute of Economic Affairs. She also founded EPICENTER, a Brussels based network of some of the most respected think tanks from across Europe. Christiana holds a BA in Politics from the University of York. She is a member of TISA’s Young People’s Financial Education Policy Council and also sits on the Advisory Board for the All Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship.

Lucy Tobin is an award-winning business journalist, with a particular focus on entrepreneurship, office culture and corporate life. She regularly writes for The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, The Times and The Sun, and has written the Evening Standard’s weekly column about London’s brightest start-ups for over a decade. Lucy is the author of seven books, including Entrepreneur and The Book of Jobs, and can often be found commenting on business and student issues on TV and radio.

Tom is the head of Shoosmiths’ EIS tax practice. Tom is one of the UK’s leading experts in this field and has extensive experience advising a wide range of investors and investee companies on structuring and implementing tax efficient investments, reorganisations and exits in compliance with the EIS regime. Tom is also a qualified Chartered Tax Adviser, a member of the EIS Association’s Tax and Technical Committee, and a member of the QCA’s Tax Expert Group.

Debbie Wosskow OBE is one of the UK’s best known female entrepreneurs. She has built and exited three as businesses as Founder CEO (Mantra (2007), Love Home Swap (2017) and AllBright (2022) – raising capital at all levels from Angel to VC to PE.

Debbie is a prolific angel investor and the co-chair of the U.K. government backed ‘Invest in Women Taskforce’. She is the co-founder of WJV, the boutique investment and strategic innovation firm, championing diversity, wellness and economic empowerment.

Debbie is Executive Chair of The Better Menopause, empowering women’s performance at midlife through science-backed products. She is a Non Executive Director of Channel 4 and a Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company.

She is the co-author of the business bestseller ‘Believe, Build, Become – How to
Supercharge your Career’ (Penguin 2019). Debbie is a Board Member of The Mayor of London’s Business Advisory Board and The Women’s Prize for Fiction.

She is a former Evening Standard ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ and author of the ‘Wosskow Review on the Sharing Economy’ for the UK Government (2015) and former Chair of Sharing Economy UK.

Debbie was awarded an OBE in June 2016 & received Freedom of the City of London 2019.

She graduated with an MA in Philosophy and Theology from New College, Oxford.

Tom is an experienced entrepreneur, executive and board director across creative industry companies, private to public. He grew his fashion technology startup Metail to exit raising £25m, and as a NED has taken women’s personal wellness scale-up Elvie from inception to Series B and Net Zero strategy consultancy Verco through 3x revenue to acquisition. He now sits on various boards, including Channel 4, the Startup Coalition and leading independent school St. Paul’s and is actively involved in investing and policy, co-authoring the Labour Startup Review.

Steve Bates is the CEO of the UK BioIndustry Association, the UK’s Trade Association for innovative life science companies with over 550 members. Steve is the visible face of the vibrant UK life sciences industry to government and media. He serves on the UK Government’s Life Sciences Council and the UK Biosecurity Leadership Council. Steve was a founder member of the UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce in the Covid crisis, sitting on its steering Board alongside Kate Bingham. He is active member and former chair the International Council of Biotech Associations and has been a board member of EuropaBio since 2015.

Roderick’s career spans over 20 years of managing, founding and growing angel groups and investment platforms, collectively deploying over £100m of equity investment in more than 500 startup and scaleup businesses. He started at Beer & Partners, the first and largest angel group in the UK which later sold to Risk Capital Partners.

He is now the Managing Director of the UK Business Angels Association, the trade body for angel and early-stage investing, representing 220 organisations including  Angel Groups, Investment Funds and Family Offices that collectively deploy over £2bn p.a. in innovative, high-growth businesses.

Saasha Celestial-One is Co-Founder & COO of OLIO, a free app harnessing the power of mobile technology and the sharing economy to provide a revolutionary solution to the problem of waste. OLIO is growing quickly, empowered by 160k+ volunteers. Since 2016, 8m OLIOers have successfully shared over 160m portions of food and 11m household items with each other in 62 countries. Before OLIO, Saasha founded London’s first pay-as-you-go high street childcare provider, and prior to that she spent 13yrs at Morgan Stanley, McKinsey & American Express. Saasha was named one of the UK’s “Coolest Female Founders” by Business Insider, has an MBA from Stanford, is mum to 11-year-old Nolan, and is the proud daughter of hippy entrepreneurs.

The 21 most extraordinary women of 2021 – You Magazine
14 women who are changing the way we eat and drink in 2021 – Time Out Magazine
Who are the Top 32 ESG pioneers in the UK? – Business Leader
30 to Watch – The UK’s Top Funded Female Founders (#9) – Financial Times

Serial entrepreneur and investor Alison Cork MBE has over the past 20 years built up a global home interiors business operating across the UK and USA encompassing publishing, online retail, design, licensing and TV shopping.

