Ana is a successful tech entrepreneur. She founded i-design in 1995, and was CEO of the fintech business, listing it on the AIM exchange in 2007 and was awarded the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year award by Entrepreneurial Scotland. In 2013, she joined the Executive Committee of NASDAQ listed ATM Services company Cardtronics when it acquired i-design. In 2019 she joined seed investment firm Eos, where she is an investment partner. She also holds several non- executive director positions including for pet wellness business Bella & Duke and the Scottish FA, and she is an active angel investor. Most recently, Ana was appointed chair of an independent Review into Women in Entrepreneurship, commissioned by Scottish Government's Kate Forbes.

Chris van der Kuyl is one of Scotland’s leading entrepreneurs working across the technology, media, gaming and entertainment sectors. Chris is most notably co-founder and chairman of multiple award-winning games developer 4J Studios, best known for developing Minecraft for Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo games consoles. He and fellow co-founder Paddy Burns launched Chroma Ventures, the investment arm of 4J Studios, in 2021.

Chris is chairman of; Broker Insights, Puny Astronaut, Stormcloud Games and Parsley Box and sits on the boards of; Blippar, Ace Aquatec, Ant Workshop and ADV Holdings. He is also a non-executive director of the Ballie Gifford US Growth Trust.

Alongside his commercial roles, he was the founding chairman of Entrepreneurial Scotland and is currently a member of multiple advisory and local charity boards. Elected as one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2013, Chris was also formally recognised for his contribution to technology in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2020, becoming a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Dan Freed is a partner at YFM Equity Partners, focused on originating and executing new investments of £2m-£10m to unlock the growth potential in Northern tech and high growth businesses. Dan has over 20 years of experience in investment baking, strategy & corporate development and private equity & venture capital.

Dave founded Blue Prism in 2001. Widely acknowledged as creating the RPA software category, Blue Prism’s Intelligent Automation software is used by over 2000 enterprise companies across 170 countries. Following a successful AIM IPO in 2016, growing to over 1000 staff in 30 countries, Blue Prism was acquired by SS&C in 2022 for $1.6bn. Dave lives in Cheshire with his family and is now sharing his experiences and passion for technology with young entrepreneurs as a mentor and investor.

Deb Hetherington is an award winning facilitator of business support and growth consultancy with over 10 years experience supporting startup and scaling businesses. As Head of Innovation for Bruntwood SciTech in Leeds and Manchester, Deb leads the design and delivery of innovation services and business support to a wide range of disruptive digital and tech startups and scale ups at the ‘home of tech’ Platform in Leeds and at Manchester Science Park, Citylabs and Circle Square.

Deb has a particular interest in Data & AI led innovation, and the potential implications these rapidly advancing technologies are likely to have on both business and society alike. She is

an Associate at Leeds Beckett University and plays an integral role in connecting young

businesses with knowledge transfer based innovation filtered through academic

institutions. Deb is also one of the Directors of Leeds Digital Festival, an open platform tech event based in Leeds with thousands of attendees from across the globe both virtually and physically.

Ed is a Vice President at GP Bullhound. Since joining in 2016, Ed has worked on over £1.5bn of successful M&A transactions and scale up rounds across Europe, the UK, Africa and the USA – additionally he has spent time in Hong Kong on secondment. He started his career at EY and Grant Thornton in their Corporate Finance departments.

Ed is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, he holds a BA (Hons) from the University of Manchester.

George Mackintosh was the founder and CEO of Eggplant, the test automation company based in London. Initially VC-backed, the business expanded rapidly with offices in Germany, the USA and in Asia. It became a Carlyle portfolio company and was eventually sold to Keysight Technologies in 2020 for $330m. George's previous ventures included Geoconference [sold to Verizon] and City Meeting. He now lives in Edinburgh investing in several early stage businesses and indulging in the restoration of the luxurious corporate and holiday retreat Papple Steading. He is a trustee at Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh and an Associate at the University of Edinburgh Business School.

Jane Haxby is the Managing Partner of the London office. Jane is the former European Managing Partner and prior to that, she was the co-head of our Global Corporate Practice Group, responsible for EMEA. She has over 25 years of experience advising public and private companies on all aspects of corporate finance generally with particular focus on mergers and acquisitions (including takeovers). Jane also advises on corporate governance, reorganizations and general corporate structuring.

With over 25 years’ experience in the apprenticeship industry, Jonathan has been leading the growth as the Executive Chairman at Apprentify. Apprentify offer a unique approach to assessing, training and placing the best digital and technical Apprentices from start to finish.

Recently, Apprentify have received a significant investment from BGF with a goal of building the best digital and technical training programmes for business growth and acquisition.

