Meet our MSt in Entrepreneurship mentors

Mentors of the MSt in Entrepreneurship programme are assigned to each student and offer continuous one-to-one practical support and advice throughout the 2 years of the programme.

They are experienced entrepreneurs who aim to support students to develop their ideas into real businesses, or to find ways of efficiently scaling and refining their existing business strategies.

Vineta Bajaj

Group Finance Director @ Ocado Group

Vineta is currently Group Finance Director at Ocado Group PLC, the FTSE 50 online grocer and technology provider, with £3bn revenue globally, and has worked there since early 2013.

For the last 5 years, Vineta has been responsible for helping internationalise the business into 9 new geographic regions as well as raising over £2bn to enable the business to grow including key finance projects such as M&A and strategic divestments.

Vineta has worked closely with the business to drive a business transformation from being a pure-play online retailer to a logistics and solutions technical provider to the e-commerce and retail space. Vineta also acts as an Angel Investor & Advisor to a number of pre-seed start-ups across fintech, e-commerce and e-sports.

Vineta is looking to support businesses in their e-commerce challenges globally across executive and non-executive advisory roles.

Visit her LinkedIn profile

Emmanuel Carraud

CEO, appChocolate

Emmanuel Carraud is an entrepreneur and investor in mobile application, digital marketing and property industry. He is the co-founder and CEO of AppChocolate, the festive mobile apps publisher.

AppChocolate’s most famous app for iPhone and Android, Advent Calendar – 25 Days of Christmas, offers 25 games and gifts for free each year and reached over two million users on iOS and Android.

As a serial entrepreneur, Emmanuel co-founded MagicSolver.com, the apps discovery specialists, in 2009 and reached over 50 million downloads, ranking number one on the iTunes App Store in over 40 countries.

As a property investor, he manages Maison Invest, which run a portfolio of residential properties, single lets, HMOs and serviced accommodations across the UK.

Emmanuel has over 20 years’ experience in consumer marketing and mobile advertising across Europe. We worked previously as a Brand Manager for Danone and Galbani, a Market Research Consultant for Nielsen, and a Category Manager for Auchan, a leading global retailer. Fluent in French, Spanish and English, he has a masters degree from Sciences Po, Paris, and an MBA from the University of Cambridge Judge Business School.

He is also helping the next generation of entrepreneurs as an investor and as a mentor for the Masters in Entrepreneurship at Cambridge Judge Business School, since 2015.

Julian Childs

Career Coach, Regent’s University London

Julian delights in helping people get clear on their goals and forge personally meaningful business success. He inspires and even kick-starts relevant networking by sharing techniques that can open the right doors and fast-track clients towards personal fulfilment.

Julian is a Registered Career Development Professional with the Career Development Institute and other qualifications include a bachelors degree in Economics and a masters in Creative Leadership. He is also expert in ‘How to Use LinkedIn’ and delivers seminars on the subject at several top business schools. Alongside, he mentors many young entrepreneurs: his current portfolio of startup clients ranges from design to export via consulting, with fintech, fashion, lifestyle and food brands.

Julian’s own extensive career spans sales, marketing, account management, business development and mentoring across financial services, advertising, self-employment, consultancy, charities, social enterprise, outplacement, interim consulting, recruitment, universities and business schools. His breadth of commercial experience and extraordinary connectivity is embodied in an international address book that has supported thousands to explore, launch, change or improve their careers.

Tim Curtis

Chairman, Lifestyle Fitness

Advisor to startups and early stage ventures

Tim Curtis has over 20 years of digital and multi-channel retail experience, from marketing, merchandising and supply chain management roles across the Boots Group to running a dotcom startup, Mothercare Direct and Lands’ End Europe. Over the last five years he has been an advisor to a variety of startups and smaller enterprises, as well providing interim executive support to Dobbies Garden Centres and Ideal Shopping Direct. He has also worked as a strategy consultant for Tesco, the RAC, Marakon Associates and LEK Consulting, lectured on Merchandising at Manchester Business School and spent five years on the Advisory Board of CatEx, the Direct Commerce Association, latterly as Deputy Chairman. He began his professional career in the Royal Engineers setting up the first Airborne Bomb Disposal troop and has found his experience in dealing with unexploded bombs and booby traps invaluable in the world of startups and multi-channel retailing. He has an MBA from INSEAD and an MA in History from St John’s College, Cambridge.

