Alpesh Patel OBE 

Global Entrepreneur Programme Dealmaker and CEO of Praefinium Partners 

Alpesh Patel OBE is a DIT Global Entrepreneur Programme Dealmaker. He is CEO of an asset management company, Praefinium Partners. Over 300m view his BBC Paper Review.

He is International Bestselling Author with 18 books on investing and entrepreneurship translated into Polish, Russian, Manadarin, Spanish, German, French and Korean.

Financial Times and Bloomberg TV Alumnus, former Visiting Fellow in Business, Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, Co-founder, UK Chapter of the World's Largest Entrepreneurs Mentoring Organisation (TiE.org). 

His campaignforamillion.com was established to teach a million people how to become better investors.

As a GEP dealmaker, Alpesh supports companies by using his networks to open doors for organic growth, strategic partnerships or funding. Alpesh also helps companies with strategy advice, especially on raising capital and growth plans. 

Anne Glover CBE

Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Amadeus

Anne co-founded Amadeus Capital Partners in 1997 with Hermann Hauser.  Building on her scientific training and operating experience, Anne has been an active venture capitalist for over thirty years.

Early in her career Anne lived in the US, working in manufacturing with Cummins Engine Company and in strategy consulting with Bain & Co, before returning to the UK to join Apax Partners in 1989 to invest in early stage companies. She became Chief Operating Officer of one of her investee companies, Virtuality Group, after it listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1993, and then returned to investing as a business angel before founding Amadeus in 1997.

A former Chairman of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (2004/05) and Invest Europe (formerly EVCA) (2014/15), Anne was appointed as a Non-Executive Director of the Court of the Bank of England in 2018.  In 2019, Anne became a member of the Investment Committee of Yale Corporation (the endowment) and, in January 2021, Anne was appointed as an external member of the Venture Capital Investment Committee of CDC Group, the UK’s development finance institution.

Chris Hulatt

Co-Founder of Octopus Group

Chris co-founded Octopus in 2000 from the front room of his London flat. Today, Octopus has more than £10 billion of funds under management from retail and institutional investors and is a leading investor in renewable energy, real estate and venture capital. 

In 2016 Octopus launched its consumer energy supply business, Octopus Energy, providing customers with fair pricing combined with truly digital customer service. It has scaled quickly to more than 2 million customers and is the only supplier to be recommended by Which magazine four years in a row.

In 2017, Chris was named EY UK Entrepreneur of the Year. Chris is a Chartered Financial Analyst and has an MA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and is a Board Member of the Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership.

Brent Hoberman CBE

Co-Founder of Founders Factory

Brent is Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Founders Factory (global venture studios, seed programmes and accelerator programmes), Founders Forum (global community of founders, corporates and tech leaders), and firstminute capital ($250m seed fund with global remit, backed over 100 unicorn founders). Previously, Brent co-founded lastminute.com in 1998, was CEO from its inception, and sold it in 2005 to Sabre for $1.1bn. Technology businesses Brent has co-founded have raised over $1bn and include Karakuri and made.com.

Brent is Chairman of the Karakuri board and sits on the advisory boards of The Royal Academy, the UK Government Digital Service, the WEF Digital Europe Group and the Imperial College Innovation Fund. He is also a Champion of Change for The Global Tech Group, has been an advisor to four UK prime ministers and in 2015 was awarded a CBE for his services to entrepreneurship.

Damien Lane

Founding Partner at Episode 1 Ventures

Damien is an active angel investor and Founding Partner at Episode 1 Ventures, a UK based seed investor.

He has been investing in private companies for 25 years, having started his investment career at Electra, the Private Equity firm, where he became a partner before moving into early stage investment at Octopus Ventures and then starting Episode 1 Ventures in 2012.  He has degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, though he bleeds dark blue, and gets to mix business with pleasure as a Board Member of London Marathon Events.   

