Accelerate Cambridge workshop facilitators

I am a HR Consultant providing flexible and practical support to boards, management teams, HR teams, VC’s and line managers for over 14 years. I have extensive experience in global HR management, change management, strategic HR leadership, across various sectors, including technology, education, legal, and manufacturing. I am also a Governor at St Mary’s Girls School in Cambridge, where I contribute to the strategic direction and governance of the school.

I am passionate about working senior leaders/teams to create great places to work, and to attract and retain talent. I have been involved in a number of start-up projects, assisting the leadership teams with the people and talent strategies, setting up offices in different countries, and creating innovative cultures to engage and retain staff. I have also facilitated and developed strategic L&D programmes for leaders and managers, and coached senior executives on HR issues. Additionally, I have successfully completed due diligence and exit processes for businesses, leading the HR requirements and communications. I am passionate about delivering high-quality HR solutions that align with the business goals and values.

In addition to my Strategy and Entrepreneurship teaching responsibilities, I work on advancing startups (by mentoring, and by creating and running venture builders), on advancing business ecosystems (by consulting on ecosystem strategy, and through my Faster Climate Impact project), and on advancing innovation ecosystems (through the Innovation Ecosystems Network at Wolfson College). My work aims to protect liberal democracy by strengthening our innovation capacities. My research interests include collaborative innovation, top management teams in ventures, venture builders, networks and innovation ecosystems. I’m a member of the Strategy and International Business subject group.

Ann is Head of Practice at the Entrepreneurship Centre working across the Accelerate, Ignite, Venture Creation and Envision programmes. Prior to joining the Centre, she was Enterprise Programme Director at the Scottish Institute for Enterprise, working across all Scottish Universities and Colleges to kickstart and support entrepreneurship and innovation. Her areas of interest include helping new founders develop a purpose led venture, identifying, and working with company values and prototyping and iterating into your value proposition. She is also a certified Design Futurist and Foresight Practitioner with expertise in helping ventures design and operate resilient, sustainable, and innovative business models.

I am a HR Consultant providing flexible and practical support to boards, management teams, HR teams, VC’s and line managers for over 14 years. I have extensive experience in global HR management, change management, strategic HR leadership, across various sectors, including technology, education, legal, and manufacturing. I am also a Governor at St Mary’s Girls School in Cambridge, where I contribute to the strategic direction and governance of the school.

I am passionate about working senior leaders/teams to create great places to work, and to attract and retain talent. I have been involved in a number of start-up projects, assisting the leadership teams with the people and talent strategies, setting up offices in different countries, and creating innovative cultures to engage and retain staff. I have also facilitated and developed strategic L&D programmes for leaders and managers, and coached senior executives on HR issues. Additionally, I have successfully completed due diligence and exit processes for businesses, leading the HR requirements and communications. I am passionate about delivering high-quality HR solutions that align with the business goals and values.

Michael Grange is a technologist experienced in retail, ecommerce, supply chain and logistics, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals. Michael’s career has seen him developing technology products for global markets, managing business transformation, and directing the digitisation of businesses, from start-ups to FTSE 100 blue chips, leading teams across the UK, EMEA, US and India. An advocate of Lean and Agile practices with a passion for delivering great customer experiences, Michael helps businesses become value-driven and customer-centric by applying a focused and disciplined approach to their work. Michael coaches startup & scale-up businesses in the UK and US, and has recently established his own business, Parker Veese, helping others through the simplification of technology and business process leadership. Michael is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI)

My research interests focus on the governance of innovation, entrepreneurship, and new technology. I examine how individuals and organisations create positive social change by way of entrepreneurship. Specifically I study both the contextual and individual factors that contribute to innovation and the sustained alignment of that innovation with desirable future states. I’m a member of the Organisational Theory and Information Systems subject group at Cambridge Judge Business School, Academic Co-Director of the Cambridge Judge Entrepreneurship Centre, and current Deputy Editor at the Academy of Management Journal (formerly Associate Editor). “The governance of innovation and new technologies requires working through our tendency toward polarisation to embrace complexity and competing demands.”

Creating the Right Visual Content: Keith’s session will give tips, tricks, and technical help to consider when producing video content to advertise your business and products.

Keith is a multi-National award winning Picture Editor and photographer. With over 40 years’ experience in the media supplying photographs and video for use around the world, he’ll be sharing some of that expertise to help you have the best chance in creating video and photography for your businesses.

