CENTRE FOR ENTREPRENEURS - Key Persons
Alicia is our Founder Talent Lead at CFE where she is responsible for the selection of our founder cohort for the NEF+ programme. The completion of her undergraduate degree in Psychology BSc (Hons) and masters degree in Occupational Psychology MSc (Hons) sparked her motivation to identify, understand and extract the best in people in the start-up ecosystem by prioritising diversity. She joins us from the talent team at Founders Factory where she contributed to managing the end-to-end recruitment for founder and operational roles as well as people operations. Alicia is passionate about providing value to entrepreneurs starting out on their challenging founder journey.
Andrew was a founder of Cinven, where he spent 21 years as a senior partner. He is chair of the Biotech Growth Trust, former chairman of the British Venture Capital Association, and director of its European equivalent, the EVCA. He is now a senior advisor to Stonehage Fleming, the largest international family office in EMEA.
A creative producer working towards connecting individuals, communities and systems. She is particularly interested in exploring the power of collaboration and developing supportive ecosystems for entrepreneurs around the world. She previously managed the British Council's Developing Inclusive and Creative Economies programme, which looked at building economies through a cultural relations lens and before that coordinated the Global Social Enterprise program working with ecosystem players in 31 countries to support the social enterprise movement. Prior to British Council, Bella worked in public service delivery as operations manager at Newham Hospital later being selected to be part of the Future Leaders program with insight of managing social housing, schools, hospitals and roads. Bella has an undergraduate degree in international development and international relations and is currently completing a masters in social entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths University.
Ben joins CfE as one of our Talent Founder Leads, having previously scouted the 2020 Cohort. Ben's career to date revolves primarily around recruiting for high growth businesses, gaining great exposure to London's startup ecosystem. Prior to this, he worked within the legal field and spent time assisting people over 50 reenter the workforce and start their own ventures. He has a passion for everything entrepreneurship, revels in meeting inspiring and ambitious people and loves to support small businesses in any way possible. He is the founder of his own local drinks company and aims to scale this with support of the NEF+ community in the near future.
Job Titles:
- Director of Development at the Royal Academy of Arts
Charlotte is director of development at the Royal Academy of Arts. She previously worked at Outset Contemporary Art Fund, and in the curatorial departments at The National Gallery in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 2012 she published "Corporate Art Collections: A Handbook" a history and survey of corporate collections.
Job Titles:
- Partner at Waypoint Capital
Cyrus is a partner at Waypoint Capital the entrepreneurial private investment firm backed by the Bertarelli family. As part of his Waypoint role he is CEO of Northill Capital, a multi-boutique asset management firm. He is also an adviser to COFRA A.G., the holding company of the Brenninkmeijer Family. Cyrus was previously a President of Fidelity International Limited (FIL), an Executive Board member of De Beers and CEO of Element Six Group, as well as Managing Partner (UK) of Bain & Company. He began his career at Schroders plc and studied medicine at the University of London.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Trustee
- Senior Advisor to Amitis Partners
Dee is senior advisor to Amitis Partners - an international family office - and to the founders of a number of world-leading tech companies. She previously founded two businesses after an early career in executive search.
Carl is an American economist, entrepreneur and former president of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. He has founded or co-founded a number of companies, including HCIA and Greenspring Advisors. Carl is currently a professor at Syracuse University and author of ‘Burn the business plan: What great entrepreneurs really do'.
Job Titles:
- Community Manager
- Freelance Community Manager
Emily-Jane has an undergraduate degree in Psychology BSc (Hons). Alongside her shared role as community manager for the Centre for Entrepreneurs, she manages a global community of social enterprises with the Social Enterprise World Forum.
Izzy is the Operations Lead for Centre for Entrepreneurs, she has over 4 years experience in building and maintaining key relationships. She ensures all operational systems are working effectively including CRM systems. She manages and coordinates content for CFE's website and plans and delivers our events. She is passionate about promoting entrepreneurship and helps support our NEF+ programme by sustaining communities and key relationships.
Joanna is a chartered accountant, and chartered tax advisor. She is currently Audit Committee Chair for Octopus Future Generations VCT plc. During a career spanning 25 years at Ernst & Young, she was a member of the London Markets Board and played key roles in transactions in the UK and Europe. Joanna also co-founded the EY Womens Network and led the EY UK Entrepreneur of The Year Programme. She currently co-chairs The Women's Network Forum, a cross industry best practice group.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Managing Director ( Northern Europe
Joseph is managing director (Northern Europe and Global Academy) for ISTARI, a Temasek-owned cybersecurity investment portfolio company. He is a former McKinsey partner, company MD (Keller Group (UK and Nordics)) and spent 10 years with ICI at the start of his career.
Job Titles:
- Founder and CEO of the MOBO Awards
Kanya is the founder and CEO of the MOBO Awards. Since 1996, the MOBO Awards have recognised and honoured the artistic and technical achievements of exceptional British and international talent in the musical fields of Hip Hop, Grime, RnB/Soul, Reggae, Jazz, Gospel, and African music. In 2018 Kanya was honoured with a CBE for services to Music, Culture and Entrepreneurship.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Chair of the Advisory Board
- Chairman of Letter
Lord Davies is the Chairman of LetterOne. He is also the Chairman of the Lawn Tennis Association, Glyndebourne Productions Ltd, Double Dutch, Cydar and Fusebox. He is a Senior Advisor at Corsair Capital, an Advisor to Teneo, the Prime Minister's Trade Envoy to Sri Lanka and, until recently, he was the Chairman of Intermediate Capital Group. Lord Davies was awarded a CBE for his services to the financial sector and the community in Hong Kong in June 2002 where he served as a member of the HK Exchange fund for seven years. Lord Davies is a JP in Hong Kong, he is an Honorary Distinguished Professor at Cardiff Business School, and an Honorary Fellow of Bangor University.