Clients of their investee companies such as Risk Ledger, Betfair, Shazam, LoveFilm, Zoopla, Attest,  include BaE Systems, Asos, Telenor, City of London, Microsoft, Santander, Wise

Baroness Verma

Member of the House of Lords

Businesswoman and Parliamentarian. Member of the House of Lords since 2006. Former Minister and Champion for Equality and Gender issues. Chair of the EU Sub Committee for Goods. Member of the EU Select Committee. Chair of UN Women UK

Baroness Verma served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for International Development from May 2015 until July 2016. She has been a Conservative member of the House of Lords since 2006 and previously served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for DECC. Prior to becoming Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for DECC, Baroness Verma was Spokesperson for Cabinet Office, International Development, Women and Equalities and Business Innovation and Skills. Baroness Verma started her first business at the age of 19 in high fashion, supplying high street multiples. In 2000 she changed her business to the service sector.

Baroness Verma was born in Punjab, India, and moved to the UK with her parents when she was 1 year old. She lives in Leicester with her husband and has a daughter and a son.

Nishma Gosrani OBE

Financial Services Partner at Bain & Company

Nishma Gosrani OBE is a Financial Services Partner at Bain & Company in London. Her work focuses on human capital transformation, as well as the future of work and culture.

Nishma has nearly two decades of Big 4 Financial Services Consulting experience across geographies, throughout which she has architected and deployed strategic people initiatives. Her breadth of expertise spans all facets of human capital, workforce strategy, re-organisation design, cost restructuring, and talent management.

Her work lies at the intersection of front and middle office, as well as corporate and enabling functions, with a comprehensive understanding of the impact of regulatory reform. For several years, she led the Financial Services Culture, People Change, and Organisation Design practice for another top firm.

Nishma has been listed in the Financial Times' "Top 35 Future Leaders" list.

She was invested with an OBE in Her Majesty’s 2020 Honours List for services to diversity and inclusion, pioneering gender pay gap reporting, and the subsequent changes to the Equality Act. She has been honoured with numerous other awards, including "Asian Professional of the Year" at the Asian Achievers Awards, and was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Natasha Lytton

Head of Brand at Seedcamp

Natasha runs brand, marketing and platform at European VC Seedcamp, driving the Seedcamp brand itself and working closely with the fund's 390+ portfolio companies, which includes unicorns Wise, Hopin, Revolut and publicly listed UiPath, on everything from defining brand purpose to the art of creative storytelling and go-to-market strategies. She also runs Seedcamp's broader portfolio support offering, creating the infrastructure to support the 1000+ founders in the Seedcamp Nation.

Before joining Seedcamp almost 5 years ago, Natasha worked across multiple agencies with global consumer brands including the likes of Nespresso and Barclays and in-house at Which? before making the jump to startup land where she was CMO at numerous early-stage consumer startups; one became the fastest-growing brand in its category and another shut down, so she understands the highs and lows of the early-stage experience.

Nick Stanley 

LP in Maven Ventures

Nick Stanley is an active entrepreneur with a focus on the success of regional startups…simply put, Nick loves high growth companies.  Tech, startups and innovation are his purpose.

Nick’s significant success story to date was Sky Software which he founded in 2011 and led to an acquisition by Tribal Group PLC in March 2014.  At its time of acquisition, Sky Software (a SAAS provider) quickly grew to become one of the largest privately held software companies in regional Australia inside three years. Following acquisition Nick then headed up Tribal Group (FTSE: TRB) APAC until 2017, during which time he consolidated their $100m+ APAC P&L and led three of the largest international software deals in the company’s history, including replacing SAP at the British Council.

Sky Software was Nick’s second successful startup exit but since then Nick has co-founded several other successful projects including FitMyCar, Educrowd (now Skills Base), Runway and SettleEasy.  FitMyCar has been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in the Automotive sector, Skills Base is an international leader in the provision of skills management software in North America, and SettleEasy has become a top 10 national conveyancer in under two years.

In addition to his commercial activities, Nick is a board member of Skilling the Bay, a member of the Anam Cara philanthropic charity, member of the Barwon Regional Partnerships advisory board, past chair of ICT Geelong, founding member of the Geelong Angel Investor Network, and founding vice-president of Pivot Summit.

Erik Mostenicky

Fintech Investor at Fidelity Int. Strategic Ventures

Erik is a VC investor at Fidelity focusing on Fintech and Technology businesses aimed at the Asset management industry. Currently he advises the boards of Moonfare.com, Clearx.io, Hvmd.io and is developing theses on the Disruptions of the Trading Infrastructure and Democratisation of Wealth.