Marco Donzelli

Global CEO, HLB International

Marco is CEO at HLB International, a global leading mid-tier network of accounting and advisory firms with consolidated turnover of US £2.2 billion and presence in 150 countries.

Marco joined HLB International in February 2012 as Head of Strategic Network Development and then moved to the position of Chief Operating Officer in August 2015. During that time, he has diligently helped grow the network’s cross-border business, and drove HLB International’s growth rate to outperform that of most competitor networks.

Marco’s career has focused on leading business development projects, entrepreneurial initiatives, business transformation change management programmes. He started his career in Italy, where after a brief period with Deloitte, he moved to Deutsche Bank, where he spent over six years in both commercial and internal consultancy roles before moving to the UK.

Here, he set up a food-tech business aiming to disrupt the restaurant industry and then joined MagicSolver, a top UK mobile innovator, where he helped increase the turnover of the company by 30 per cent. He also worked with a number of consultancies where, as Engagement Manager, he led projects for large organisations in the areas of operations and strategy.

Over the last few years, Marco held several external and independent advisory roles in SMEs, and acted as a mentor in a number of programmes, including Ignite and Accelerate at Cambridge Judge Business School, and the 30% Club. He is currently a Member of the Alumni Advisory Council at Cambridge Judge Business School; and Member of the Governing Body at a Cambridge-based primary school. Marco holds an MSc in Business Economics (summa cum laude) from the University of Naples, Italy, an MBA from the University of Cambridge and a Non-Executive Director Diploma from the Financial Times.

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Ashley Friedlein

CEO & Founder, Guild

Ashley is the CEO & Founder of Guild, a private professional messaging app that meets new standards, yet is as easy to use as WhatsApp. It is advertising free, and GDPR compliant.

Ashley is one of the most influential and connected figures in digital and marketing. As one of the 100+ recommendations for him on LinkedIn reads, “If Ashley doesn’t know it – it ain’t worth knowing.”

Ashley is author of two best-selling books on digital. A columnist, commentator and blogger, he speaks worldwide on digital and marketing trends and best practice.

Ashley is involved in a number of digital businesses and ventures as investor, adviser, mentor and operationally.

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Russell Gould

CEO, Vesta Property

Russell has held leadership, director, operating board, advisory and senior level positions across financial services, insurance, technology, travel and real estate sectors.

He has managed large digital businesses (+£500m sales), worked in major FTSE companies and also started three new ventures in consulting, business finance (exited by sale in 2015) and recently launched the new proptech real estate marketplace Vesta. He also works in an advisory capacity for two fintech startups, TSB Bank and has mentored for Seedcamp.

He has extensive experience across the full e-commerce model including – new product development, omni-channel marketing and branding, including customer acquisition, retention (CRM & eCM), customer conversion (look to book/user experience) and performance optimisation (decision science/analytics).

Russell has a degree in business studies from Massey University, NZ and is a confident media spokesperson who has presented to Government.

He also has over 30 caps representing England at Touch Rugby, achieving medals in two European Championships, a Home Nations and a World Cup.

Ivor Harrison

Advisor to owner managers, boards and senior management of SMEs

For more than 20 years, Ivor has been a leader of and consultant to companies with brands often in the health and wellness sector, but also in areas as diverse as life-sciences, financial services and architectural lighting. Today he helps owners and senior managers assess context and purpose, identify gaps, develop strategy and business plans and then focus on detailed implementation with the necessary funding. He has experience in growing businesses with flat sales, in need of a turnaround, and from start-up; driving innovation and cost control; with businesses that have been PE backed, PLC, or owner-managed.

As managing director at Maximuscle, he oversaw the transformation of the company from a little-known niche sports nutrition business into the UK’s leading protein supplements brand. During his time there, the company won the Fast Growth Business Awards:
T-Mobile Company of the Year VC-backed Business of the Year, and Product Manufacturer of the Year, and was listed in the Sunday Times Profit Track 100.

As general manager of The Good Whey Co, a new division within Volac, Europe’s largest whey protein producer, the company won the Best New Brand or Business category at the European-wide FoodBev Awards, and Best New Dairy Drink at the Global Dairy Industry Awards.

