GLOBAL TECH ADVOCATES LIMITED - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner of Emerging Europe
- Group Lead, Tech Emerging Europe Advocates
Andrew Wrobel is the Founding Partner of Emerging Europe, a London-based intelligence, news and community platform, and the leader of Tech Emerging Europe Advocates. Trained as a journalist, he specialises in technology and innovation, foreign direct investment, nation branding and soft power, government relations, cross-cultural and crisis communications. Andrew regularly interviews political and business leaders and speaks at or moderates international political, economic and technology events, where he promotes discussion about emerging Europe. He is also a juror at various international business-related competitions, a media coach, a location promotion trainer and a media commentator. He has authored and contributed to a number of international business, investment and trade-related publications.
Job Titles:
- Group Lead, Tech Shanghai Advocates​ and Tech Hong Kong Advocates
Founder and Chairman of Tech Shanghai Advocates, Global Tech Advocates' first landing point in China, as well as an Ambassador for London Tech Week and a mentor on the Mayor's International Business Programme. He founded Cocoon Networks in 2015 until he left to continue his vision at CENTI in 2018. In 2015, John was awarded as one of the UK's top 5 Asian Investors by the UK Business Angels Association.
He has served as a member of the China Industrial Park Association (CIPA). He is the Mentor at the Mayor's International Business Programme. He has been awarded UK's top 5 Asian Investors and Top 100 Investors in Asia by the UK Business Angels Association.
Job Titles:
- GTA Asia Pacific & Group Lead, Tech Singapore Advocates
Leslie Sarma advises Tech Singapore Tech Advocates and is working with the team to build partnerships, drive initiatives and grow the TSA network. Since moving to Singapore from London in 2014, Leslie has developed a strong network within Singapore's tech ecosystem and has remained an active part of the Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates family.
Leslie is a New York qualified attorney, with a specialty in UK immigration law. She practiced law in London for over a decade representing both corporate and private clients on a wide variety of complex immigration matters. She spent the bulk of her career with Penningtons Manches Cooper LLC, acting as a senior attorney, as well as driving business development for the team.
While with Penningtons, Leslie began her relationship with Tech London Advocates, serving for several years as the founding co-chair of the TLA Talent and Immigration Working Group. In that role, Leslie and the team successfully lobbied the UK government for changes to immigration policy as related to the tech sector and also acted as a mentor and advisor to London's tech community on talent and operations issues.
Job Titles:
- Group Lead, Tech Florida Advocates
- Leader of the Newly Formed Tech Florida Advocates
Leader of the newly formed Tech Florida Advocates, Luis Novella is an executive with experience in energy, cybersecurity, insurance, FinTech/DeFi, Crypto Custody, and consulting at an international level.
Over his 28+ year career, Luis has had extensive hands-on experience in the US, Europe, and Latin America. He's been a board member of several startups and is highly versed in matters of International Corporate Governance. He has also managed the EMEA and LatAm operations of several US technology and professional services companies, and held senior leadership positions at KPMG, Accenture, The Hackett Group, and Areva.
He is a Chartered Director, FIoD and former Chairman of the IoD in France. He's an NED at IXI Labs, and a member of the BABC and Beacon Council Miami.
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner of Vireo Ventures
- Group Lead, Tech Berlin Advocates
Matthias is a Founding Partner of Vireo Ventures a Venture Capital firm that has recently launched Vireo Electrification Fund I. The fund size is 60M and the fund invests in early stage (pree-seed, seed) companies in energy- and climate tech with a primary focus in Europe.
He has previoulsy build and managed a 120M portfolio of energy startups for listed corporate utility group RWE AG.
Before that, Matthias was a Senior Manager of the M&A Team of RWE AG, managing and executing corporate transactions globally across the group.
Job Titles:
- Director and Tech Sector Specialist, London Stock Exchange Group
Job Titles:
- Business Leader
- Group Lead, Tech West England Advocates
Richard has been an active business leader and ambassador for the South West of England since 2006. He is passionate about promoting the West of England Tech eco-system within the Global Tech Advocates community to enable innovation and collaboration to support Scaling Up and Going Global. Richard is Managing Director of Hewlett Rand, a Training and Digital Learning consultancy specialising in training Leadership, Management and Sales teams to improve performance and results. Hewlett Rand also runs Dragonfly Academy an in-house programme to equip Tech SME Top Teams with the skills to support their scale up journey. He has a keen interest in Tech for online training, accelerating team performance and business outcomes. Richard is also a Director of the Bristol and West of England China Bureau supporting anglo-sino trade development.
Job Titles:
- Director, Strategy & Innovation / Credit Suisse
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner, Generation 2200
Job Titles:
- Chartered Accountant
- Founders
- Head of Corporate Development & Community, TLA & GTA
- Member of TLA
Tracey has a portfolio career, working part time as the TLA Head of Corporate Development and Community while also serving as a Fractional Strategic Chief Finance Officer/Chief Operating Officer.
Tracey is an active member of TLA since 2020 and serves on the board of GTA Future of Work.
With a strong passion for empowering tech startup founders, Tracey has focused her career to helping them navigate the challenges of rapid business growth. Her expertise lies in investor readiness, financial management, operational excellence, program management, and inclusive team leadership.
Tracey brings extensive experience as a startup business mentor, operator, and consultant. She is particularly interested in collaborating with venture capitalists, private equity firms, and fellow angel investors who seek support for their portfolio companies. Her diverse professional background in strategy, transformation, finance, audit, and transaction services spans various sectors and countries, providing her with a unique perspective on innovation and growth from startups to large corporations FTSE PLCs
As a former KPMG Director, Tracey is a qualified chartered accountant and is qualified in program management (PMP), Prince2agile, change leadership, and mental fitness coaching. She also contributes her expertise as a Non-Executive Director, serving on the audit and risk committees of London Metropolitan University and Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, chairing the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) committee and on the Council. Additionally, Tracey is a lead business mentor for Techstars London and Outlier Ventures accelerators.
Job Titles:
- Group Lead, Tech North Advocates
Volker Co-Leads Tech North Advocates with Naomi Timperley. He is a Partner at Amadeus Capital, working on its early-stage funds.
He is an entrepreneur who has founded or co-founded a total of 6 companies to date. He is also currently a co-founder of Blue Beck, a 40-strong (mobile) software development house, co-founder of the Digital Hive, a co-working space in Macclesfield and a Venture Partner at Emerge Education, Europe's leading early-stage EdTech investor. He is the Chair of Bibblio as well as a board member (and designated Chair) of Advantage Creative and a co-founder at Tech North Advocates.
Prior to joining Amadeus Capital, Volker was an active angel investor and was amongst the first angel investors in companies like Pi-Top, Bibblio, Aula Education, the Link App and Wonde.
Previously, Volker was the Chief Strategy Officer at Scoreloop, a mobile social gaming platform, which he helped grow from (almost) inception to 450m users at its peak. When the company got acquired by BlackBerry in 2011, he served as BlackBerry's Global Head of Business Development - Games.
Volker started his career as a corporate lawyer with Luther in Hamburg. He left private practice to work with one of the world's first mobile technology incubators in 2000 and, over the next ten years, helped launch some of the earliest services and applications in the mobile space, including a mobile fan club for Britney Spears (2002) and Call of Duty 3 for feature phones (2006).