SYNDICATEROOM - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Head of Growth
Andrew leads our growth strategy to attract new investors and elevate our fund's profile. With over a decade of marketing and sales experience, he possesses a deep understanding of the commercial landscape and digital world. Prior to joining our team, Andrew successfully owned and operated several business ventures and spearheaded commercial strategies for companies across multiple sectors. His passion for data analytics, process optimisation and problem-solving is focused on actionable, pragmatic solutions within budget that generate growth.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Senior Investment Analyst
Anthony is responsible for taking companies through our investment process and works on the data analysis that drives the Access EIS fund.
Prior to SR, Anthony worked for several banks including Goldman Sachs, Barclays and NatWest. He has both an MSc in Chemical Engineering and a BEng in Materials Science from Imperial College London and an MBA from London Business School.
Job Titles:
- Head of Sales
- Member of the Board
Prior to joining Syndicate Room Ben was part of the Sales Leadership team at Octopus Investments. Ben has extensive experience in the tax efficient space, having spent nearly a decade with Octopus, with a particular focus on Venture Capital. Ben's role is distribution of the Access EIS Fund, he will focus on growing our relationships with Financial Advisers, working with them to help them understand the Access EIS Fund and how it can work for its clients.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Software Engineer
Chris is one of our software engineers. His responsibilities vary from frontend design and maintenance to assisting the development team with the backend that drives Syndicate Room. Chris has 20+ years coding experience working on a variety of projects large and small.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Non - Exec Director
Deborah has a background in sales and business strategy, running and mobilising teams in bringing on new clients and mining opportunities with existing clients. She has over 13 years' experience in banking, with a particular focus in the Private Client / HNW space, having worked at RBS, Citi and currently Investec.
She uses deep analytics combined with a strong commercial focus to effectively target and market to prospective clients. She currently works at Investec as Head of Strategic Client Partnerships, having been with the bank for over 8 years. In this role she connects clients with new business opportunities or investors via Investec's networks. She strongly believes that deep data insights drive high quality decision making and effective sales strategies.
Deborah has a strong passion around diversity, championing minority groups both within and outside of the organisations she works with. She previously set up the Investec Female Entrepreneurs network and ran the Gender Balance network at Investec.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Software Engineer
Fatema is one of our software engineers, her responsibilities include implementing new functionality to support the business needs, code review and generally supporting the wider team on technical issues.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Partner ( Risk )
Fran has six years' investment experience and in-depth knowledge of a wide range of sectors, including life sciences, e-commerce and film. She has significant experience negotiating fair investment terms, managing due-diligence processes and EIS documentation, as well as client relations.
Since she joined SyndicateRoom as its first employee in 2013, Fran has overseen more than 200 early-stage funding-round transactions, leading sales, legal and deal-analysis teams. She has also been instrumental in building the business and co-creating a strong, supportive culture. She is a regular panel speaker and presenter, and her investment commentary has attracted media coverage in The Telegraph, The Times and CityAM. Fran read Psychology at the University of Cambridge and has a post-graduate diploma in Law.
CEO Graham Schwikkard has over a decade of experience with data science and working with large datasets. He has a fascination with the dynamics of the startup investment network and after coming across the Companies House dataset in 2017, he spent many hours designing much of the analysis behind the Access Fund. Graham would like to see Access become a vehicle for delivering efficient capital throughout the network, and increase the odds of the system producing more Unicorns and economic growth.
Prior to working at SyndicateRoom, Graham spent seven years as a management consultant, and has significant experience of helping companies develop market strategies and optimise business models. He also has in-depth technical expertise, focused on maximising efficiency.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Head of Investor Services
Jon is responsible for liaising with portfolio companies, managing all EIS activities and assisting with investor queries.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Head of Content
Martin studied English at the University of Cambridge and has been working as a copywriter and content strategist for 15+ years. In that time he's created content for print and digital publications, websites and social media spanning arts, culture, travel, legal and financial, including work for Sotheby's and VisitBritain.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Venture Partner
Miruna advises on strategical relations and partnerships including those with institutional investors and our super angels.
