Edward Ball 

Chief Operating Officer - Jellyfish

Edward co-founded Brighton-based Weedoo Media back in 2007, a marketing company that specialised in SEO, branding, ecommerce, design, and development. In 2011, Weedoo Media was acquired by Jellyfish, and Edward became Global Head of SEO and Social Media. Since then, Edward has held several high-profile roles at Jellyfish, from Managing Director to Chief Business Officer and now Chief Operating Officer. He sits on the Jellyfish Board of Directors and supports a group of managing directors across 20 countries, delivering global consistency and continuity across cultural, commercial, and service-based elements. Employing over 2,500 people across 40 offices globally, and with further expansion on the horizon, Jellyfish is proud to be at the forefront of the global digital economy, having grown at an average of 45% per annum consistently over the last eight years.

edward.ball@jellyfish.com Connect on LinkedIn

Monika Baunach

Public Affairs Adviser - WWF-UK

Monika works across Westminster and Whitehall to drive the organisation’s political strategy, provide support to advocacy colleagues, and lead the external relationships to influence government and address some of the biggest threats to our planet, from restoring nature and biodiversity, tackling climate change, to transforming the food system, unsustainable consumption and land management. She led a big Earth Hour-themed photoshoot and briefing session in Parliament, on 22 March, shining a light on nature’s role in climate, with a particular focus on agriculture, land use and food. The event had a good turnout with 73 cross-party parliamentarians in attendance. Has also acted as the Political Lead for WWF’s and Sky Ocean Rescue’s ‘Ocean Hero’ campaign, shining a light on pressure on marine ecosystems

mbaunach@wwf.org.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Sophie Best

Operations Director - Spiritmen Ltd t/a Silent Pool Distillers

Sophie became the youngest and first female board member of the company aged 32. Her achievements include overseeing the e-commerce and fulfilment business grow from £120k in 2019 to £1.4m turnover in 2020; achieving a 50% YOY growth in the third party production business – working with vineyards and fruit growers to utilise waste fruit and third press wine into a sellable product; co-authored the company’s 5 year strategic plan; set up global distribution hubs in the US, the Netherlands, South Africa and the UK to manage post-Brexit trading and designed and produced the Green Man Gin and Vodka range – the world’s first spirit in a fully recyclable and recycled cardboard bottle, which has now got a listing on Etihad Airlines which is a huge coup for us.

sophie@silentpooldistillers.com Connect on LinkedIn

Rebecca Blackmore

Marketing Manager UKI - Outsystems

Rebecca is a passionate, driven and hard working entrepreneur. Starting her first job at the age of 12 working with horses, to working two jobs at the age of 16 around her studies. Rebecca went on to run her own successful digital consultancy business upon graduating from Bournemouth University, Blackmore Social Consultancy (BSC). BSC was created from Rebecca’s passion and drive to help others be successful, making profitable businesses out of their passions and skills, to break the mould of the big corporate organisations and show off home grown talent. BSC successfully supported small local businesses to scale via digital and social media channels, to compete against big corporate organisations for contracts and win them! During Rebecca’s time running BSC she was fortune enough to work with small start up organisations from lots of different markets and work with big corporate organisations. These experiences enabled Rebecca to empthaise with both sides of the coin when scaling organisations for growth.

In 2016 Rebecca took on a new challenge at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) driving their social media channels, scaling out her work in the technology space working with HPE’s partners and working on two acquisitions into the business. During Rebecca’s time at HPE working on acquisitions her digital heart beat was pounding for the next adventure which lead her to current adventure at OutSystems. OutSystem is a Portuges founded application development software platform, that Rebecca has been fortune enough to work with to become a tech unicorn. OutSystems is currently valued at 9.5 billion dollars after it’s last funding round in February 2021. At OutSystems Rebecca is head of marketing for the UKI, a priority region for the organisation. However the scope of her work expands her experiences over the EMEA digital marketing strategy and in global campaigns. Rebecca thoroughly enjoys the breath and depth that her role intails handing everything from strategy to events, digital, partners, PR and most importantly working with OutSystems brilliant customers.”