He started his career at Unilever in marketing before spending time as a strategy consultant at Gemini Consulting working mostly in financial services. He has an MA from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from INSEAD.

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Andrew Hatcher

Managing Director, Applied Knowledge Network

Andrew has a long history of identifying, developing and managing innovation within corporate environments and notably created and implemented an innovation management system while working for Reuters, the European media group. His career at Reuters culminated in a role as CEO of an Asian-based Internet trading corporate spin-out in Singapore which he took through initial VC funding and on to a trade sale.

He has been involved in the creation and development of a series of companies including Investing for Good, Working Knowledge and The Mapp and is involved as a non-executive director at several growing technology companies.

With a personal corporate history that includes journalism, software development, project management, marketing and strategic sales. Andrew draws on a wealth of experience in all aspects of business management gained through working internationally, predominantly in the US and UK.

Andrew is an accomplished author including, Inventuring – why big companies must think small (McGraw Hill, 2003), Services (Kogan Page 2013), Marketing Metrics (CMP 2015), Innovation in Marketing (CMP 2016), Marketing Strategy (CMP 2016) and Contemporary Challenges (CMP 2017). These books reflect Andrew’s extensive experience in the areas of business startup and in the specialist area of innovation management, marketing and corporate venturing.

Ward Hills

Director, Makespace Cambridge

Ward is an IOD-certified director, experienced executive and entrepreneur and investor. Ward is actively involved in a number of services-based business such as deal flow software, digital healthcare consultancy, interim management and education, as well as product-based business such as a producer of nano-scale positioning and microscopy technology. Previously he directed the turnaround of a medical device company resulting in product launches in Europe and Asia in addition to a multimillion-pound investment. That opportunity grew out of a business model he created in the aerospace industry which allowed the innovations of smaller companies to be adopted more quickly by tier-one contractors with established infrastructure and paths to market.

Since founding his first business 20 years ago in the environmental management sector, developing high-level nuclear waste analysis tools, he has been involved in 100s of transactions including, partnerships, launches, and successful campaigns in the UK, Europe, Japan and Russia.

Ward has won business with multinational organisations in autonomous vehicle control, remote sensing, rapid prototyping, signal processing, regenerative medicine, predictive toxicology and medical devices. He has been a board member and observer in the US, UK and Malaysia; co-founded the East of England Stem Cell and UK Micro & Nanotechnology Networks; Member Institute of Directors (Certificate in Company Direction), American Chemical Society(ret.).

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Julie Horne

CEO, Cambridge Leadership Coaching

Julie is an experienced ICF master-accredited business and executive coach and proven businesswoman with hands-on experience of entrepreneurship and enterprise development. Based in Cambridge, she has over 25 years of experience working as a consultant and coach with senior executives, academics, entrepreneurs and high potentials mainly with science, engineering and technology backgrounds. Following an early career in teaching and graduate careers publishing she founded Oakland Innovation Ltd to provide consulting services to support innovation in Global science and technology based companies and universities. Working closely with the UK research Councils, Universities and Industry she has led a wide range of projects to promote knowledge and technology transfer both in the UK and globally.

After 17 years, Julie’s interest in this international business was successfully sold in 2006. Julie is passionate about encouraging and supporting people with entrepreneurial spirit to fulfil their potential and has since developed a variety of ways to enable this passion. She trained and became a qualified coach and has built a successful practice coaching entrepreneurial individuals in business and academia. She regularly coaches executives enrolled in programmes for The Leadership Foundation, London Business School, CASS Business School and Imperial College MBA programmes and staff development. In Cambridge she is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Anglia Ruskin University where she contributes to business teaching programmes as well as mentoring budding entrepreneurs. She is also a coach/mentor and business advisor for several of the University of Cambridge startup and business growth facilities. Her business clients include Board members in technology start up and high growth companies as well as a variety of blue chip companies such as Marchall Aerospace; Microsoft Research; Handelsbanken; GSK; Morgan Stanley; and T-Systems.

