Judges

• 

  Warwick Hill

  Managing Director, Microsoft Ventures

  Warwick Hill is a New Zealand business executive and currently the MD of Microsoft For Startups.

  With over 30 years’ experience in the global technology, telecoms, media and digital sectors Warwick Hill leads Microsoft’s mission to work with great startups as they mature and scale globally.

  Warwick is married and lives in London. He is an active runner and enjoys all things fitness
• 

  Autumn Bryan

  Head of Agency Strategy and Insights, Google UK

  Autumn Bryan is the Head of Agency Strategy and Insights at Google UK, partnering with the agency community to help them make the most of the web on behalf of their clients.  Starting her career in professional sports working in Events and Marketing for the Seattle Mariners, Autumn moved on to spend 10 years in the digital start up world leading business development for MarTech organisations in the US and UK including Techlightenment and Collective.  She has a passion for the intersection where technology meets social good and has been a judge for Google’s Global Impact Challenge and also run a series of events in collaboration with Grazia to inspire women through the magic of technology.
• 

  Kieran Harte

  Head of Cities, Uber Midlands & South West UK, Wales and Ireland

  Kieran Harte is a business manager with over 15 years experience in online classified, media & disruptive digital models. His work at Uber includes his position as Head of Cities in the Midlands and South West UK, Wales, Ireland and NI, as well as General Manager of Ireland and Northern Ireland. He previously spent three years as the marketing director at Daft.ie.
• 

  Sweta Shetty

  Managing Director, Startupbootcamp Fintech

  Sweta is the Managing Director of Startupbootcamp India and a change leader who relentlessly focusses on driving meaningful collaborative innovation in India and across innovation hotbeds across the globe. She carries with her more than a decade of experience in Financial Services and has worked for industry leaders like Citigroup (Investment Banking) and Reliance Industries (Corporate Venture Fund). Her diverse cross industry experience includes FinTech of course, but also EdTech, Logistics & Supply chain and HealthTech.

  She helped set up a couple of corporate accelerators in the past and has been an entrepreneur in the startup advisory space. She has been closely working with digital startups for the last 5 years accelerating ideas into sustainable businesses, particularly focusing on market value proposition, business model and growth strategies.

  She is passionate about inclusive development and women empowerment across different rungs and strata of the society.
• 

  Jo Harlow

  Non-Executive Director, Sainsbury's plc

  Jo brings a wealth of experience in consumer-facing businesses and in the telecoms and technology industry, both in the UK and internationally. Jo spent 12 years in a variety of senior management roles with Nokia and Microsoft. Prior to this, she spent a combined 19 years at P&G and Reebok in senior sales and marketing positions in both Europe and the US. She is currently a Non-Executive Director for Intercontinental Hotel Group plc, Halma plc, and J Sainsbury’s plc and is a Supervisory Board member of Ceconomy AG. An avid ‘Ameripean’, Jo is American by birth, but has spent the last 18 years living in various European countries.
• 

  Kerry Ritz

  Non-Executive Director, Advisor to Early-Stage and High Growth Companies

  Kerry has a broad range of international experience with both startups and corporates. He is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Barclays Techsters Programme and a Non-Executive Director (NED) and Advisor to a number of high growth companies. He is also an advisor to First Derivatives and their Kx Technology Fund.

  Previously Kerry was Managing Director of MassChallenge UK, and Chief Marketing Officer of FTSE 250 Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, Although Kerry is originally Canadian, he has been in Europe for more than 25 years and has lived in the UK, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
• 

  Bill Liao

  General Partner, SOSV Accelerator

  Australian entrepreneur, venture capital investor, diplomat, author and speaker with a distinguished record in the areas of business, development and community activism, Bill is co-founder of the CoderDojo movement, founder of Weforest and is the investment partner for Europe of SOSV, a $250m international investment fund.
• 

  Barbara Ingraham

  Managing Director, Excess & Surplus, Verisk; Mentor at Hartford Insurtech Hub

  Barbara Ingraham is an insurance executive with over 30 years in customer management and business leadership roles. She leads ISO’s growth efforts in the Excess & Surplus and Insurtech segments, setting strategy, growing existing capabilities and developing new approaches. Barbara has extensive experience developing and leading insurer growth strategies, managing customer and broker relationships and leading the delivery of global capabilities to the market.