rebecca.blackmore@outsystems.com Connect on LinkedIn

Tom Boulton

Systems Engineer - SSTL

After taking part in the International Space University Summer Space Program in Montreal with a scholarship from the UKSA before joining the Graduate program at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. Tom moved to SSTL and has worked on over a dozen spacecraft over a number of missions. From starting out testing and debugging flight hardware, he became the Electronic Design Lead for the development of a Reaction Wheel for the Eutelsat Quantum program, which was delivered under a public-private partnership between the European Space Agency, Eutelsat and Airbus.

tboulton@sstl.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Milo Bygrave

Lead Designer - 22 Cans

Milo Bygrave is a passionate and focused game designer who strives for innovation and quality. Moving from senior to lead designer, he has been a key player in creating games for a global stage. Throughout his career he has had the privilege of working across various fields and seniorities of game design.  Currently, he is engaged as Lead Designer on Legacy for the company, one of the emerging genres of blockchain gaming’s most ambitious and innovative projects.

mbygrave@22cans.com Connect on LinkedIn

Bruce Casalis

CEO and Founder - Bruce's Doggy Day Care

Having secured private equity backing in 2019 from consumer brand investment specialist Piper, the business has grown rapidly, tripling revenue last year and is on track to double again this year, going from £2m to £10m in less than 2 years. Caring for 1,000 dogs a day and employing over 200 people, the business has expanded from 2 operating centres in Surrey to 8 centres located across the South East in the last 12 months. The rolling five-year plan is to have a network of 20 sites nationally by 2024. The business provides a customer ap, for people to get and receive regular updates on their dog. Bruce’s own vision is to enrich the lives of one million dogs by 2030. Bruce acts as an advisor to DEFRA and sits on the Board of Directors for the Pet Industry Federation.

Bruce@bruces.dog Connect on LinkedIn

Billy Clackers

Managing Director - Invotra Ltd

Invotra Limited is a leading provider of enterprise intranets used by 47% of UK Civil Servants. Billy was promoted to Product Director, having spent many years leading product development within the business. Becoming a Managing Director of a multi-million-pound profitable company at only 29 is due to Billy’s many achievements, one of the most notable being how his efforts have led to a 44.5% increase in revenue from 2018-2022.

billy.clackers@invotra.com Connect on LinkedIn

Daniel Cook

Head of Planning & Strategy - Infinty

Daniel played the key role alongside CEO in the acquisition of ResponseTap from analysis to negotiation to diligence to close. The deal doubled the size of the business – in terms of people, revenue, customers, and ultimately made Infinity the number 1 in our space in the UK & Europe.
He led the integration of the two businesses in mid-2021 and relaunched the Strategy to help set the direction for the short-, medium- and long-term future of the business.”

daniel.cook@infinity.co Connect on LinkedIn

Tim Croxson

Chief Executive Officer - William Croxson & Son Limited

Now CEO of the company and the fifth generation of the Croxson family to be trusted to hold the reigns, he has been at the heart of the turnaround in business’ growth, with the glass packaging business growing from £8m p.a. to now a projected £40m this year, with sustainable profitability throughout. The business has been rewarded with numerous inclusions in the Sunday Times Fast Track lists, and received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise, recognising our consistent growth in revenue within our international sales. The company gives 10% of its net profits to charitable causes, ranging from those close to home operating within social justice within our local communities, to projects affecting communities abroad including having built a school in Uganda.

tim@croxsons.com Connect on LinkedIn

Conor Davies-Taylor

Chief Customer Officer - Ascot Brewing Company

Conor led his team in securing the business’s best sales month in its history (March – 22).

conor.daviestaylor@ascotbrewing.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Dan Edwards 