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Olutunmbi Idowu

CEO and Founder, Codex

Olutunmbi is the CEO and founder of Codex, a leading company in the domestic and international regulatory and compliance space. He is also an advisor on emerging markets at The Private Office of H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Bin Faisal Al-Qassimi and well as chief compliance advisor at DSSC Tech, a dynamic payment solution provider in the fintech space.

Olutunmbi has held many senior positions Ericsson Payment Services, Western Union International and Citigroup.

He is a permanent member of a new focus group for Digital Financial Services, owned by ITU, the International Telecommunication Union and is a frequent speaker at the United Nations in the area of trade and development.

Olutunmbi holds a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, as well as LL.B (Hons), BL (Hons) and an LLM in International Law and Theory (Post-graduate Law).

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Matt Lawson

Founder, Downstream Innovation

Matt Lawson is the Founder of Downstream Innovation, a business that supports both startups and major corporates to deliver successful innovation programmes and initiatives. Matt has over 20 years’ experience leading Innovation and R&D in one of the world’s leading telecommunications and ICT companies. As Director of Applied Innovation, he led the creation of BT’s Applied Technology Centre, transformed BT’s Hothouse and Innovation Showcases and provided new strategic direction to the Innovation Martlesham tech cluster of over 100 companies in the East of England. Prior to this he was Head of Multimedia Research as well as having experience in both project and programme management. Matt has recently taken on the role of Head of Internal Innovation at L Marks one of the UK’s leading accelerator and corporate innovation providers. He is a chartered engineer, certified leadership coach and experienced mentor. He is currently providing mentoring for Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education.

Thomas H Kessler

Partner with BlackboardM&A

Tom has over 28 years of experience in corporate finance and startups. He co-manages a venture fund for a German Family Office, has both extensive experience in buy and sell
side transactions and also M&A integration.

He has build a strong network in startup ecosystems around
the world from Munich to Stuttgart, Tel Aviv, Silicon Valley,
Vancouver and on to Singapore. True entrepreneurial performance
is based on human talent and its alignment around the purpose of
the company. Tom has focused startup, and M&A integration
teams on exactly this; creating entrepreneurial orientation on the
firms purpose, through engagement, buy-in and radical prioritization.
He founded and exited several firms, and sits on the advisory board
of a Boston based robotics venture capital firm.

His career started at a Munich based venture firm. He founded a distributor for custom hip implants before moving to New York City to manage a wide variety of corporate finance transactions. Later in my career I managed IPOs in London and Germany, was engaged in equity research before focusing on M&A integration in Europe.
His entrepreneurial spirit drove him to co-found a consulting firm
in Switzerland which grew to 23 employees before exiting the firm.

He has build a sizable practice investing in and supporting startups
as well as supporting firms in M&A integration.

Visit Patrick’s LinkedIn profile

Pantea Lotfian

Founder & Director, Camrosh

Pantea Lotfian has more than 15 years’ experience in innovation and strategy consulting that spans various industries including manufacturing, engineering chemicals energy, pharmaceuticals and FMCGs. She is a the founder and director of strategy consultancy Camrosh, Non-Executive Director of Ridgeway Information, and has served on boards of the Science Council and Pepal ltd. She has a multidisciplinary background in both science and technology with a PhD in Biochemical engineering and MPhil in Technology policy. She has built and led teams of scientists and engineers to deliver consulting projects while providing inspirational and inclusive leadership, balancing the need for world-class expertise and approachability. Pantea has a proven track record of working with businesses, governmental and academic organisation to redefine their challenges and find new opportunities. She brings new insights and ways of thinking to complex, hard to address challenges. She also has considerable experience working with start-ups and SMEs in a mentoring and advisory capacity.

Michael Marienfeld

Director Europe, Fortna

Michael has over 25 years of supply chain and consulting experience ranging from business strategy projects, inventory optimisation to forecasting. He also has designed, developed and implemented warehouses ranging from small manual operations to fully automated solutions around the world, including India, South Africa, Russia, United Kingdom and many EU countries for both retailers, wholesalers and manufacturing companies.

Michael has previously worked for Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), Kurt Salmon Associates, Javelin Group and T-Systems. In 2013, Michael returned to his first postgraduate employer, The Logistics Business, and jointly with his business partner bought the business from the original owners. They grew the business by 50% in the first two years after acquisition and sold the business in 2017 to Fortna, a US warehouse design and integration company. Michael now leads the European element of the Global Operations Design practice on behalf of Fortna, where he engages at senior level to define and direct clients’ supply chain strategy and help to develop their infrastructure requirements.