Prior to that, she co-founded publishing company Carnell Ltd, which floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1994.

In 2014, Alison launched her hugely successful homeware brand on home shopping channel QVC, where she continues to bring stylish and affordable furniture and accessories to the viewing public, both in the UK and USA.

A champion of female entrepreneurs, in 2017 Alison founded The National Women’s Enterprise Network, with the aim of supporting and encouraging women throughout the UK to start their own business.

In 2019 she became an Ambassador for the British Library Business & IP Centre network.

She was awarded an MBE in the 2023 New Year’s Honours List, for services to female entrepreneurship. In the same year she launched National Women’s Enterprise Week, to celebrate, support and encourage female enterprise UK wide. She has since become an active investor in female led companies ad continues to champion women in the economy.

Anne joined Parkwalk in 2024 and has been supporting University spin-outs and start-ups since 2001, working in various technology commercialisation roles at Imperial College and the University of Cambridge. Anne formerly led the growth of the University of Cambridge’s Seed Funds team for 15 years, including establishing the first University EIS fund with Parkwalk and spinning out Cambridge Innovation Capital. Anne has served on multiple early stage boards, across all technology sectors. Most recently Anne established the accelerator Founders at the University of Cambridge, to support founders at seed stage. Anne holds a BSc in Medical Microbiology and a PhD in Immunology.

Sarah has over 20 years’ international experience from micro-cap, scale-up, to Forbes Global 2000 companies. She has held CEO roles across energy, natural resources, construction and manufacturing sectors in North America. She was an associate partner at Hanson Family Holdings (formerly Hanson Plc) for over 12 years and has a track record of creating exponential growth and transformation within high growth and turnaround situations. Sarah has expertise in successfully leading exit strategies more than >5X multiple. She has led a number of strategic partnerships, financing, commercials, M&A, and cross border transactions upward of £1Bn. Sarah studied leadership & management at the University of Pennsylvania and has an MBA from Bradford University School of Management.

Emmie is a mum of 4, a serial exited entrepreneur and the founder of Female Founders Rise, a community of over 6000 female and non-binary founders in the UK.
She is also a micro angel investor and has invested in over 30 female-led businesses over the last few years. Emmie is passionate about entrepreneurship and helping women to build long-term sustainable companies. 20 years ago she went on Dragons’ Den and got the biggest single investment at the time of £200K from Theo Paphitis.

Chandila Fernando is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience across 21 industries and three continents. He has earned recognition for his roles in government relations and strategic advisory, including a Presidential Award for sovereign debt restructuring.

At UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), he focuses on fundraising for innovative businesses whilst advising PitchFlix and The Marylebone Design Collectif. He has also worked with businesses leaders from Brewin Dolphin and First Sentinel on pre-IPO fundraising programmes. An advocate for diversity, Chandila supports women and underrepresented groups in tech, chairs the Foundervine Community, and serves as a trustee at Leicestershire and Rutland Cricket.

Will joined Octopus in 2013 and sits in our Health team. He works with portfolio companies from consumer to enterprise, with a strong bias towards businesses making the biggest impacts on health.

In recent years he has explored taboo areas within health, resulting in multiple new investments around this theme, from substance addiction to LGBT sexual health. He’s also passionate about the potential for digital therapeutics to deliver superior outcomes for some conditions, US expansion, the future of cannabinoids and novel business models within health.

Will was based in our US office in New York during 2016, and continues to support portfolio companies looking to expand into the US health market. Many of his portfolio companies are based in the US, and he invests alongside big global investors like SoftBank Group, Kinnevik, Atomico and EQT Partners.

Will is also a vocal champion of diversity and LGBT issues and is happily married to his husband Christopher.
He founded multiple startups before joining Octopus Ventures, including a rare-breed pig farm and an organic spirits company.

Will holds a degree in ancient history and classical archaeology from the University of Oxford.

Dom Hallas is the Executive Director of the Startup Coalition (formerly Coadec), an independent advocacy group that serves as the policy voice for technology-led startups and scale ups in the UK.

Named in 2023 by Politico as one of the ’20 People who matter in UK tech’, he sits on the UK Government’s Digital Economy Council & Tech & Telecoms Trade Advisory Group. He is also a board member of the global tech startup association Allied for Startups.

The Startup Coalition builds proactive coalitions of businesses and investors on issues that are integral to the health of the UK’s startup ecosystem. Recent successes have ranged from the design and establishment of the Future Fund to the creation of new technology-focused visas, the raising of the SEIS limits, and the bailout of SVB UK.