Luke Johnson is a British entrepreneur. He is a former chairman of the Pizza Express chain, the Royal Society of Arts and Channel 4. He has written weekly columns for The Sunday Times and the Financial Times for over 14 years. Luke is the founder of The Centre for Entrepreneurs think tank.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Founder and Co - CEO of Cardo Health
Masha is a founder and co-CEO of Cardo Health, delivering high quality digital healthcare to millions in the emerging markets. She is also a mentor at Oxford Foundry and Zinc. Until recently (2020) Masha was a partner at McKinsey. Having joined the firm in 1997 she focused on growth and building new businesses both internally and externally, leading Fuel in Europe, a McKinsey company supporting founders and funders.
Matt oversees CFE's Incubator and Accelerator Network and Refugee Entrepreneurship Network. He was recruited by Luke Johnson in 2013 to design, launch and run the Centre as a think tank, before merging it with the New Entrepreneurs Foundation in 2017 to create a unified entrepreneurship foundation. Alongside his ongoing CFE role, Matt is director of research and policy at Global Entrepreneurship Network.
Previously, Matt co-founded student enterprise charity NACUE and worked at Enterprise UK. He helped launch the European Startup Network and served as board member from 2016-2019. He sits on the board of the National Enterprise Network .
Oli Barrett founded schools enterprise challenge Tenner. He also co-founded children's literacy campaign TOTS (Turn on the Subtitles), StartUp Britain, WebMission, and social enterprise Volunteer It Yourself (VIY). He is the host of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and The Lens podcast with Business in the Community, and runs The Connector Unit which connects people and organisations around the world to make a difference.
Oliver is the London-based Chairman of Korn Ferry's Board Services Practice, focusing on chairman, non-executive and executive board appointments, succession management and leadership development. Prior to his current position, he was a Vice Chairman of UBS for 10 years. Oliver began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, moving into corporate finance with Barings in London and New York.
Richard is Deputy CEO and COO at Centre for Entrepreneurs and responsible for CFE's operations, finances and systems, and leadership of the NEF+ programme.
Prior to joining CFE (then NEF), Richard was at British Telecom, in a senior operational capacity leading customer service teams in the Consumer division and working with EE prior to their acquisition by BT. During his time at BT Richard developed deep expertise in customer experience, out- and insourcing of high-volume service operations and fixed and mobile telecoms technology.
Before BT, Richard worked in the aerospace industry at BAE Systems, in a wide variety of roles - engineering, project management and commercial, delivering cutting-edge technology and international defence programmes.
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner of Rothschild & Co Gestion
Robert is Managing Partner of Rothschild & Co Gestion, and Co-Chairman of the Rothschild & Co Group Executive Committee. He is also Head of Rothschild & Co's Global Advisory business, worldwide, and Chief Executive of NM Rothschild & Sons. Prior to joining Rothschild & Co in 1998, Robert was a Director and Head of UK M&A at Morgan Grenfell & Co. Limited.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Chief Executive of FinnCap
Sam is founder and chief executive of FinnCap, the largest broker for companies listed on AIM and a top five broker for the London Stock Exchange. She remains the only female CEO of a City broking firm.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of NEF Coaching Panel
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Advisor to the UK Government
Stephen is the founder CEO of the Business Growth Fund (BGF). In 2013, Stephen was appointed an advisor to the UK Government regarding the establishment of the British Business Bank and in 2017, served as a member of the Industry Panel advising HM Treasury on the Patient Capital Review. In 2018, Stephen was appointed a member of the first Council of Innovate UK. Stephen has served as an independent director on a broad range of companies, both in the UK and internationally.
Job Titles:
- Content & Social Media Lead
Tessa joins CFE as the social media and content lead, with a particular focus on its flagship NEF+ programme. She brings along a background in Fashion, consumer-facing brands and publishing (Singapore Press Holdings) across Singapore and London - also having contributed to Gen-Z targeted projects for the H&M Group and Future Laboratory. Outside this role at CFE, Tessa is also working on building Brainchild, her startup that focuses on redesigning the job creation pipeline for the creative industry. She was awarded a startup visa sponsorship in 2020 to make this happen in the UK, after proposing it to her university, the London College of Fashion.
Timothy is an entrepreneur and former venture capital investor. Before formally joining our team, Tim has advised CFE for a number of years. Previously, he ran his own business which supported start up companies and ran an incubator space in Westminster. Before that, he ran the centre for entrepreneurship at UCL, which he led from launch and grew to being one of the largest activities of its type in the world and has continued there in a part-time teaching role leading Strategy for post graduate entrepreneurship students. As chair of Trustees for NACUE, Tim has had significant experience working within the entrepreneurship sector alongside young people and holds a number of non-executive posts. A graduate of UCL, he holds the Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion and is a Fellow of the RSA.
Vin Murria is the founder of Advanced Computer Software, where she served as chief executive officer until it was acquired by Vista in 2015. Vin has more than 25 years of venture capital, private equity, M&A and CEO/operational experience in the software sector. Vin is currently a non-executive director for Softcat and for Zoopla Property Group, and she is a partner at Elderstreet Investments.