Prior to Fidelity, Erik was with EY-Parthenon and FIS, focusing on strategy and corporate development efforts and co-founded a hospitality business in Slovakia.

Erik graduated from Vienna University of Economics and University College London (Hons). His passions are the Mountains whether that is by foot or on the skies combined with Italian food & wine.

Fidelity invest in founders that are shaping the future of finance. The team seeks to partner with visionary entrepreneurs that are redefining Wealth and Asset Management. We’re excited by unique business models, emerging technologies and new perspectives. We invest in category leaders that can create new markets, enhance portfolio returns or disrupt traditional processes. We harness the global network and deep industry expertise of Fidelity International to accelerate growth. Our portfolio includes DriveWealth, Alpima, HinveMind, Moneybox, PrimaryBid.

Sophie Winwood

Associate at Anthemis’ Investment

Sophie is an Associate within Anthemis’ Investment Partnership team, where she helps discover, evaluate and execute early stage investments.

She started her career at Deloitte, qualifying as a chartered accountant before moving into financial services mergers and acquisitions (M&A), where she worked on a variety of banking, insurance and fintech transactions. Most recently she headed up partnerships at Innovate Finance, the independent membership association that represents the UK’s global FinTech community.

A born and bred Londoner, Sophie has a master’s degree in molecular and cellular biochemistry from the University of Oxford, where she also played women’s rugby. She still plays (tag) rugby and also enjoys getting outside on her bike or running when she can.

Anthemis invest in (and profit from) those technology-driven companies that are driving change in finance. Our portfolio currently comprises a diversified portfolio of best-in-class, high-growth, digitally native financial services companies based around the world. The portfolio includes alt.bank, atom, Apis partners, Apollo, Betterment, Currencycloud, etoro, monese, Quantopian, Seedcamp, Stocktwits, Tide.

Daven Nijran-Talwar 

Investor, Rev Venture Partners 

Daven Nijran-Talwar is an investor at REV Venture Partners, a global venture capital partnership backed by one of the world’s largest content, technology and analytics companies, RELX.  REV specialises in industry re-invention and has deployed over $250m of capital since 2000

Daven has been involved with a number of REV’s investments and portfolio companies, including Palantir, Babbel, Recorded Future, SingleStore and Mode Analytics.

Daven previously started his career as a management consultant with PwC, working across the Capital Markets and Financial Services sectors.

Gideon Valkin

Investor, Entree Capital

Gideon is an investor at Entree Capital, an early stage venture fund that were early investors in Cazoo and Deliveroo (in the UK);  Stripe, Gusto and Stash (in the US); Monday.com, Riskified and Rapyd (in Israel); Coupang in South Korea and many more.

Gideon spent six years in banking, at Citigroup and then Credit Suisse where he was a VP of Capital Markets. In 2014, he co-founded fintech startup FriendlyScore, a B2B analytics tool for online lending businesses. In 2016, Gideon joined consumer fintech startup ClearScore where he led the commercial team until 2019 when he went to serve as the Commercial Director at Monzo, UK’s leading digital bank. Gideon has a Bachelors from Harvard University and an MBA from Insead.

Nish Kotecha

Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Finboot

Nish Kotecha, is an tech entrepreneur and investment banking professional. Nish is the Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Finboot (London, Barcelona) which is a technology company that gives its world class customers a competitive edge through accelerating their digital transformation, realising value and building trust through blockchain.

Finboot has developed MARCO, an ecosystem which brings together blockchain technologies in one place, connecting multiple ledgers simultaneously. It enables companies to incorporate blockchain within their value and supply chains, bring traceability, transparency and compliance which, in turn, helps them meet sustainability and ESG requirements while also increasing operational efficiency.  Finboot is headquartered in the Cardiff, UK with a base in Barcelona, Spain.

Previously, he founded Geosansar, a fintech pioneer in India created in India to provide financial inclusion to the 600 million unbanked. Combining technology and traditional opening models to deliver banking, payments and insurance services.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Nish held senior positions at Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan and BZW (Part of the Barclays Bank Group). His career spanned roles leadership roles in Capital Markets and M&A from EMEA, US, South East Asia and India.