Michael holds a BA (Hons) in European Business Administration from Middlesex University, a Diplom-Betriebswirt from ESB, Reutlingen, Germany and an MSc in Logistics and Transportation from Cranfield University. He thrives on adrenaline, is a former skydiver, still an avid skier and technical diver.

Nicola Millard

Principal Innovation Partner, Enterprise CTIO, BT

Once described as “human caffeine” on Twitter, Dr Nicola Millard injects a positive, people-centred espresso shot to innovation and future strategy. Half social scientist, half technologist, all academic, she uses techniques from disciplines such as design thinking, psychology, anthropology, computing, theatre and business consulting to generate data, provocations and stories which can engage and create conversations from the board room, to the front line. There’s no frothy coffee, just genuine thought leadership using rigorous qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Nicola has successfully carved a reputation over the years as one of BT’s highest profile brand advocates with customers, at conferences, in broadcast media, and on social media (she currently has over 7.6k LinkedIn connections and Twitter followers).

She was voted one of Twitter’s early key influencers in customer experience by Forbes magazine in 2011, was listed in the top 20 of UK customer experience influencers by CX Magazine in both 2020 and 2021 and features on Ross Dawson’s prestigious list of the world’s top female futurists.

In her long and varied career at BT – mostly based at BT’s Innovation headquarters at Adastral Park in Ipswich, Suffolk – Nicola has done a number of jobs, including being a futurologist (without a crystal ball), applied research, user centred design, customer service, marketing, and business consulting. She was involved with a number of BT “firsts”, including the first application of artificial intelligence into BT’s call centres, BT’s initial experiments with home working, and developing BT’s “net easy” score, a new way of measuring customer experience. Her most recent areas of specialism are consumer trends/customer experience and the digital workplace/future of work.

Nicola gained a first-class BA (Hons) in Applied Psychology and Computing from Bournemouth University in 1990 (the only degree where you could be studying Freud in the morning and Artificial Intelligence in the afternoon), and a PhD in Computer Science from Lancaster University in 2005. Her PhD, which was sponsored by BT, was completed part time in just two years whilst simultaneously holding down a full-time day job (which was as exhausting as it sounds). Her thesis focussed on increasing the adoption of new technologies in contact centres, drawing upon theories from gamification, motivational psychology and behavioural economics (also known as ‘nudge’ theory). She published her first book in 2009 and has written over 50 papers and book chapters in both academic and commercial publications.

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Charles Nixon

Entrepreneur in Marketing Knowledge

Entrepreneur in Marketing Knowledge. Charles has experience in the telecommunications, publishing, finance and education sectors, and has had hands-on involvement in the IT revolution from the first days of PCs. Charles established one of the UK’s first computerised marketing intelligence systems, co-founded a 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 on the Advisory Panel of Harvard Business Review, and is an advisor for Astia. Fellow of Royal Society of Arts and Chartered Marketer.

Charles has developed skills over 40 years in market research, marketing and business development. An author, creator and occasional presenter of the Marketing Review podcast, Charles has a degree in Modern History and Economics from Manchester University and an MBA from Warwick Business School.

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Olu Orugboh

CEO and Founder, Synergy Solutions

Olu is the CEO and Founder of Synergy Solutions, a specialist customer experience management consultancy practice, focussed on helping companies stay at the forefront of evolving technology and the ever-changing world of customer expectations, whilst remaining resilient and future proofing their business. As a senior leader and seasoned professional with over 20 years’ experience, leading businesses through change, transformation and migration into digital environments, Olu has assisted a range of companies from startups, through to high-growth scale ups to FTSE listed companies both in the UK and Internationally to embrace digital technology, safely, whilst remaining resilient and responsive to the rapidly changing environment.

