Panellists

Area Vice President EMEA, Skillsoft

Agata Nowakowska is Area Vice President EMEA at Skillsoft, where she leads the field operations, to include enterprise and small & mid-market, as well as channel sales/strategic alliances across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Agata will be able to discuss how leaders can embed inclusivity into their thinking and behaviour, and by extension, the thoughts, words and deeds of their organisation as a whole. She can also explain why, as the war for talent intensifies, employee development and talent pooling will become increasingly vital to closing the skills and diversity gap.

FCMA, CGMA, Chief Executive, Management Accounting, AICPA & CIMA

Andrew Harding FCMA, CGMA, is the Chief Executive of the Management Accounting PU at the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants.

Andrew leads all management accounting activities for the Association, develops plans and strategies, manages relationships and delivers results for members. He is also focused on driving value for members, firstly by globalizing Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

Chief Financial Officer, Moneypenny

A seasoned CFO working with entrepreneurial and private-equitybacked companies, Andrew joined Moneypenny’s C-suite in July 2021 to further accelerate its ambitious global expansion plans. Andrew’s previous appointments, as CFO at global software services company Mobica and prior to this Deloitte, gave the leadership team full confidence in his expertise when it comes to investment in cutting-edge technology to further strengthen the Moneypenny brand. With so many opportunities open to the Group, Andrew is revelling in the task of driving fast growth and scaling up the business in a profitable and sustainable way.

Director, New Product Solutions, Dropbox

Andy Wilson is an experienced, highly motivated leader with a specialism in delivering large strategic technology programmes, international standards, products and digital change initiatives.

My role is to lead media developments at Dropbox, working with media, entertainment, publishing and digital content organisations to squeeze as much value as possible from Dropbox know-how, technology and services.

Whether working with global entertainment corporations or digital agencies publishing content for any audience on any platform, we can help you develop your projects.

Vice President, Head of UK & Ireland, GoDaddy

As VP and Head of GoDaddy UK and Ireland, Ben is responsible for GoDaddy’s UK&I business, focused on helping everyday entrepreneurs succeed online. Ben leads the market strategy for the business, including the development and deployment of GoDaddy products and services.

Ben joined GoDaddy in January 2019 as Senior Director, leading the 123 Reg brand until mid-2021. Ben navigated the UK’s number one domain registrar through two and half years of growth in both revenue and customer acquisitions.

Co-founder, VAMP

Christina Okorocha is a cofounder of VAMP, A digital talent and entertainment PR agency. VAMP work with some of the entertainment, film and TV companies, such as Warner Bros, Disney, Universal Music and Atlantic Records, to support in maximising reach by authentically diversifying content and approach. VAMP also manage and work with top black UK content creators.

Christina is also the founder of the Twice As Good Network, A network for ambitious black professional, creative and entrepreneurial women which is supported by AllBright.

Founder, BGI Group

Best-selling author and the UK’s top expert on the high performance organisation and extreme performance.

Deri is an Internationally acclaimed speaker, best-selling author, adventurer and entrepreneur and has consistently defied the odds to do impossible feats both as an adventurer and in business.

Despite being asthmatic, flat footed and told by experts that he would never run a marathon he completed the toughest footrace on earth, equivalent to 6 marathons in 6 days, through the Sahara, and has climbed 6 of the 7 highest peaks in the world, including Everest.

Founder, ActionCOACH

Brad Sugars started the ActionCOACH brand in 1993 in Brisbane, Australia. Today the company is ranked as the leading business coaching franchise by Entrepreneur magazine.

ActionCOACH operates in over 80 countries and has more than 1,000 coaches around the world, coaching 15,000 business every week. The franchise has received numerous awards including Fastest Growing Franchise, Franchisee Satisfaction, Best Overall Company and has been named the number one business coaching franchise in the world every year since 2004.

CEO, Mootup

Danny Stefanic is CEO and Founder of MootUp – the 3D Metaverse Virtual Events Platform. He is renowned for creating the world’s first metaverse and is considered a pioneer in the Metaverse for Business field, having been involved in the creation of groundbreaking 3D businesses for over 27 years. He is also the founder of the world’s first WebXR learning experience platform, LearnBrite, and founder of 3D internet company ExitReality Inc – the world’s first web metaverse.

Founder & CEO, Laundryheap

Deyan is the Founder and CEO of Laundryheap: the world’s leading on-demand laundry and dry cleaning service. Established in 2014, Laundryheap is a service that collects, cleans and delivers fresh laundry and dry cleaning in just 24 hours.

Deyan set up Laundryheap after standing outside a closed dry-cleaner, having missed his collection slot and with his suit on the wrong side of the doors. He was frustrated by the lack of options available and inspired to build a new solution. Deyan has successfully bootstrapped and scaled Laundryheap to become the world’s leading on-demand dry-cleaning service.