Social Impact Programme Lead - SGN

SGN is a gas distribution company that offers natural and green gas to 5.9 million homes. In his role he develops and delivers projects for the most vulnerable customers, such as protection against carbon monoxide. He has coached colleagues on how best to communicate with residents during an emergency and since the 10 months he has been in post, customer satisfaction has been consistently high (9-10). He brokered a national partnership with Citizens Advice to embed CO safety education into its energy advice, raised awareness with the Scout association and is working towards a goal of helping 250,000 customers uses energy efficiently and safely

dan.edwards@sgn.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

James Etherington

Senior Engineer - Atkins

From Epsom, James has led a design team of around 350 Architectures and Engineers in the design of a world class themed waterpark within Qatar (Qetaifan Island North Waterpark). This project includes an 85m tall tower with twelve waterslides attached to it, included two Guinness World Record breaking slides for the highest and longest waterslides in the world. Other global projects have included the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon projects, the Qetaifan Island North Waterpark in Qatar and Qiddiya Six Flags theme park in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

james.etherington@atkinsglobal.com Connect on LinkedIn

Colin Francis

CEO - Labcycle

Labcycle is revolutionising the recycling of Lab plastic waste and is creating a circular lab plastic supply chain. Colin was awarded Surrey Business School prize for achieving highest overall average on the Entrepreneurship Masters (MSc) course at University of Surrey (82%) and crated the start-up Labcyle. He has secured £25K+ in equity free grants for LabCycle. The company process 10 x less CO2 emissions, 14 x less energy intensive than current market solutions.

c.m.francis@surrey.ac.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Dr. Jo Gee

Director - Dr Jo Gee Psychotherapy Ltd

Jo set up the only private Dialectical Behaviour Therapy service in Surrey, in response to the COVID demand for mental health services. The company now treats up to 200 people a week and she has built the team from 1-15 psychotherapists since May 2021

jo@drjogeepsychotherapy.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Matt Golds

Managing Director - Noviun Architects

Matt is MD of Noviun Architects, which is a 40 strong award-winning practice of Architects. He has led the practice to successfully deliver multiple projects within the Education, Residential and Healthcare sectors and been involved in the delivery of several successful projects across Surrey. He recently led the team through a complete top to bottom assessment of the industry to improve the way they work with clients and stakeholders to deliver successful projects.

m.golds@noviun.com Connect on LinkedIn

Tarryn Gorre

CEO & Co-founder - Kafoodle Limited

Kafoodle aims to digitise commercial kitchens to manage food allergens, calculate nutrition and control costs across the public and private sector. The business is now placed 30 out of 500 in the ‘Global FoodTech Challenge’. Despite the pandemic, they have been able to double their revenue. Tarryn is a Trustee of Food Poverty Charity Feast with us, and sits on the critical friend’s group for the NHS Hospital food Review to reform Hospital Food. Tarryn was named one of the top 8 women in food supply chain by Food Circle and was recently awarded a grant from Surrey University to explore BlockChain digital ledger development

tarryn@kafoodle.com Connect on LinkedIn

Tim Hopkin

Founder, Director - The Land App and Land Management 2.0

Raised on the family farm in the Surrey Hills, Tim set up the Land App, an easy-to-use mapping platform with the ability to empower landowners with the digital toolkit necessary to take back control of their own land-use decisions. With now over 10,000 users covering nearly 60% of England’s farmland, this Surrey-born startup now acts as the hub for thousands of inspiring agricultural and environmental projects across the country. His second company, Land Management 2.0. was designed to catalyse a new era in the land management sector, LM2.0 has been a fundamental keystone in generating conversations and networks amongst Surrey farmers, to generate uplift on an environmental, economic and social scale in Surrey.

tim@thelandapp.com Connect on LinkedIn

Sam Hurman

Founder and Joint MD - Rival Strength

Graduating Loughborough University with a 2:1 in Industrial Design, Sam set up his first company in 2020, to provide gym and fitness equipment and now has two premises and a showroom studio gym which he is planning to use for local personal trainers and the community. The company is now an established brand in the fitness industry and the company came 3rd place in the ‘Industry Live Project Awards 2020’. Sam is also planning to take on a university student placement to provide experience to a likeminded individual.

sam@rivalstrength.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Chris James