Olu has deep international experience, assisting enterprises to turnaround their failing operations through to putting in place infrastructures to support growth initiatives and introduce digital innovation.  She has extensive business experience having had the opportunity, through both through her own business, other executive level and mentoring positions to shape the strategy for a wide array of businesses and introduce digital technology, providing a range of companies with the opportunity to speed up response and enhance the quality of that response, which she believes to be vital in the delivery of an agile business. Olu is highly committed to assisting organisations to scale resiliently whilst becoming future proofed, and with growing the impact of digital technology in underserved communities.

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Maurizio Pettorino

Senior Vice President, Salesforce

Maurizio has nearly three decades of experience across a range of businesses and industries from FMCG to financial services to durable goods. He has spent time in most of the functional areas of business and he has been directly involved in the development of numerous new business and product lines, initiatives and corporate venturing.

For the past six years Maurizio has been CEO of UK and Ireland for Whirlpool Corporation. Previously, he was Marketing & Commercial Director and CEO of Coca-Cola Italy.

Before that, Maurizio was Division Vice President and Head of Corporate Card Italy at American Express Europe, Commercial Director responsible for 11 key Asian markets at Reckitt Benckiser Singapore and Commercial Director at Reckitt Benckiser Italy. He also spent 11 years working through the corporate hierarchy at Procter & Gamble in Europe, ending as Trade Marketing Senior Director responsible for all P&G business lines in Italy including snacks and food.

Maurizio is a summa cum laude Economics graduate of Federico II University in Naples and has done postgraduate work in econometrics.

Cathy Prescott

Director, Biolatris

Dr Cathy Prescott has more than two decades of experience in research, management and business in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, finance and venture capital sectors. She currently provides consultancy services to the biotechnology and insurance sectors and serves as a non-executive director on both private and public sector company boards. Cathy is also a visiting Professor at King’s College London where she teaches the commercialisation module for a Masters in Cellular Therapies. She is also a Senior Associate for the Masters in Bioscience Enterprise (Cambridge University), a member of the Babraham Institute Translational Advisory Group, a panel member for National Institute for Health Research ‘Invention for Innovation’ funding programme, a mentor for Impulse, a learning programme for tech innovators (University of Cambridge), and a member of Prudential’s Longevity Expert Advisory Panel.

Steve Sacks

Customer Director, Selfridges

Steve is the Customer Director at Selfridges & Co,, one of the world’s leading multi-brand retailers, where he is responsible for the e-commerce business, marketing and public relations.  Prior to joining Selfridges, he was the Chief Customer Officer at Burberry PLC where he built the customer data and analytics function as well as the private client business.  Steve also worked briefly at Lloyds Banking Group in the retail business; before that he was a partner at McKinsey & Company. Steve was chair of the governors of the English National Ballet School for twelve years, served on the board of the English National Ballet for nine years, and chaired the finance and audit committee of College Summit, a US-based educational charity, for twelve years.  In addition to his executive and non-executive roles, he is an investor in and advisor to a range of technology startups.  Steve has a MS from Columbia University in Operations Research and a BA from Princeton University in Politics.

Andre Spark

Head of Mentoring and Venture Investor

Andre has 25 years of experience on both the buy and sell side of banking and venture investing. He is currently Venture Partner in a technology-focused VC fund he co-founded in 2011. Previously Andre spent five years as an investment banker at Credit Suisse, where he led the European Semiconductor and IT Hardware Team as a Director in the Technology Group in London. He also made technology investments as Chief Investment Officer of Prokom Internet in Poland and served as Senior Banker in the Financial Institutions Department at the EBRD in London. He has been a non-executive director of private and publicly traded companies from the digital media, software, IT services, energy, biotech and property development sectors. Andre started his career as a corporate lawyer at the Cravath firm in New York. He is a graduate of Cornell, Harvard and the University of Michigan Law School.

Kamilla Spark

Corporate finance specialist

Kamilla Spark is a corporate finance specialist with more than two decades of experience as an advisor, investment manager, and non-executive director of large industrials and public sector institutions.

Prior to founding her own corporate finance advisory practice, Kamilla was a Director of Mezzanine Management, the largest mezzanine investor in Europe. Before that, she was a banker with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Senior Advisor to a closed-end, listed private equity fund. In these positions, she sourced, structured, implemented, and oversaw debt and equity investments in various companies from both public and private sectors.

