Sharon is a Senior Business Leader with a track record in driving sustainable revenue growth, restructuring businesses and developing iconic brands across global markets. She has honed her leadership and advisory skills in Board & Executive roles at the BBC and Microsoft Corporation, and through her work as a Chairman, Non-Executive Director and executive coach.

Gary Butters is the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Mobica, a global digital solution engineering provider delivering tailored, next generation technology solutions for many world’s leading brands, incorporating disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, IoT, extended reality, and more.

A proven leader in company-wide customer facing revenue engine and software services sales with over 30 years of experience. Gary is responsible for building key relationships with new and existing customers, highlighting Mobica’s expertise in software engineering, and driving the global sales and marketing strategy. His leadership has led his teams consistently deliver significant growth through the expansion of customer relationships and by winning new business revenue in Global, Enterprise, SME and Start Up customers in the UK, across Europe and in the USA.

Gary carries a wealth of industry knowledge, having previously held roles as Chief Revenue Officer at KERNEL Business Transformation, Chief Sales Officer at ThoughtWorks, and VP for UK and Europe at Ciklum.

Lorna Davidson is Founder and CEO at redwigwam, the UKs no1 platform for flexible staffing.

Lorna is an entrepreneur with a history of successfully building, managing and exiting businesses.

Redwigwam, is a flexible work booking platform serving both workers and hirers. There are currently more than 108,000 workers registered, a number which is growing daily! The site matches workers to jobs in their area that require the skills they have and workers can book whichever jobs they wish.

As Northern Head of TMT at Barclays, Greg supports a portfolio of fast growing tech companies and a team of regional TMT bankers.

Prior to this Greg has had roles in business development and leadership across UK&I. During 2016 he led the Northern project team responsible for implementing the high growth and entrepreneur proposition at Barclays.

This proposition underpins Barclays support of the local tech ecosystem through Eagle Labs, a bespoke funding model and a team of start-up/scale up bankers in the region. Greg is also a director of Involve Northwest.

Virginia is a European Patent Attorney, Chartered Patent Attorney, European Trade Mark Attorney and Registered Trade Mark Attorney. With a degree in engineering science from Oxford, she has over twenty years of experience in the intellectual property profession and she has registered thousands of patents in a wide variety of scientific fields. Virginia specialises in designing and building patent portfolios as a business asset for companies. As outside counsel, she has been responsible for the development and growth of some very high profile portfolios, since acquired by major companies at significant values. Alignment of IP with business strategy played a key part in building the value of each portfolio.

Virginia is the former President of the Software Commission for the UNION of European Practitioners in Intellectual Property - a forum for discussing and influencing forthcoming draft laws and international agreements. In this capacity, she is familiar with intellectual property regimes across several European territories. 

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.

An Economics graduate, Paul was an investment banker before co-founding his first games company, BattleMail in 1999.

After the sale of BattleMail, Paul went on to found Rockpool Games and Ironstone Partners, both of which were sold to Eidos/Square Enix in 2007 with Paul heading up Eidos Play, Eidos’ Casual division until February 2009. Paul Co-founded Playdemic in 2010.

Danielle Haugedal-Wilson - Head of Engineering, Co-op

Experienced Head Of Architecture, Board Member & Non Exec Director.

Skilled in Digital Strategy, Strategy Mapping, and Enterprise Architecture.

Strong business development professional with extensive retail history & a Bachelor's degree focused in Financial Services from The Manchester Metropolitan University. 

Richard Law- Non-Executive Chairman, The Pebble Group 

Richard is former CEO of GBG plc. Under his leadership GBG gained first mover advantage and became a global leader in disruptive Identity Intelligence making online business easier, safer and compliant for household name businesses globally. During his tenure GBG increased its market capitalisation 100 fold from £5 million to over £500 million and acquired 10 businesses across Europe, the USA and Asia.

Richard is a passionate supporter and backer of North West technology businesses and took a stake in and became Chair of Vypr in September 2017. Richard also Chairs Manchester based Zuto and, is an active Angel Investor in the region and works closely with Tech Manchester

Will is a founding director of OBI Property, and specialises in advising fast growing tech occupiers on their real estate strategies across the UK and Europe.

Will was recently named Dealmaker of the Year by North West Business Insider and has delivered successful business relocations for the likes of AO.com, The Hut Group, NCC Group, Zuto, Rentalcars.com, UKFast and LADBible

Edie Lush, a British-American Journalist, is an Author, Executive Editor of Hub Culture, aCommunication Trainer and MC.

She is co-host for the CBS distributed Global Goals podcast,which is part of the ‘We Are All Human Foundation’, an organization devoted to promoting radical inclusion and diversity and fights racism and discrimination. Edie was the economics and political correspondent for Bloomberg Television. Before moving into journalism she was a political analyst for investment bank UBS. She’s been a political analyst for hedge fund Omega Advisors in New York, a speechwriter for the Secretary General of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. and an international relations expert for Hungarian political party SzDSz in Budapest.

Paul is a partner in the Corporate team based in the Leeds office and heads our Private Equity team in the UK. Paul trained with the firm, qualifying in 2005 and being appointed as a partner in 2013.

Paul’s particular expertise covers all types of corporate work, in particularly private equity and mainstream mergers and acquisitions (both locally and internationally).

On the corporate side, Paul’s clients range from owner managers to PLCs and on the private equity side, Paul covers all aspects of such transactions ranging from advising management teams and/or the shareholders to advising the private equity house and/or the company.

David Moss, Co-founder of Blue Prism, is a thought leader and founding technologist in the Robotic Process Automation software sector.