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) - Gold-i

Chris has progressed from being a University of Surrey intern to a Board level position in less than a decade. He has designed and managed the team to build Gold-i’s Crypto Switch™ product – this innovative, market-leading product is key to Gold-i’s future strategy and has already brought in revenues in excess of £200,000. It has also resulted in Gold-i being able to diversify its client base and add a completely new revenue stream. Chris implemented the 24×7 support system required for Gold-i’s global client base, serving over 100 clients worldwide. He is also

chris@gold-i.com Connect on LinkedIn

Neil Johnston

CEO & Founder of Vector Suite and Founding Director of Rocketdesk

“As an international leadership coach, Neil works with founders, CEOs and leaders around the world.
Neil is making significant financial and community impact through his co-founded business Rocketdesk, an innovative co-workspace and support community where Neil has championed, advised, promoted, and supported multiple creative technology start-ups over the past 6 years. Neil founded Vector Suite in 2017, a start-up in the video games/ Web3 space – revolutionising 3D design methods using Virtual reality whilst tapping into the network of programmers at Rocketdesk and beyond.
“

neil@vectorsuite.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Jack Kerr

Founder and MD - JK Forges GB

Jack is increasingly commissioned to design, quote, and craft handmade bespoke luxury items, such as internal handrails, large exterior gates, curtain poles, fire guards, door handles, artistic archways, log baskets, tables, chairs, fire blowers, tongs, chefs’ knives for 5* restaurants and high-end Bushcraft equipment. Now branching out and teaching traditional blacksmithing courses at his second workshop in Surrey, keen to stop Blacksmithing becoming a lost art. Other achievements include performing/demonstrating blacksmithing skills to Prince Edward and awarded the Surrey Hills Trademark for Excellence and awarded Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020.

jack@jkforges.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Liani Mannifield

Director - Mannifield Residential Ltd

Trading under the global estate agency self-employed model, Kaller Williams, Lianni set up her business during lockdown. Operating predominately in the Guildford area, she had a turnover of £150k in the first year with £300k in the pipeline. She has also taken on the rental market, and sold one of her first rentals for a record price of £3,500 per month

l.mannifield@kwuk.com Connect on LinkedIn

Vicky Mealey

Centre Manager - Login Business Lounge

When the pandemic hit, saw an opportunity, and set up the Login Business Lounge – a space for people to collaborate, connect and create. Vickey, as Project Manager has been responsible for the creation, fit out and now runs an on-going evolution, of the Login Business lounge as a flexible working environment, also offering refreshments, bar facilities and catering. The space enables a completely flexible solution to Camberley’s business users, charities, and organisations, regardless of size.

vicky@loginbusinesslounge.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Alex Paterson

Creative Director - NotGames Ltd

Alex co-founded the company, and indie video game studio, which makes hand-drawn parody PC games. NotGames second game ‘Not for Broadcast’ was created by Alex and pushed the studio in a different direction and the company is now a “world leader”. This game moved from 10,000 players to 400,000 players. In January the game received the Guinness World Record for most’ Full Motion Video’ ever in a video game. He has been featured in several magazines, included Forbes.

alex@notgames.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Ella Podmore

Fault Analysis Engineer - McLaren

Ella is the winner of the IET Young Female Engineer of the Year, 2020 and was Top 100 Autocar’s Great British Women Rising STAR, 2021. She is a key member of this high-performance supercar brand, leading material science research and product development. Her talents were also recognised for a case study for Harper Collins fictional novel ‘Big Idea Engineer’.

ella.podmore@mclaren.com Connect on LinkedIn

Alex Pye

Managing Consultant - Atkins Global

Alex has assisted Surrey County Council with several strategic initiatives, including decarbonisation/ net zero carbon, active travel (walking and cycling) infrastructure to assist in the drive to healthier lifestyles and reduce environmental impact, improved road safety and air quality. He created a Masterplan for transport, infrastructure, and placemaking for a region of Surrey – a roadmap for transitioning to a more sustainable, carbon neutral future, with reduced reliance on the private car, increased active travel and public transport, and improved air quality. He has contributed to active travel and placemaking design improvements – transitioning town centre from vehicle-dominated, improving routes, infrastructure, and navigability.