Starting in weekly newspapers, then running his own business Keith then went into daily newspapers, coming to Cambridge 23 years ago to be Picture Editor of the Cambridge Evening News photographic team and managing the supply of photographs to 11 Daily Editions and 10 weekly newspapers and magazines. Keith then joined the start-up Cambridge Independent as Picture Editor with just four people growing to16 by Sept 2016 since then they have been voted the best weekly newspaper in the country for five consecutive years and have grown to own 40 newspapers from Scotland to Hampshire, a radio station, and TV station.

I am passionate about helping ambitious founders and investors to build strong, viable early-stage ventures. As a professional entrepreneurship coach, educational programme director, serial founder, and fractional leader, I have over a decade of experience in starting, building, funding, and scaling business ventures. I work with founders, investors, and business leaders at any stage with a particular focus around pre-seed – Series A ventures. I also work to support universities and educational environments with their entrepreneurial programming. I am particularly passionate about helping founders and high growth brands create strong communication and commercial strategies that unlock opportunity, secure investment, and drive growth. For investors I can support your portfolio companies and de-risk your investments through supporting your portfolio leaders to drive accountability and growth. Through my work as an Entrepreneurship Coach and Mentor, I am highly intentional in creating strong confident leaders and powerful authentic brands. When my clients work with me they don’t just get business coaching, they unlock an entire eco-system of opportunity. How I can help you: Founder & Investor Portfolio Entrepreneurship Coaching | Fractional Leadership and Commercial Growth | Brand Development | Board and Advisory Board roles | Entrepreneur in Residence | Business Development for Entrepreneurial Ventures and Accelerator or Incubator Programmes | Brand Partnerships

As experienced talent acquisition partners, Matthew designs and delivers end-to-end talent acquisition solutions for UK based high-tech start-up and scale-ups, integrating quickly and seamlessly with internal stakeholders to help create instant hiring success through the use of modern talent acquisition techniques.

Matthew has over 20 years of experience working within a wide range of organisations from start-ups and scale-ups to SMEs, managing the talent acquisition of a wide variety of both technical and non-technical roles in specialist areas, including AI and machine learning, software development, electronics engineering and semiconductors, sales and marketing, and product management.

Matthew’s focus is on ensuring his clients find the people they need, as quickly as possible, while ensuring the need to use expensive ‘external’ resources in minimised, allowing clients to focus on their day jobs, giving the company back a significant amount of time that would have otherwise been spent on hiring new people.

Term Sheets: Chris will provide an overview of the key elements of a typical fundraising term sheet.

Chris is a partner and head of the emerging companies’ team at Mishcon de Reya. He has over a decade of experience advising early stage and fast growth businesses, particularly in the technology sector.

Chris practices both as a corporate lawyer and commercial and IP specialist and splits his time between offices in the golden triangle of UK innovation; Cambridge (where he lives), London, and Oxford. Mishcon de Reya’s market-leading technology practice advises on over 150 fundraising transactions every year, acting for both growth companies and angel, venture capital and corporate investors.

Tony Kypreos is an entrepreneur, investor, corporate innovator and academic educator with more than 30 years of international leadership experience. He specialises in helping scientific and technology founders translate research into viable, investable ventures that deliver positive human and planetary impact. Tony is the founder of Synesi Ventures, a specialist innovation partner working with universities, research institutions, corporations and founders across healthcare, MedTech, climate, biodiversity and environmental regeneration. He is Entrepreneur in Residence at King’s College London’s London Institute for Healthcare Engineering and lectures and mentors in innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Dealmaker for the UK Government’s Global Entrepreneur Programme, supporting high-potential international technology ventures to establish and scale from the UK, and serves on the Advisory Council of Accelerate2030, an international venture acceleration initiative supporting entrepreneurs addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Tony’s entrepreneurial and investment experience includes founding and scaling technology ventures, corporate venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, venture building and advising growth companies. Earlier in his career, he held Executive Board roles with T-Mobile International, Deutsche Telekom, Bauer Media and agency.com, where he was part of the leadership team behind its $800 million Nasdaq IPO. His current focus is supporting ambitious scientific founders to commercialise innovation ethically, build investable businesses and achieve measurable real-world impact.