  Barbara previously led the International segment for Zurich’s Global Corporate business unit in North America. She began her insurance career with Travelers in Hartford, and has held positions of increasing leadership with Marsh, AIG and Winterthur prior to joining Zurich. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut (Magna cum laude) and her MBA from the University of Hartford.
• 

  Parul Green

  Group Head of Innovation for UK and Ireland, AXA

  Parul is Group Head of Innovation for UK and Ireland at AXA. She is responsible for Open eco system, Partnering, R&D and Innovation strategy across Group’s General Insurance, Health, and Asset Management businesses. She is member of the AXA UK Seed Fund Investment committee which invests in Fintech, Insurtech and Digital Health start-ups for the AXA Group.

  Financial Services and PE expert with global experience, she is a mentor at The Duke of York [email protected], Mayor of London’s International Business Partnering and Business Growth Programme and Board advisor to Insurance Times on Technology and Innovation. She is on the judging Panel for FinTech 50 Europe, Disrupt 100 and Insurance Times- Technology Excellence Award.

  Economist and Investor by training, she has held senior strategist, M&A and investor roles, globally at AXA, Aviva, Family Office VC and Citibank.
• 

  Andy McCartney

  Co-Founder, Whitespace Ventures

  This quintessential tech entrepreneur has travelled from bedroom coder to chic geek to working for one of the largest tech firms in the world and becoming a keystone for the booming British tech ecosystem.

  Andy is no stranger to the world of entrepreneurialism, having founded and acted as CTO for his fair share of tech start-ups, including the award-winning JamPot Technologies.

  Unsurprisingly, he has been recognised by some of the industry’s biggest players and was welcomed into the fold by Microsoft Ventures, where he founded Microsoft Ventures UK launched in London, helping build successful global start-ups.

  The next natural step for Andy was to take all this expertise and start investing into the next global successes, where he has become one of the founding team for Whitespace Ventures.
• 

  Emma Sinclair, MBE

  Co-Founder, EnterpriseJungle

  Emma is the youngest person to have floated a company on the London Stock Exchange, at 29. A serial entrepreneur, she now co-leads global software company EnterpriseAlumni. Their software powers the corporate alumni networks of some of the world’s largest companies. Outside of her day job, she regularly writes for newspapers and commentates on tv and in 2016, was awarded an MBE by the Queen for Services to Entrepreneurship. In 2014, she was appointed UNICEFs first business mentor and recently completed UNICEFs first ever crowdfund to roll out Innovation Labs in refugee camps in her capacity as a UNICEF advisor.
• 

  Matt Connolly

  Founder and CEO, Tällt Ventures

  Matt has worked within tech innovation for the past 15+ years.

  In 2003 he founded a digital innovation agency which grew to become the UK’s #1. He subsequently went on to build, and invest in, a number of tech startups. Recognising the opportunity to help companies better understand, adapt and succeed in today’s changing world, Matt launched Tällt Ventures – a market scanning and innovation company.

  Tällt’s core product, Sønr, tracks the trends, insights, ventures, corporate innovators, accelerators and investors across the insurance ecosystem. And with unique access to this intelligence, Tällt works with insurers around the world to acquire, partner or build new businesses.

  In addition to spending much of his time travelling, Matt speaks regularly at conferences and enjoys meeting people who share his passion for disruptive innovation.
• 

  Dan Wilkinson

  Chief Technology Officer, Fidelity Life Assurance

  Dan is a technology leader with over fifteen years of experience trying to make sense of emerging technologies, spanning roles from frontline content management to senior executive, on both client and agency sides and across a diverse set of industry sectors. Currently leading the Technology function at Fidelity Life Assurance, Dan lives and works in Auckland, where he moved to from the UK in 2008.
• 

  Sam Barton

  Delivery Lead, UK Sports Analytics Conference World Series

  Sam leads the delivery of the UK Sports Analytics Conference World Series and provides mentor support to promising SMEs and accelerator programmes.

  A former Special Advisor to HRH The Duke of York, KG, Sam specialises in the SportsTech, eSports, gaming and EdTech sectors.
• 

  Tom Butterworth

  Managing Director, Early Stage Banking

  Tom Butterworth is a Director of Entrepreneur Banking with Silicon Valley Bank’s UK Branch. He joined Silicon Valley Bank in 2014 to lead their team focused on providing commercial banking to early-stage technology and innovation businesses in the UK.