Laura is the founder of Seep, an award-winning, B Corp brand that is shaking up the last undisrupted aisle of cleaning tools with products that work brilliantly, that are better for the planet and that look great next to your sink.

Before becoming a founder, she worked in the consumer and retail industry her entire career. She’s been operator-side, with Selfridges and Kingfisher plc, advisor-side, with Deloitte and Booz, and investor-side where, before Seep, she was an angel investor into female-led consumer and tech businesses.

She is a West London mum of two, a Cartier Women’s Initiative Fellow and a trustee of ed tech charity Hello World.

I’m an edtech SaaS founder and CEO with experience as a non-executive director, trustee and Chair.

I co-founded Firefly Learning to solve my own frustrations as a GCSE student; it creates software for schools to drive better learning outcomes through effective engagement of parents and students.  At first, I built the business as a sideline throughout my Computer Science degree at Oxford, a PhD at Cambridge and a stint on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs.  I helped it grow to a team of 75 experts supporting around 900 schools across the UK and in 50 countries worldwide.  As CEO, I led it through two rounds of venture capital, including from an EIS fund, and the acquisition and integration of two other companies to a successful exit to a US-based edtech business.  I’m now a non-executive director of several businesses and charities, including another EIS-backed tech startup.

Sophie is the Head of Partnerships at Allica Bank, working with organisations who are passionate about supporting and serving UK SMEs. Prior to this, she spent  more than a decade working in high-growth technology companies, from pre-revenue startups to VC backed scales ups. Previously Sophie was the first employee and part of the founding team at Receipt Bank (Dext), the leading automated bookkeeping platform for accountants, bookkeepers and SMEs.

Eamonn Ives is the Research Director at The Entrepreneurs Network, having joined in September 2022. In November 2020, he wrote Green Entrepreneurship for The Entrepreneurs Network – with several of the report’s recommendations having since been adopted by the UK Government.

Eamonn previously served as a Special Adviser to the Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP in his role as the President of COP26. Prior to that, he worked at the Centre for Policy Studies as their Head of Energy and Environment, authoring eight policy reports.

Eamonn has featured extensively in the print and broadcast media, writing for CapX, The Times, The Telegraph, CityAM, ConservativeHome, and Reaction, and featuring on BBC Radio 4, LBC, Times Radio, and various podcasts.

Joanna Jensen joined the EISA as Chair of the Board in June 2024. She is the founder of the British baby and child personal care brand, Childs Farm. Created in 2010 as a solution to her own daughter’s sensitive and eczema prone skin, their range from content to bottle is thought through to ensure they are best for skin and best for planet. Launched in Boots and Waitrose in 2014, Childs Farm became the leading brand in its segment by 2019. Jensen received investment into Childs Farm using both the SEIS and the EIS. In March 2022, Jensen sold Childs Farm for £36.8mn to PZ Cussons Plc, the personal care company and owner of well-known brands Imperial Leather, St. Tropez and Carex.

Since selling her business Jensen has become an active angel investor, investing through the SEIS and EIS in startups across the UK. Jensen supports women in business, mentorship, sustainability, and charity. She serves on the Advisory Board of Buy Women Built (BWB), mentors with Imperial College’s Venture Mentoring Service (IVMS) and advises the Sustainable Beauty Coalition, working with charities like The Riding for the Disabled Association, The Parallel Club, and Surfers Against Sewage.

Emma is the best-selling author of the business books Spare Room StartUp, Working 5 to 9, Go Global, The StartUp Kit and Turn Your Talent Into a Business. In June 2012 Emma was awarded an MBE for Services to Enterprise. She was awarded the rank Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2021. In November 2015, she was appointed by the UK Prime Minister as a Business Ambassador with a focus on increasing international trade. In July 2016, Emma was appointed SME Representative for Crown Commercial Service.

Triin is the Founding Partner of Sie Ventures. Sie Ventures backs early stage diverse founding teams and mission driven businesses across fintech, healthtech and sustainability. Sie Ventures also runs Catalyst Programs for early stage female entrepreneurs to provide better access to capital, support and network._

Formerly Triin was Investor at The Venture Collective, Founders Factory and Startupbootcamp. Before her career in investments, she was a founder and operator of 3x startups across FinTech & Future of Work.

Paul is a Chartered Management Accountant and has 30 years’ experience of corporate management, turnarounds, business development and active shareowner engagement. Paul’s experience spans several sectors, principally consumer goods, manufacturing and healthcare, with companies such as Mars Confectionery, BUPA and Price Waterhouse.

In his spare time Paul can usually be found in the garden or tinkering with old cars in the garage.

Kanishka is the Member of Parliament for the Vale of Glamorgan, and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Britain’s Environment Secretary.