Charles has 40 years’ experience in marketing and growing companies. He has successfully navigated through 3 major recessions and 2 tech booms, and has worked in textiles; telecommunications; software; data processing; financial services and education. Working for Courtaulds, IWS, Accenture, Mercury communications, Extel and Societe General. Charles’ specialism is marketing and strategy; encompassing market research (founding one of the UK’s first computerised marketing intelligence systems), market planning; marcomms; new product launches; branding and strategy. He co-founded a consultancy and Fintech startup in the 1980s and then founded Cambridge Marketing College in 1991, growing it to a dominant position in its sector before retiring in 2016 to run a publishing venture and establish his foundation. Charles is an author of numerous articles and textbooks on marketing. He is a visiting lecturer in marketing and innovation. He is also vice chair of trustees for the Cromwell Museum. Charles has a degree in Modern History and Economics from Manchester University and an MBA from Warwick Business School. Charles is on the Advisory Panel of Harvard Business Review, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an advisor for Astia and a Chartered Marketer. In 2017 Charles was voted one of the most influential businesspeople in Cambridge. Skills: Market research, Market planning, Marcomms, New product launches, Branding and strategy. Industry: Telecommunications, Education, Software.

My research interests are in innovation, marketing, international business, strategy, policy and development. I particularly focus on frugal innovation in large and small firms in developed and emerging economies. I am also interested in frugal innovation in the public sector and how governments should cultivate and regulate new technologies in the economy. I’m a member of the Marketing subject group at Cambridge Judge Business School, which focuses on strategy, modelling, and consumer behaviour. “Small teams in large and startup organisations can now innovate to solve the wicked problems of our time such as climate change and inequality.”

Daniil is an experienced venture builder with more than 12 years in launching and scaling technology startups worldwide. Holding an MBA from Cambridge Judge Business School, his notable achievements include successfully distributing over 50,000 VR headsets at Fibrum via major retail channels such as Best Buy and Amazon, and expanding Radario, an event analytics platform, into the US and UK through a key partnership with Eventbrite. Daniil also co-founded Libi & Daughters, a luxury direct-to-consumer skincare brand, and currently serves as Head of TonTon Games, a Web3 gaming venture. Across his entrepreneurial journey, he has secured over £3.5 million in funding. Committed to fostering entrepreneurial success, he actively mentors startup founders through global programmes including Barclays Eagle Labs, LSE Generate,

and Accelerate Cambridge, helping them streamline their path to product-market fit.

Jeremy has over a decade of business and technology commercialisation experience. His previous roles include CTO at an instrumentation company (technology acquired) and data analyst within the online transaction space. His ‘IP portfolio’ includes several granted patents and more than ten peer reviewed publications. Education: University of Cambridge Engineering PhD and Signal Processing MSc from University of Bristol.

My research interests include entrepreneurship education, technology ventures, and entrepreneurial behaviour. I previously spent 10 years at Imperial College Business School as director of the full-time MBA programme and a principal teaching fellow. My MBA course in entrepreneurship was ranked 3rd in the world by the Financial Times. Outside work, I’m a social entrepreneur and an advocate for trafficked women, in which capacity I’ve advised Parliament. I hold several non-executive directorships and have advised over 100 technology startups.

I have over 30 years of experience working in the deeptech industry and academia with high technology companies and in company cluster development. I hold a Dr.Sc. in information systems science in computer games development. I started my real entrepreneurial journey setting up a sports software company back in 1999, innovating sports technology with sports industry partners (wearables with e.g. heart rate variability and training effect, wristop GPS for various sports) and smart phone applications which I exited successfully. Since then I have been part of several startups and now run 3 companies (video games edutech, educational content production, ‘other stuff’). I have worked on my topics at CJBS, Aalto University Finland, Warwick University, LMU Munich, Linneaus University Sweden, and other places, and have a background both in academia and industry.

My current big project is running a video games related educational university programme for people between 18-25 with over 100,000 participants in over 140 countries — the Netflix of Video Games with Education, or EasyJet of tech education, affordable for everyone. I also maintain a great network of connections. I have raised millions of public and private money and evaluated hundreds of SME grant applications for European Commission startup programmes, Eureka for instance, across many fields. Specialties: video games and related tech (VR/AR/Mobile); edutech and educational programme development; gamification; financial systems; public grant funding applications (as an evaluator); software development; sports industry and well-being applications; entrepreneurship; and research in information systems and games.

Presenting your Best Self: Jeremy will be sharing his experiences and guiding you through the process of honing down your key message as well as offering advice on how best to communicate that message clearly and concisely.

As a former multi award-winning broadcaster, Jeremy is excellently placed to offer a unique insight from the other side of the mic and camera. With over twenty years’ experience at the BBC working as a radio and television presenter at BBC Look East, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and BBC Radio 4, he also appeared on BBC Radio 1, 5 Live, and 6 Music. His career has seen him interview high-ranking politicians, business leaders and A-list celebrities from the worlds of music, film and sport. He now runs Sallis Media which specialises in helping companies share their message with the world more effectively through customised media training, empowering them to build audiences, boost sales and protect their reputation.