Founder & CEO, The KK Group

Emma is one of the UK’s leading female entrepreneurs. She made her name launching the global female empowerment brand Killing Kittens in 2005, now incorporated into the KK Group with over 150,000 members having launched events across the US, Australia and Europe and having grown online into a community network with empowering women at its core.

MD, Northern Europe of UIPath

Gavin Mee is Managing Director Northern Europe at UiPath, a leading enterprise automation software company that has a vision to deliver the Fully Automated Enterprise™, one where companies use automation to unlock their greatest potential. In his role, Gavin supports the ongoing success of UiPath customers and partners across Northern Europe. Prior to joining UiPath, Gavin held leadership roles at Adobe, Salesforce, and Oracle.

Managing Director & Founder, Cocofina

Jacob Thundil, founder of Cocofina and Inventor, Jacob was awarded an MBE for services to International Trade and Exports in the 2020 Birthday Honours List. Jacob began his entrepreneurial journey from his kitchen back in 2005. Fast-forward a few years and he and business partner, Manisha Solanki, appeared on the popular BBC show, Dragons Den in 2016. Their pitch, the most successful of the season, had all five dragons fighting for a piece of the Cocofina pie. Today, Cocofina – The Coconut Experts boasts a range of 32 organic-certified products with 45% of their sales coming from exports across 28 countries worldwide.

Founder, 3 Colours Rule; BBC brand advisor

Flavilla Fongang is a serial entrepreneur, author and the founder of 3 Colours Rule, an award-winning branding and neuromarketing agency. Computer Weekly has named her among the top 5 most influential women in tech in the UK. In 2021, she was a finalist of the business hero award at The National Business Women Award. Through her agency, she has helped her clients scale their brand nationally and internationally. She has also been awarded the “She’s Mercedes” businesswoman award by Mercedes Benz. Flavilla Fongang is a respected brand strategist with neuromarketing expertise. Flavilla is the brand advisor for the BBC.

Managing Partner, Sandbox Studios

Former Young Entrepreneur of the Year and Media Disrupter of the Year recipient, Jackie directs leaders on how to succeed through the power of sponsorship in the current era of disruptive media fragmentation. Arriving from Canada in 2007 with the intent to backpack Europe, Jackie ended up staying in London and launching her career. Her first business – Slingshot Sponsorship – was started in her bedroom in 2010 with just a laptop and £2,000. A relentless 6 years later with offices worldwide, Jackie sold Slingshot for millions, having worked with notable international clients including Sir Richard Branson, the Rolling Stones, Shell, Red Bull and many more.

VP, HR Director UK & Head of HR, Fujitsu

Jason Fowler is a Vice President at Fujitsu and combines the role of HR Director for the UK & Ireland with that of Head of HR for Fujitsu’s European organisation. With twenty years’ experience in the technology sector, Jason has seen first-hand the impact that digitalisation has had, and continues to have, in disrupting organisations and their employees. He believes that in the era of total tech, the people capability of an organisation becomes the principal point of commercial differentiation – and it is the role of HR to create this.

Founder, Dr PAWPAW

Johnny Paterson is a multi award-winning entrepreneur and marketing expert. He possesses over 25+ years experience in the beauty and hair industry and works closely with Gov+ as a UK London Export Champion providing advice for businesses looking to grow their export business around the world. Johnny is applied, hard working and proactive in all aspects of business.

In 2013 alongside his wife Pauline, Johnny launched his own brand Dr.PAWPAW. This multi-purpose family product line is now globally regarded, multi award-winning and internationally available.

Chairman of Enterprise Lab & Seventy7 Ventures

Ketan Makwana is an entrepreneur and business influencer serving as the Chairman of Enterprise Lab & Seventy7 Ventures. Ketan is considered as a business futurist and strategist developing programmes and policies that support economic prosperity. Ketan is a business commentator who regularly contributes to Forbes and Entrepreneur whilst hosting his own Podcast “The Business Distillery”. His philanthropic pursuits have resulted in setting up his own foundation: Ketan Makwana Foundation that has a focus on mobilising people through innovation and entrepreneurship.

International Trade Expert & Champion & Bootcamp Director

Lesley Batchelor OBE is a champion of UK exporters, with a powerful track record in enhancing the international performance of hundreds of businesses.

From a blue-chip background, she worked as director general of the Institute of Export (IOE) for 12 years promoting professionalism and the need for qualifications and support for businesses. Co-Chair of the Bribery Act 2010 Scrutiny expert panel working with DFID and the Gov. Anti-corruption Champion; advising on APPG Advisory Panels on Trade & Investment and Manufacturing and Select Committees supporting SMEs.