He previously spent nearly a decade in technology capital markets in the UK, Europe and the US, working with AI, Fintech and Climate entrepreneurs in solving tough societal problems with new technology. He also advised FTSE boards and governments on finance at Lazard, and served in government as Senior Adviser at the Cabinet Office and Expert Adviser to the Environment Secretary.

Christian Owens founded Paddle in 2012 when he was 18. He led Paddle as CEO for 11 years, scaling the business to 4,000 customers, completing a $200M acquisition of US-based ProfitWell, and a $1.4 billion valuation. In addition to Paddle, Christian invests in 5-10 seed-stage startups per year. He’s been named in the Forbes 30 Under 30, and is a Thiel Fellow. Since stepping down from Paddle in 2024, Christian has been working on a new company which is currently in stealth.

Sabrina is the founder and CEO of Kore, a Financial Technology company based in London. She has over 30 years’ experience in financial markets, business transformation and applications of new technologies in banking. Throughout her career, Sabrina has held senior roles at JP Morgan Chase, Barclays and Coutts. Sabrina was the Chief Digital Transformation Officer and a member of the Executive committee of Williams & Glyn (RBS Group). She currently serves on the Board of Governors of the London Foundation of Banking and Finance. She has won a number of innovation awards for her work and has been included in the Innovate Finance Women in FinTech Powerlist for the last four years. In 2023 she won the EISA Entrepreneur of the Year award. Sabrina holds a Masters in Finance from the London Business School and a degree in Business and Economics from the University of Turin. An Italian national, she lives and works in London.

Katie is the Head of FinTech at DBT for His Majesty’s Government, Co-Founder of The Power Collective and angel investor. Shortlisted for Angel of the Year 2024, she invests across fintech, AI, wellness, IoT, robotics and feminine health markets and is on the Board of Zeed AI, one of the UK’s fastest growing fintechs. A former fund manager and algorithmic trader, Katie is twice winner of Financial News’ Top 40 Under 40, UN Women UK Delegate, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader nominee and named in Innovate Finance’s FinTech Power List of Senior Leaders. She ran ETF Product Distribution at BlackRock, co-managed Vanguard’s flagship LifeStrategy funds and managed the Middle East region for Macquarie’s Securities business.

Philip Salter founded The Entrepreneurs Network in 2014 with the aim of building an organisation with the aim of helping make Britain the best place in the world to start and grow a business.

Philip was previously Business Features Editor of City A.M. where he wrote a weekly column on entrepreneurship and interviewed many of Britain’s leading entrepreneurs.

He is a frequent speaker at conferences, writes a column for Forbes on entrepreneurship and appears regularly elsewhere in the media.

Mark Sims is Director of Funds at the British Business Bank (BBB) and manages the Enterprise Capital Funds (ECF) programme. BBB is the government-owned business development bank dedicated to making finance markets work better for smaller businesses. The ECF is a fund of fund equity programme for early-stage UK venture capital. To date ECF has committed more the £1.3bn into 46 funds. It also has a strong track record of backing first time and emerging UK managers, being the first institutional investor is almost all the 46 funds to date.

Alex Sullivan is Managing Partner and CEO of all Clifton Media group companies. These include: IFA Magazine, GBi Tax Efficient Publishing, Wealth/DFM, New Insurance Professional, Property & Mortgage Investment, MV Pro, Robo Pro and Automation media

Henry studied Classics at the University of Oxford before joining Beauhurst in 2014. He started and runs Beauhurst’s Research & Consultancy department which produces research on the UK’s startups and scaleups for organisations including the British Business Bank, Innovate UK and BEIS. 

Beauhurst provides research and insight to help professionals discover and track the UK’s high-growth companies.

Beauhurst’s data platform, available at beauhurst.com, provides data and alerts on the most ambitious businesses in Britain. It is used by leading organisations from across the world of finance, professional services, higher education and government to better understand the high-growth economy.

Beauhurst regularly produce reports based on their data, examining a diverse range of topics from investment trends to mapping the UK’s scale-ups; from FinTech to BioTech.

Stephen joined the Group in 2019 as an Investment Director for the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF) team, focusing on early stage opportunities before taking on the role of Deputy Fund Principal for EIS. Stephen has spent the last 10 years supporting Midlands-based businesses in a finance capacity. Prior to joining the Group, Stephen was an investor at the Housing Growth Partnership, investing in small and mid-sized housebuilders across the Midlands. Stephen has also spent time in the Midlands office of Lloyds Bank’s leverage finance team, working on acquisition facilities to support private equity buy outs across a multitude of sectors including telecoms, media and technology, manufacturing, leisure, education, and oil and gas.