David has over 20 years’ experience in the enterprise software space and a proven track record of delivering transformational technology products to global blue chip organisations.

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.

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

Mark Rothwell was a student of Business & Communication at Northumbria University, Since joining Pareto Law as a graduate he has achieved significant success in sales, management & leadership. He is now responsible for the sales function at Pareto law, a global market leading sales development and recruitment business.

After two decades of success, Pareto’s growth trajectory continues, with offices throughout the UK and New York, and a constantly expanding portfolio of services, including Sales Graduates, Sales Training, Executive Recruitment, Sales Apprenticeships & recently adding a Technical solution to find Project Managers & Business Analysts

Liz is Head of Entrepreneur Engagement at Tech Nation. She spent longer than she cares to admit in suits and corporate boardrooms before having her head turned by tech - and is now enjoying looking after the UK’s scaleup founders on a full time basis. She leads a national team across 11 different regions of the UK who are focused on finding and supporting tech founders to rapidly grow and scale their businesses. Liz's team are on a mission to make sure that the UK's scaling tech founders' huge ambitions are matched with ready access to a national and international network who can help them to make it happen.

She is a self-confessed tech fanatic with a particular soft-spot for B2B products with a beautifully crafted UI/UX and leadership teams with a relentless customer focus.

Liz sits on a number of Advisory Boards and Steering Committees all focused on driving ecosystem growth and supporting scaling businesses - including the Greater Manchester AI Foundry, The Digital City Festival, and the Business Action Council Net Zero Committee. In addition Liz is a proud member of the Princes' Trust North West Development Committee - supporting young people into entrepreneurship and growing the digital skills pipeline.

Stuart is the co-founder of Paceline marketing and PR consultancy, working with firms in the tech, professional services and arts sectors. His 20+ years corporate career saw him running marketing and corporate relationships departments for the likes of Alliance & Leicester, first direct and TD Bank of Canada. He is a non-executive director and adviser to a number of startups, including JigTalk, Synap and Soc, and has helped startups to raise funds, through crowdfunding, angels and VCs.

He is also the co-founder and the Festival Director of the Leeds Digital Festival, the largest tech event in the UK. In 2019, the Festival had 240 events and 25,000 attendees, with more tech events in Leeds than in San Francisco, Boston and New York. The annual Tech Nation report saw him named by startups as the most influential person in Leeds.

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 is also on the boards of Leeds City Council Digital and Leeds Tech and a member of the steering groups for Leeds BID and the Leeds LEP innovation team.

Kirsty Macdonald is a Principal at JamJar Investments, the innocent drinks founders’ venture capital fund. They invest in exceptional founding teams to help them create, nurture and scale challenger consumer brands in the UK. Investments include Deliveroo, Bulb Energy, Propercorn and Tails.com. 

Prior to JamJar, Kirsty trained at consumer goods giant Unilever where she worked on marketing and customer analytics across a variety of brands within their personal care and food portfolios. She holds a BA in Economics and Management from the University of Oxford and an MSc in Global Politics from The London School of Economics.

Ed is a Vice President at GP Bullhound. Since joining in 2016, Ed has worked on over £1bn 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.

Mae Salem is a Partner in the Corporate Practice Group in Leeds. Mae is experienced in advising corporates, private equity houses and individuals on private acquisitions and disposals, private equity investments and generally advising clients in a corporate setting.

Mae was shortlisted for the Yorkshire Insider Dealmakers Awards in 2020 in the Emerging Dealmaker category.

Thomas Bowie is an associate in the Financial Services Practice Group. He works on a diverse range of regulatory matters, and advises on compliance with the FCA/PRA rules and implementation of EU legislation in the UK (including MiFID II/R, EMIR, AIFMD, 4MLD, 5MLD, and PSD2). Tom acts for clients across EMEA, North America and Asia Pacific ranging from start-ups to international organisations, including banks, stockbrokers, investment managers, private equity firms, insurers and intermediaries.

Stuart is the co-founder of Paceline marketing and PR consultancy, working with firms in the tech, professional services and arts sectors. His 20+ years corporate career saw him running marketing and corporate relationships departments for the likes of Alliance & Leicester, first direct and TD Bank of Canada. He is a non-executive director and adviser to a number of startups, including JigTalk, Synap and Soc, and has helped startups to raise funds, through crowdfunding, angels and VCs.

He is also the co-founder and the Festival Director of the Leeds Digital Festival, the largest tech event in the UK. In 2019, the Festival had 240 events and 25,000 attendees, with more tech events in Leeds than in San Francisco, Boston and New York. The annual Tech Nation report saw him named by startups as the most influential person in Leeds.

Ed is an Associate in the Investment Banking team at GP Bullhound, a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s entrepreneurs and founders. Ed has worked on transactions throughout Europe and also in the US, South Africa and Asia – where he spent a year working in Hong Kong.

Alongside working on transactions, Ed is passionate about developing the technology ecosystem in the UK and is a judge on several national start-up competitions.

Kirsty Macdonald is an Investment Manager at JamJar Investments, the innocent drinks founders’ venture capital fund. They invest in exceptional founding teams to help them create, nurture and scale challenger consumer brands in the UK. Investments include Deliveroo, Bulb Energy, Propercorn and Tails.com. 

Prior to JamJar, Kirsty trained at consumer goods giant Unilever where she worked on marketing and customer analytics across a variety of brands within their personal care and food portfolios. She holds a BA in Economics and Management from the University of Oxford and an MSc in Global Politics from The London School of Economics.