Kamilla also has extensive experience as a non-executive board member. She was a Non-Executive Director of Giza Polish Ventures (a regional venture capital fund), Chair of the Audit Committee of PCC Exol (a leading Polish-American producer of industrial chemicals), and Non-Executive Director of Kety Group (a listed manufacturer of aluminium joinery and flexible packaging with more than EUR 1 billion in revenues). She also served her community as a Governor and member of the Audit Committee of Long Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge and as a Trustee and member of the Audit and Risk Committee of the National Union of Students UK (NUS UK). As a Fellow of the Judge Business School, she led finance workshops and taught Intrapreneurship Practice from 2018 to 2020. Kamilla has been a mentor in the Master of Studies in Entrepreneurship programme and at Accelerate Cambridge since 2018.

Kamilla received her MBA (Finance and Accounting) from Columbia University Business School in New York. She has been a UK Chartered Director and Fellow of The Institute of Directors since 2010.

Fidel Tamayo

Account Management Vice President, PROWLER.io

Fidel Tamayo offers students more than twenty years of experience in strategy and operations, including with startup ventures. He started his career as a management consultant with Kearney, where he focused on designing and deploying strategies to leverage companies’ strengths and harness market opportunities. During his consulting tenure, Fidel advised global energy and consumer goods and retail companies to address business issues such as profitability decline, service level deterioration, and overall lack of competitiveness. To benefit from ongoing disruptions in the automotive, energy, and transportation industries, in 2016 Fidel launched a startup to develop sustainable/electric mobility business opportunities in Latin America. The company’s vision is to enable emerging cities to leapfrog into sustainable mobility generating an ecosystem of solutions and stakeholders to deploy sustainable mobility services to fleet owners and operators. Currently, Fidel is an Account Management Vice President with PROWLER.io, where he leads commercialising efforts for AI applications for supply chain.

Liisa Van Vliet

Managing Director, Drop-Tech

Dr Liisa Van Vliet is an entrepreneur, a postdoctoral research associate and EU Training Network manager at the Department of Biochemistry. She has a PhD in Biochemistry from St John’s College, University of Cambridge. After working for Accenture in project management, she returned to Cambridge as a postdoc in the field of Microfluidic Droplets. She was awarded a 2010 BBSRC Enterprise Fellow to spin out Drop-Tech Ltd, a microfluidic instrument development and consultancy, which started selling its first product in partnership with Dolomite Microfluidics in July 2013.

After winning the CUE competition ‘Best Biotech startup’ Carpe Diem award in 2013 for an Alzheimer diagnostic test they are developing, she and her colleagues were finalists of the Oxbridge Round Table 2014 ‘One Start competition’ and were selected to join the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Accelerator. She was nominated as a ‘Rising Star’ and one of the BioBeat 50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness 2014. Liisa is passionate about bringing technology and science to market for the benefit of all, particularly for healthcare applications. She has given entrepreneurship workshops for several EU network consortia and since 2012 facilitates and mentors for programmes run by the Entrepreneurship Centre (Cambridge Judge Business School). She continues to develop microfluidic droplet systems for drug discovery, personalised medicine and Alzheimer diagnostics.

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Patrick Vosgimorukian

Managing Partner, Digital Spring Ventures

Patrick Vosgimorukian has over 20 years of experience investing and transacting globally, having worked on over 100 transactions in more than 40 countries. He is also an experience board representative, having served on a number of supervisory boards of both private and public companies as well as investment funds.

Patrick is currently the Managing Partner of Digital Spring Ventures, a growth focused tech fund investing in new media, marketplaces, classifieds, fintech, edtech and adtech companies across rapidly developing frontier markets. In a personal capacity, he is currently invested in a number of early stage tech startups in artificial intelligence for the automotive industry, artificial intelligence for the music industry as well as enhancing technology for live events.

Prior to co-founding Digital Spring Ventures, Patrick was the CEO of Amun Capital, a growth markets TMT fund, Head of Investment Banking and Finance at Renaissance Capital Central Asia, a leading investment bank in CIS, Head of Mergers & Acquisitions in CEE and CIS at ABN AMRO, and Equity Research Analyst covering the CEE and Middle Eastern equity capital markets at Societe Generale Securities.

Patrick holds a bachelors degree in International Affairs with a minor in Philosophy from the American University of Paris.

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