KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Ann Hiatt
Ann Hiatt received her initial business training during 15 years as the Executive Business Partner to Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon) and Chief-of Staff to Eric Schmidt (CEO and Executive Chairman at Google/Alphabet).
Ann now consults with executives and companies across the globe to reverse engineer their moonshot goals and get results. Ann is a sought after international speaker, angel investor and sits on several boards in the UK. Ann has recently relocated from Silicon Valley to Europe and brings with her a unique perspective on what it takes to succeed in business today. Ann is also the author of Bet On Yourself which will be published by HarperCollins in 2021.
Chris Anderson
Chris Anderson is the curator of TED, a nonprofit media organization that leverages the power of ideas to make a better future.
Born in 1957, Chris spent most of his early life in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. In 1985 he launched Future Publishing, which ultimately expanded to more than 130 magazines and 1,500 employees.
In 2001, Chris took over leadership of the TED Conference. Under his stewardship, over 3,600 talks and animated lessons have been released free on the TED website, with 100,000 more on YouTube. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller TED Talks and has overseen the introduction of TEDx, TED-Ed, TED Fellows, and the Audacious Project, a new form of collaborative philanthropy. He is a founding partner of Countdown, a global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, turning ideas into action.
Dr Dale Vince OBE
Dale launched Ecotricity, the world’s first green energy company back in 1995. Today, it powers more than 200,000 homes and businesses across the UK with renewable energy from the wind and sun, and also operates the Electric Highway – the first ever nationwide EV charging network. His work focuses on reducing impact in three key areas – energy, transport and food – collectively responsible for 80% of our personal carbon emissions.
With a portfolio of green businesses, Dale also owns Devil’s Kitchen which makes vegan school dinners, Britwind – the UK’s only manufacturer of wind turbines, and his latest initiative Skydiamond – creating carbon negative lab grown diamonds.
Dale is also Chairman and owner of Forest Green Rovers – recognised by FIFA as the “world’s greenest football club” and was made a United Nations Climate Champion in 2018. He launched his first book, Manifesto in 2020 and is Executive Producer of Seaspiracy, a Netflix Original documentary.
HOSTS
Kalpna Woolf
Kalpna has had an award-winning 20-year career in the BBC, where she was Head of Factual TV Production, overseeing a £100m global business including the BBC’s world-renowned Natural History Unit.
She continues to work with the creative sector in both an advisory and consultancy capacity. Alongside this, she has established an impressive boardroom and entrepreneurial portfolio career underpinned by her business track record and her passion for social justice and equality.
In 2015 she founded 91 Ways to Build A Global City – an innovative charity which seeks to create common ground between Bristol’s 91 language communities by sharing their different food stories and cultures. The charity has already won three national awards including BBC Radio4’s Food and Farming awards and the Guild of Food Writers Inspiration Award.
In 2018, she founded BeOnBoard – a groundbreaking initiative to increase representation in leadership roles and help businesses to improve diversity on their boards, acting as a one-stop shop for Board consultancy, training needs and recruitment.
EXPERT INSIGHTS
Adam McConkey
Volantis team head,
Lombard Odier Investment Managers
Adam joined the Volantis investment management team in 2002 to specialise in smaller companies and became head of the team in 2010. Adam is the co-lead Portfolio Manager of the 1798 Volantis Fund and the 1798 UK Small Cap Best Ideas Fund.
Prior to a career in UK smaller companies, Adam worked on European equity desks at both Gartmore and the Co-Op bank. Adam has a PhD in International Relations and sits on the board of the AIM Advisory Group. At the end of 2019, Adam was appointed as the new chair of the Quoted Companies Alliance, an important role representing the smaller company ecosystem at a time of significant political, social, economic and technological change.
Adrienne Percival
Founder,
Flourishzone
Adrienne is the Founder of Flourishzone, the hyper-personalised organisational development platform most able to accelerate growth for diverse workforces. Using Augmented Intelligence and digitised coaching expertise, it delivers the right support to the right person at the right time. This makes cost effective continuous improvement easier, building well-being, resilience & productivity simultaneously.
Alex Lloyd
Director,
Burges Salmon
Alex is a director in the firm’s Corporate team, working in all areas of corporate finance, and is also a member of the firm’s Technology and Communications sector group. Alex has a particular focus on venture capital and private equity and leads the firm’s BScale initiative aimed at supporting high-growth tech businesses
Anna Sabine
Managing director,
Cassia Bath
Anna is the owner of Cassia Bath, a co-working café and bar based on Bath Riverside and due to expand in autumn 2021. She is also the Chair of MPC, a public affairs consultancy specialising in the built environment sector, and runs her own executive coaching practice. Anna is a frequent speaker and panellist and is passionate about encouraging young women in business.
Andy Salmon
Professor of creative and social enterprise,
Bath Spa University
Professor Andy Salmon, moved to Bath four years ago from Cambridge, currently focusing on regeneration, social cohesion, place making, and the development of human and social value through the ISTART and other projects. Roles include: pro vice chancellor External Bath Spa University, chair of corporation at Bath College, director of the London Film Academy, tutor for the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education.
Ben Harris
Associate,
Bevan Brittan
Ben is a corporate lawyer with experience of advising on a wide range of transactions including share sales, assets sales, joint ventures, funding rounds, share buybacks and MBO/MBIs. Ben advises corporate agreements required by businesses such as shareholder or partnership agreements.