She has previously worked with hundreds of startups, grown and managed an extensive community of partners, and launched a product to increase access to capital and connect entrepreneurs with the most relevant strategic investors for them - from angels and family offices to VCs and corporates.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Member of the Board
Omar is responsible for managing the relationship and working closely with our clients - both existing investors and investee companies. His other key duties involve conducting the pre-emption funding rounds for the platform investors, managing the post activities of our funds' investments, carrying out reconciliations and other ad-hoc projects ensuring that they conform to FCA regulations.
Previously, Omar worked as a Project Developer and holds an BSc (Hons) of Computer Science and a Master's degree in Project Management.
Job Titles:
- Investment Analyst
- Member of the Board
Having graduated with a Degree in Economics, Samuel spent the first 3 years of his career based in Switzerland working within Wealth Management before relocating back to the UK to work in Software M&A as an analyst. Since moving over to SR he spends the majority of his time originating and reviewing investment opportunities before arranging SR's investment into those that are a fit for the portfolio.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Commercial Leader
- Non - Exec Director
Simon Coomes is a strategic commercial leader with experience in numerous sectors and businesses, ranging from a FTSE 50 corporate to a successful startup.
He leads Marketing and Commercial Performance for FTSE 50 Investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown. His team covers a broad range of specialisms from digital marketing, client and asset acquisition, strategy and planning to brand development, positioning, management and performance monitoring.
He has an extensive network of senior leaders across financial services, fintech and media companies.
He is a Chartered Manager with excellent team and project leadership, problem-solving and analytical skills. With a history of building high calibre teams and driving them to successful outcomes. He also holds an Exec MBA from Cranfield University.
Job Titles:
- Investor
- Member of the Board
- Non - Exec Director
Simone Koo Ishikawa is an angel investor and an advisor to a number of impact and fintech start-ups globally. She has a broad network across angels, VCs, investment banks, asset management, family offices, private banks, institutional investors and corporates through years of experience in financial services.
She advises start-ups on a number of areas including fundraising, investor management, go-to-market, partnership, scale up and marketing strategy as well as team build and culture.
She is a frequent speaker in fintech, banking, and women's circles in London. She also lectures at Oxford Saïd Business School Entrepreneurial project, Cambridge Judge Business School and is an Honorary Practice Fellow at Imperial College Business School.
Prior to this, she was an operator at a Softbank-backed unicorn scale up; Director of Customer Success at OakNorth - NextGen credit platform for SME lenders globally. OakNorth was the only profitable fintech unicorn in Europe in 2019. Before this, she spent 16 years in asset management and investment banking trading floors at JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. She worked as an ETF Sales Strategist, Chief Operating Officer in charge of divisions with over 2000+ people and +$10bn of revenues, Head of Strategy, Structurer and Trader.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Senior Graphic Designer
Sonia is responsible for designing visual indentities and creative concepts for print, web, and mobile. She works closely with SR's development team to produce user-friendly experiences for our website.
With over 10 years experience in the design industry, Sonia's talent has been recognised with a Hermes Creative Award for her work on SR's Syndicate Magazine and 'The Art of Fundraising' guide. Sonia's contribution to SR's annual 'Top 100: Britain's Fastest-Growing Businesses' report has resulted in press coverage from The Sunday Times, Evening Standard, and Forbes.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Member of the Board
After completing his MBA in Cambridge, Tom co-founded SyndicateRoom to give a wider audience access to venture capital investment. As co-founder, Tom works across all aspects of the business, with an emphasis on product development and marketing strategy, and as much direct contact with our super angels and investors as possible. He enjoys being plugged into the wider industry and sits on the board of the UK Business Angel Association. He also hosts SyndicateRoom's Angel Insights podcast, interviewing key industry figures. Prior to founding SyndicateRoom, Tom was Product Manager at TheTrainline, where he headed up the launch of its mobile applications.