A digital marketing and retailing expert, Jenny has been involved in ecommerce since leaving university in 1999, taking her dissertation idea directly to market and forming her first company, Equine Innovations. Following success with her self-designed products Jenny grew this business until it transformed into Country Attire in 2006, a multi-award winning, fast growing heritage clothing, footwear and accessory e-tailer featuring industry leading innovations in online retailing.

As Marketing Director for Country Attire Jenny led the marketing teams, sourcing and securing the best new online technologies, driving PPC, SEO, email marketing, offline marketing and social media performance, customer database growth and website improvements. Jenny also oversaw operations at CA, building efficiency improvements and innovation in warehousing and relationships with external couriers and suppliers.  Country Attire featured twice on the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 listing of Britain’s fastest growing private companies.

Jenny has been interviewed for her opinions by many trade publications and the Sunday Times, and has been an expert ecommerce commentator for both BBC Radio Four, Radio 5 Live and BBC Television News. Following her successful exit of Country Attire via a trade sale Jenny set up and ran the overall marketing department for the £100m turnover group that purchased the business, recently she has been mentoring and advising several up and coming ecommerce businesses.

A consistent theme in Mark's career has been turning data and analytics into better business decisions. Initially working in retail location consultancy and then leading database marketing agency Marketing Databasics to an exit with the Indicia Group. He co-founded deltaDNA in 2010 and brought analytics and player management into the games industry for the first time leading it to an acquisition by Unity Technologies in 2019. His current role is running Marketing for the Unity Gaming Services platform."

Serial entrepreneur, three-time founder and public board member. Presently Operating Partner at Exponent PE, Chair of GoCity and a NED at Flutter PLC. Formerly in Executive roles at Carlsberg Group until May 2021, where she was also Chief Digital Officer.

Paul is the co-founder of MPP Global and was CEO for 20 years until its acquisition by AIM-listed Aptitude Software in October 2021. MPP Global is the award-winning international provider of the cloud-based subscription management and billing SaaS platform, eSuite. Paul led the business from cradle to sale; including its angel funding and bootstrapped early growth phase, various strategy pivots, a series B fundraise and international expansion before its recent trade sale.

At exit, MPP Global had grown to over 100 employees plus offshore development teams and £9m ARR. As CEO, Paul became an all-rounder with an entrepreneurial spirit and a strong background in all areas of growing an international software company, including finance and metrics, sales, marketing, product and software engineering. Paul continues to work with passionate and entrepreneurial founders of exciting and high growth SaaS, Software and Fintech companies.

Richard has been in charge of Leeds based Sky Betting & Gaming for eleven years and with the company for sixteen.

He holds a Masters degree in Engineering, Economics and Management from Oxford and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University, where he was a Fulbright scholar. He lives in Harrogate with his wife and two children but remains an Arsenal fan.

Richard Faulkner is a managing director for technology banking with SVB UK, where he is responsible for growth in the north of England and Scotland. Richard joined SVB UK in 2018 and has more than 20 years of experience in technology banking and supports clients that include Matillion, Castore and the craneware group. Richard is committed to supporting SVB UK’s growth in the vibrant innovation sector and entrepreneurs leading high-growth, disruptive technology businesses, with a particular focus on public companies, cybersecurity and enterprise software.

With over 30 years of experience in financial services, Simon has been helping high-net-worth and ultra-high net-worth families to achieve their long-term financial objectives for many years. He continues to do so in his current role as Portfolio Director at Cazenove Capital, and Heads up the offices across the Northern regions.  

He joined Cazenove Capital from UBS where he was the Regional Head for North West of England. Before that Simon spent most of his working life at Lloyds Banking Group in a range of wealth management roles. He is a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments (CISI).

Stephen is a Partner at ECI Partners, the UK’s leading growth-focused private equity firm.

ECI partners with UK growth companies within the business & financial services, consumer, and TMT sectors. For more than 40 years ECI has invested across the northern technology sector, gaining a wealth of experience in supporting high growth businesses, including NCC Group, LateRooms, Ascribe, Citation, Imagesound and Oaktree.

They typically invest £25m to £100m of equity in deals valued up to £200m. ECI believes in teamwork and collaboration, supporting ambitious management teams combining their knowledge and vision with our experience.

Stephen is a corporate finance partner with over 25 years' experience of equity capital markets, mergers & acquisitions and private equity transactions. Stephen principally focuses on the technology and energy sectors and has acted for a number of high-growth technology companies. Stephen is a member of Shepherd and Wedderburn’s board, and head of their corporate division. Prior to joining Shepherd and Wedderburn, he gained industry experience as general counsel for two main market listed technology companies

Dr Vanessa Collingridge is a prize-winning broadcaster, writer and impact coach, specialising in science, environment and technology. With over 30 years’ experience for the BBC, ITV, Discovery and a host global broadcasters, she now helps business leaders craft and share their ‘stories’ with customers and investors.