  Devoting much of his career to working with technology businesses, Tom previously worked at Natwest and RBS focusing on banking services and debt facilities for a portfolio of technology and media businesses. Over the years, Tom has worked with many well-known London-based technology businesses, building a deep understanding of the high-growth sector.
• 

  Donna Scully

  Director, Carpenters

  Donna is a Director in Carpenters, a market leading provider of claims & legal services to the personal lines insurance industry, brokers and their customers.

  Moving to the UK from Ireland, Donna worked for various law firms in London before joining Carpenters in 1997, where she set up its specialist Personal Injury department, developing a reputation for an ethical approach to legal & claims services.

  A member of the Motor Accident Solicitors Society’s management committee since 2004, she became Vice-Chairman of MASS in November 2008 and was elected as MASS Chairman for a two-year term in 2010. During her term, she was closely involved in the formation of AskCUE PI and the implementation of the LASPO legislation.

  She has held a seat on the Insurance Times’ Fraud Charter since its launch in 2012, is a member of the editorial board for Modern Insurance Magazine and she received the Outstanding Achievement award at the 2014 Personal Injury Awards. In November 2016, Insurance Business UK named her as one of the insurance industry’s Women of Influence.

• 

  Sam Kelly

  Managing Director, AKQA

  Sam Kelly is the Managing Director of AKQA, having initially joined the company as Business Development Manager in 2008. He is responsible for global Marketing and Business Development at AKQA, managing global pitches for the world’s best brands, supporting all AKQA offices with business development strategy and introducing existing clients into new regions. He is also responsible for all brand, event, marketing and PR initiatives.
• 

  Debbie Forster, MBE

  CEO, Tech Talent Charter

  Debbie Forster is the CEO of Tech Talent Charter, a UK Government-supported industry collective helping to ensure diversity in tech workforce.  Additionally she is Director for Novel Design and International Development Director of NCSSS.

  On top of her work with startups, scale-ups and SMEs, Debbie is an experienced speaker, providing thought leadership and expertise in startup, charity and education sectors.

  In January 2017 Debbie was awarded an MBE for services to Digital Technology and Tech Development. She has also been named WISE Woman of the Year 2016 and as one of the “20 Most Influential Women in UK IT” by Computer Weekly for the last four consecutive years.
• 

  David Fogel

  Co-Founder and Investor, Accelerated Digital Ventures

  David Fogel is co-founder and investment lead at ADV, a patient venture investor, created by entrepreneurs, operators, and collaborators.

  He was previously Deputy Director and Head of acceleration of Wayra UK, The Telefonica accelerator. David runs a portfolio of over 130 startups which have raised over $100m. Before joining Wayra David worked as an M&A and innovation strategy manager leading projects across the world for startups and TMT companies.

  Prior to that David worked as an associate at a European early-stage VC and at a startup accelerator.
• 

  Phil Bates

  Architect, Oracle

  Phil has led architecture and product development teams for Oracle’s analytics, data visualisation and business intelligence products and the development of Oracle’s container native development tools and serverless infrastructure. Phil is a founder of Oracle’s Startup Cloud Accelerator in Bristol. His current focus is the development of Oracle’s high performance cloud infrastructure and services to support computationally and data intensive research – in academia, industry and the public sector.
• 

  Dr. Junaid Bajwa

  GP, Global Lead for Strategic Alliances, MSD

  Junaid qualified as a GP in 2009 and has since gone on to undertake a number of roles within the NHS spanning the provider, and commissioning landscape: including being a Governing Body Member for the NHS Greenwich Clinical Commissioning Group (leading on Mental Health, IT, & supporting Integrated Care), working with the Royal Borough of Greenwich as a Public Health Associate, and being a Council Member for the London Clinical Senate. In 2014, he was seconded onto the NHS Leadership Academy Fast Track Executive Programme, where he was appointed as the Redesign Director of a large Integrated Mental Health & Community Foundation Trust. In April 2015 he was appointed as the Executive Director of Healthcare Services for MSD in the UK; and earlier this year promoted to being the Global Leader responsible for Strategic Alliances for MSD.
• 

  Tom Goodwin

  EVP, Head of Innovation, Zenith

  Tom Goodwin is the SVP of Strategy and Innovation at Havas Media, his role is to understand new technology, behaviours and platforms and ideate and implement solutions for clients that take advantage of the new opportunities these make possible. An industry provocateur and commentator, he’s a columnist for the Guardian, Mediapost and regular contributor to TechCrunch, Forbes, Ad Age, Ad Week, Inc and Digiday. He was voted a top 10 voice in Marketing by LinkedIn and one of 30 people to follow on Twitter by Business Insider.