alex.pye@atkinsglobal.com Connect on LinkedIn

Frank Sinclair

Director - Fit with Frank

Frank provides home workouts, fitness programmes and personal training packages. Winner of “High Street Hero” award at Reigate & Banstead Business Awards 2022, his online fitness business has helped over 5,000+ clients to keep themselves fit and active at home throughout Covid-19 lockdowns and beyond

frank@fitwithfrank.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Richard Skinner

Director - The Social Table

After being made redundant, Richard identified a gap in the market and pre-empted how the market would return after the pandemic, believing people being more inclined to try new ways of entertaining guests at home. Originally offered finish at home kits which then evolved into a fully catered offer he has also moved into corporate hospitality. During its 1st year, Social Table took 128k in sales with a GP of 60%, and this year they are on course to reach sales of 200k, employ another senior member of staff and take on an apprentice.

richard@thesocialtable.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Alice Smith

Managing Director - UP for Digital

Alice became MD of this global, cloud-based agency in December 2021 after DPC was acquired, and has supported the company through the three year transition. In that time, turnover has increased by over 100% – growing from a turnover of £670k to £1.4mil and profit margins from 17% to 24%. The company is made up of 63% females and has “no gender pay gap”.

alice@upthereeverywhere.com Connect on LinkedIn

Elena Stylianou 

Technical Professional Leader - KBR LTD

Elena is a Chartered Chemical Engineer and works within KBR’s Sustainable Technologies Solution group, specializing in Ammonia, Syngas & Hydrogen production, and leads projects and design developments offering KBR’s leading technologies. They include the development of KBR’s Blue Hydrogen Process, a design to produce hydrogen from natural gas while capturing more than 98.5% of the carbon produced in the facility. The KBR Blue Hydrogen process is an innovative process which caters to a new market for hydrogen. This process is now included in KBR’s arsenal of green and blue technologies.

Elena.Stylianou@kbr.com Connect on LinkedIn

Amir Taba

CTO - DIREK LTD

Amir co-founded the company, which is a tech spin-off from the 5G Innovation Centre of the University of Surrey. He is the inventor of Platform Independent Positioning System (PIPS), the first tracking technology for handheld devices the achieved the accuracy of the sub-one metres. He has also invented Smart Indoor Management Systems for occupancy monitoring in indoor spaces, social distancing monitoring and tracking indoor energy consumption, with recent trails showing a 30-45% reduction in energy consumption and carbon footprint.

a.taba@direk.eu Connect on LinkedIn

Oliver Tearle

Head of Technology Innovation - The AI Corporation

Oliver developes new products, such as ‘AutoPilotML’, which reviews the latest payment data and builds machine learning fraud rules to detect the maximum amount of fraud whilst minimising operational impact. Since promotion in April 2021, the fraud strategy has remained optimised and updated, leading to a 10-20% uplift in user ability to detect fraud and has led to a reduction of the fraud manager full-time role down to 3 hours per week. Has used the product to reduce internal infrastructure costs by 90%. He also started and lead an internal ‘innovation board’ whereby any member of staff is encouraged to submit an innovation project proposal, take a lead role, and internally promote the project and ‘hire’ any staff to complete the project.

oliver.tearle@aicorporation.com Connect on LinkedIn

Ceri Thomas

Sr. Manager, Adventure Products Engineering - Rivian

Rivian launched the world’s first electric pick-up truck, with another two vehicles to follow (R1S & the Amazon delivery vehicle). Ceri built a world class mechanical engineering department (within Electrical Engineering), capable of completing the mechanical design and integration (ensuring everything fits in the vehicle) for the electrical system on the R1T, R1S & Amazon delivery vehicles. She has transitioned over to the Adventure Products group to head up their multi-discipline engineering department. Some of the innovative products to come out of this group are the removable speaker, flashlight with push-push mounting solution in the driver door, gear guard security system, camp kitchen, tent, and crossbars.

cthomas@rivian.com Connect on LinkedIn

Anna Vartapetiance

Director - Securium Ltd

One of the winners of InnovateUK’s prestigious Women in Innovation Award 2022. As a result, Securium was awarded £50,000 in government grants to scale up. Securium has received various awards and recognitions for its impact and innovation in the field. Some of the recent ones include Most Outstanding Innovation Award at 2020 Guildford Innovation Awards; Emerging Technologies Award at 2020 Guildford Innovation Awards; Start-up of the year 2019 by Surrey Business Award; A Daily Telegraph article, May 2019: how Paedophiles could be caught in act of grooming online by new technology.