Dimo Dimov
Professor of entrepreneurship and innovation and co-founder of Kinetic Thinking, University of Bath School of Management
Dimo Dimov is professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at University of Bath. Before Bath, he was on the faculty at Newcastle University, University of Connecticut (USA), and IE Business School (Spain). Prior to entering academia, he was finance director with Marriott International, overseeing two hospitality businesses in Budapest, Hungary.
Dimo’s research focuses on entrepreneurial thinking, process, and practice. He is co-founder of Kinetic Thinking, a validated framework for personal and organisational development. It helps individuals, teams and entire organizations capitalize on the changing world of work by deploying new ways of thinking, managing and leading.
Duncan MacIntyre
Chief executive, UK,
Lombard Odier
Duncan MacIntyre joined Lombard Odier in January 2016 as chief executive officer of the bank’s private client business in the UK. In 2019, he became Global UK Region head, leading teams across London, Geneva and Zurich. Duncan has over 25 years’ experience in private client wealth management.
Prior to joining Lombard Odier, Duncan worked at JP Morgan, Flemings and Coutts, where he founded and was a global head of Coutts Private Office, managing ultra-high net worth clients around the world. Duncan is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI). He holds a Masters degree in Anthropology and Economics and participated in the Harvard Business School Executive Education programme.
Edd Baldry
Founder,
Byrd
Edd Baldry has spent over a decade at the intersection between design and technology. A graduate of Central St Martin’s he’s led teams building digital products and experiences for organisations like Google, the UN and Tate. Before starting Byrd he led the interaction design team at Dyson developing the design patterns for how people would interact with Dyson products.
Glyn Blaize
COO,
Amdaris
Glyn entered the sales industry in 1999 after injury lead to early retirement from a successful rugby career. Having held various sales, operations and commercial director positions at a number of sales businesses Glyn went on to found tech start up Northstar.ai. The NORTHSTAR vision is to create the most agile, thorough and real time appraisal, analytics and people development platform available, this was bought by The Access Group in 2021. Glyn is now Group COO for one of Bristol’s most exciting scale ups Amdaris.
Jacqualine Seckley
Managing director & founder,
HealthHubble
Jacqualine is co-founder of HealthHubble, the UK’s leading health and wellbeing platform, bringing choice and diversity of services. Following a 14-year NHS career in frontline Emergency Medicine, Jacqualine has launched HealthHubble which is proud to host over 22,000 clinics, therapists and healthcare professionals across a broad spectrum of disciplines from Physiotherapy to Dentistry, Doctors, Counsellors and Psychologists. With the need to access services changing, HealthHubble supports those offering online and remote consultations; making it easier and more convenient for people to find the health and wellness service they need.
Marti Burgess
Partner,
Bevan Brittan
Marti is a corporate & finance partner specialising in company sales and purchases, corporate restructures and the preparation of the corporate contracts clients need for their businesses such as shareholder agreements and partnership agreements.
Rachel Newman
Associate,
Bevan Brittan
Rachel is an employment and immigration specialist, with experience ranging from advice and support to in house legal and HR teams, robustly defending employment tribunal claims and providing strategic advice in relation to acquisitions and restructures and the employment related considerations.
Richard Godfrey
CEO,
Rocketmakers
Richard has a wealth of technical expertise, a critical eye for usability, and blue-chip management skills from his many years at Deloitte and Microsoft. He’s worked on and led some of the software projects that have become essential parts of the daily lives of consumers and businesses. Since co-founding Rocketmakers he has helped hundreds of startups and scaleups build amazing products and invested blood, sweat, tears and money in many of them.
Ronan Finnegan
Co-founder,
SpaceBands
Ronan is one of the co-founders at SpaceBands – a company that has pioneered social distancing technology to keep businesses open during the pandemic.
SpaceBands create wearable technology solutions to make workplaces safer. After gaining extensive press coverage and 1k+ customers with their social distancing device (including orders from an NHS trust & Amazon), they are now pivoting towards general workplace safety. With new product development almost complete, they are raising for their next big launch.
Stuart Wright
Senior private banker,
Lombard Odier
Stuart joined Lombard Odier Geneva in May 2012. He works in the UK Private Client Team and has successfully built up a significant UK client base, in particular with business entrepreneurs He also works closely with financial professionals in the UK. He was previously a Director at Barclays Bank in Geneva for 5 years, where he led a team of Relationships Managers in developing the ultra-high net worth client base.
Prior to this he worked at Barclays Bank in London, across a number of roles. Stuart has always been involved with clients both on the corporate side of banking and over the last 12 years with private clients. When not working Stuart is very active in the sports world and is a keen runner, golfer, skier and enjoys hiking in the mountains.
Tony Stimson
Business development manager,
Bath Spa University
Tony has spent majority of the last 20 years working in IT, predominantly at IBM where he joined IBM Ireland in Dublin and transferred back to the UK in 2003 and remained until 2015 before transitioning to Lenovo following the divestiture of one of their businesses. The majority of the last 6 years was spent with a US start up tech company where he was Regional Sales Director responsible for running their business in Europe. In June 2020 Tony joined Bath Spa University and has been heavily involved in both the ISTART & Restart reskilling and upskilling programmes as well as a series of successful bid submissions.