CEO, MediaCom UK

Kate Rowlinson is CEO of MediaCom UK and has been part of the MediaCom family for ten years. Having worked across EMEA and APAC regions, she brings a wealth of global experience; as well as her passion for the People First culture. She sits on the Stella Advisory Board – WPP’s women’s leadership group set up to increase the number of women in senior executive roles across the group – while also acting as a mentor on Groupm’s 50:50 programme – which aims to achieve an equal gender split at an executive level.

Founder, investor & entrepreneur

Lara Morgan is a British entrepreneur with a track record of delivering exceptional accelerated growth. Her investment strategy in wellbeing products primarily is pinned to improving life’s journey. Investing as a family office she has a portfolio of seven consumer services businesses which she works to drive sales, leadership and innovation. She is an inspirational leader with a legacy of building world-class teams and aligning organisations behind a clear strategy.

Founder & CEO, Qumata Group

Luca Schnettler is the CEO of the Qumata Group. Qumata’s solutions unlock insights into an individual’s current and future health and mortality risks, for anyone equipped with a smartphone, instantaneously and without medical questionnaires or examinations. We work with Life and Health insurers to help them create a faster, more customer-centric underwriting journey, providing the extra-mortality, extramorbidity and other parameters for any individual and for 800 medical conditions.

Regional Director, EMEA, Channel Partnerships, Monday.com

During Naveed’s 18+ years in the tech sector, he has had the opportunity to work in a range of roles unified by one thread: innovation. The products must be disruptive, but there’s also room for creativity in sales approach; as an experienced senior leader, that’s what Naveed bring to the table. Now, as EMEA Channel Lead at monday.com, Naveed is responsible for building the Channel partner ecosystem.

Chief Opportunity Officer, Company Shortcuts

Nicola Cook is the owner of Company Shortcuts, a kick-ass sales acceleration agency that specializes in helping business leaders, and their teams, create accelerated growth and scalability in their sales function. Through her inspirational positive and energetic approach, her customer focused, fun and easy to apply methodology delivers exceptional, profitable results for ambitious companies. Currently Nicola is the preferred sales growth partner and speaker for a number of organisations including, Vistage, Prelude Group, Scale-up NorthEast, WeConnect and Aspremont.

PAULINA TENNER Founder, GrantTree

Paulina is an entrepreneur, an angel investor, a TEDx speaker and a founder of GrantTree, started with a purpose to help tech startups navigate the complex world of government funding. Since 2010 the team grew organically from 2 to over 50, and raised over £200m for more than 600 technology startups and scaleups using solely government funding schemes. GrantTree is also an open culture company which pioneered a self set salary scheme, and an empowering culture governed by holacracy.

Vice President, EMEA at Globalization Partners

Nick Adams is the Vice President of EMEA at Globalization Partners based in London, UK, where he leads the company’s international expansion into Europe. With a focus on building a strategic partner network and overseeing regional revenue operations, Nick comes to Globalization Partners with a wealth of experience scaling high growth businesses and is a firm believer in customer focus, integrity and teamwork; values that the company enshrines across the organisation in everything that it does.

Managing Director, Quantum Global Consultants

Nimisha is an award-winning management consultant, investor and entrepreneur with a flair for innovation.” – TopMBA,

With a proven track record of implementing large scale business transformation in FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, Nimisha specialises in developing new business & operating models to help her clients future proof their business and build stakeholder value. With over ten years of expertise in delivering technological and business change across the energy value chain, Nimisha works to look for avenues of innovation and ways to deliver exceptional customer experience.

Founder & CEO, Moblox; former investor on BBC Dragons’ Den

Piers is an entrepreneur and investor with experience across a range of sectors including technology, converged communications, and additive manufacturing. He is the Founder and CEO of Moblox, a next generation technology and business tools platform for UK small business owners. Piers is well-known as a champion of entrepreneurship and SMEs and a regular media commentator and is probably best known as a former Dragon investor on BBC 2’s Dragons’ Den and from Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire.

With a background of over 10 years in financial services & the Fintech accountancy sectors, Phil has worked for some of the largest and most innovative businesses in these industries.

Currently as Head of Customer Education & Engagement for Capitalise, Phil leads the external accountant education programme as part of our vision to empower our EMEA accountants to better support their clients with access to finance and capital: whether that be delivering the Capitalise on-site pro-education to top 250 accounting firms through to developing and rolling out the new partner education journey.

MD, British Business Bank

Managing Director of Small Business Lending, British Business Bank, Richard has over 20 years’ experience in the banking sector and over that time has developed a real passion for working with and supporting entrepreneurs. Richard is Managing Director at the British Business Bank and is responsible for the Start Up Loans programme. Over the past year Richard also led the Covid-19 emergency Bounce Back Loan Scheme and has recently set up a Financial Crime team at the British Business Bank.