Anna@securium.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

David Ward

Founder and MD - Harrier Gates

“David started Harrier Gates 4 years ago, and the company has grown to employ 6 local people within its team. The company provides a supply and fit service for gate automation. The company provides a high standard of products and service to customers within Surrey and Sussex, which shows in their reviews online and recommendations within the community.
“

info@harriergates.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Ben Ward

Co-Founder - Rocket Desk

Ben is a video game developer and programmer who runs two successful technology businesses based in Guildford, Surrey. The first, Rocketdesk, is a co-working space for creative tech professionals and fostering start-ups, freelancers, and small businesses in the creative tech sector for over five years now. Its member companies have raised over £10 million worth of investment, adding significantly to the local economy. Ben’s second business, Supergonk, is a video game developer specialising in creating fast-paced racing titles. Supergonk has created games for major players such as Apple, and their most recent title was featured in a major iMac announcement keynote watched by millions of people.

ben@rocketdesk.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Charlotte Watson

Operations & Relationship Manager - SETsquared Surrey

I lead incubation activities at SETsquared Surrey and supported nearly 80 companies last year and helped them to raise over £30m. I have built relationships with many different professional service companies who provide their for free to help our start-ups. I work with them closely to design bite-sized events making sure I have a diverse range of options for all of our Entrepreneur’s at the different stages of their business from IP/HR/Finance/Legal advice at the beginning to marketing/PR and IPO/exit advice. I also run our monthly Breakfast Club event which brings the whole ecosystem together with past and present members, mentors and 1-2 professional service companies. We host this in our incubator with a free breakfast and there is great energy to the event. Our members introduce themselves and our mentors provide some valuable feedback. It is this peer-to-peer learning that is key to running an incubator and can take a while to establish

c.watson@surrey.ac.uk Connect on LinkedIn

Holly Yeomans

Senior Project Engineer - McLaren Automotive

Holly organised a ‘GAP week’ exercise which is a tool down style approach and full focus on all cost down activity across the business for a full working week. Asked to represent the entire of propulsion, she managed the team, attendance, and agenda for all to ensure a successful outcome. All ideas generated from the cost down activity for propulsion were then reviewed and progressed where applicable. She is a resident engineer at Ricardo, responsible for engineering change requests and ensuring an efficient process between supplier and Woking. On-going initiatives include progression of quality concerns, C21:H25acting as STEM ambassador for McLaren and mentoring new starters. A20:E20

holly.yeomans1@mclaren.com Connect on LinkedIn

Anica Zeyen

Founding Director - Royal Holloway University London

“Anica Zeyen is a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Sustainability in the School of Business and Management at Royal Holloway University of London. She founded the Royal Holloway Enterprise Hub in 2017 and has been its director since. The Enterprise Hub supports students and recent graduates of Royal Holloway University of London in their entrepreneurial pursuits through 1-on-1 coaching, workshop series, organized mentorship with industry experts, seed-funding, and networking opportunities with accelerators and incubators in Surrey, London and the South East of England. Through the Enterprise Hub, Anica has supported Royal Holloway students and graduates in founding 20 companies that range from food retailing to AI-based B2B applications. Ventures supported by her and the Enterprise Hub have since received places in prestigious accelerator programmes or are funded through venture capital funding in London, India, China or from investors in the Silicon Valley. During the pandemic, Anica and her team have continued to support aspiring student entrepreneurs virtually.

Anica engages in this role in addition to her day job as academic staff at Royal Holloway. Anica is registered blind and has multiple volunteer roles as disability advocate.”

anica.zeyen@rhul.ac.uk Connect on LinkedIn