Director, Trade & Growth at London & Partners

Sara French is Director of Trade & Growth at London & Partners, the business growth and destination agency for London.

Sara has founded and led on business delivery and activity at London & Partners which includes the Business Growth Programme, the Mayor’s International Business Programme and London Leaders Network. Sara has 13+ years’ experience working in international trade having set up the Mayor’s Export Programme for the GLA and is passionate about delivering worldclass services to fast-growing companies which inspire and enable them to grow their businesses in London.

Founder & CEO, Learnerbly

Founder and CEO of Learnerbly – we empower employees to own the development by connecting them to the very best professional development opportunities based on what they need to lean and how they like to learn (coaching, courses, conferences, books, podcasts + more) curated from 200+ of the top L&D providers. We are trusted by the most progressive scaleups and enterprises including GoCardless, Snyk, IDEO, Curve, HelloFresh, Bazaarvoice, Treatwell, WeTransfer and many more.

Co-founder & CEO, FreeAgent

Roan Lavery is the co-founder and CEO of FreeAgent, one of the UK’s most popular accounting software systems for small businesses. Over the last 15 years Roan has helped grow FreeAgent from 3 co-founders to over 250 people, and is passionate about building great companies and products that delight both staff and customers alike.

Operations Director UK & France at Avery

Sean is a passionate expert in manufacturing operations and engineering, and in recent years, has developed particular expertise in the paper, film & packaging converting industry. He manages end-to-end operations from materials purchasing, manufacturing all the way through to storage and distribution.

Avery serves the adhesive materials industry supplying labelling and naming solutions to businesses and homes via distributors and e-commerce platforms. We are part of CCL industries that supply material solutions to, amongst others, the healthcare, food and beverage, and personal care sectors.

CEO, FPS Group

Simon Crowther is an award-winning Civil Engineer and Chartered Water & Environmental Manager, recognised by Forbes Magazine in their top ‘30 Under 30’ Europe list for his work in the industry. Simon is CEO of the FPS Group, founded in 2012, which comprises of Flood Protection Solutions Ltd and FPS Environmental Ltd. Simon founded his first company, Flood Protection Solutions Ltd aged just 18, whilst still at university. Within five years the company had a turnover of two-million pounds, with clients ranging from homeowners through to heavy industry, including the likes of the NHS, Environment Agency, and Thames Water.

SOPHIE MILLIKEN CEO, Moja Group

Sophie Milliken is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur, Director, NED, chartered FCIPD HR professional, author, speaker and investor. In January 2022, Sophie founded her current business Moja Group Limited, dedicated to boosting business owners’ profiles, helping them become more visible and heard within their industry. A multi-award winner and TEDx speaker, Sophie is an active supporter of women in business and is passionate about helping individuals develop.

Head of International Finance & Risk Solutions, Dun & Bradstreet

Tim Vine has worked in the data and credit industry for over 20 years and has an in-depth understanding of the challenges faced by finance professionals. He has held various strategic and senior roles across Dun & Bradstreet in data, analytics, sales, consulting and product development. As a Global Product Leader, he developed and launched ‘D&B Finance Analytics’, Dun & Bradstreet’s global credit-to-cash platform in North America, UK and Ireland, continental Europe and AsiaPac.

Founder, Like Minded Females

Sonya Barlow is an Award-Winning Entrepreneur, TEDxSpeaker, Diversity Coach, Author, Linkedin Changemaker 2021, Guest Lecturer and the host of The Everyday Hustle (BBC Asian Network). In 2020, she was named winner of the Most Influential Women in Tech UK, Women in Software Changemaker, Top 50 BAME Entrepreneurs under 50, and Marie Claire Future Shaper. In 2021, Sonya Barlow was a Forbes 30 Under 30, runner up, shortlisted for the most influential women in tech UK and winner of the Accelerate Her 50 inspiring Women in Tech sponsored by Google, Founders Forum and Financial Times.

CEO & Founder, TWH Media

Founder and Director of social media marketing agency TWH Media, Tim Hyde began his career leading the Facebook strategy for Lad Bible. Tim boasts an impressive track record of helping businesses and brands scale online through effective social media marketing strategies. One of the industry’s leading social media gurus, Tim founded TWH Media in September 2017 and now works with large brands globally ranging from Adidas to Apple Music.

Business Coach, ActionCOACH

Trusha is a successful award winning business coach, a virtual Finance Director and a Non-Executive Director for an energy accreditation company. She volunteers as a college governor as well as a Board member of the ACCA Corporate Sector Panel, including past member of our International Assembly and immediate past Chair of ACCA Leicestershire panel. Trusha has been a member of the ACCA since 1997. She has always worked in a strongly commercial arena, mostly on business growth projects and Board support for SMEs.