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Mentor Pack 2011

Address: Oxygen Accelerator, Birmingham Science Park Aston, Faraday Wharf, Holt Street, Birmingham, B7 4BB Tel: +44(0) 121 250 3503 Email: simon@oxygenaccelerator.com

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Directions

We are based at Faraday Warf, Birmingham Science Park Aston. We recommend arriving by train if possible. By Train: We are located within walking distance of the three central Birmingham railway stations: Moor Street Station (a 17 minute walk), New Street Station (a 20 minute walk) and Snow Hill Station (a 17 minute walk)

Faraday Warf

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By Car:

Car parking "on-street" is already fully utilised during the week. The nearest public cark park to the site is Faraday Wharf, which is not fully utilised and has capacity. Other car parks within a 10 minute walk of the site include Millennium Point and the NCP car parks in Dale End. There is a small car park at Richard Street, but spaces are very limited.

If coming to Birmingham Science Park Aston via the M6 or Aston Expressway we recommend you exit the Aston Expressway using the Dartmouth Circus exit, this will lead you to a roundabout where you will take the second exit. Holt Street is the second road to the left. This exit is usually before the one directed by satellite navigation systems. By Bus: Holt Street is served by a regular bus service, with services 14, 14A, 66, and 66A stopping on Woodcock Street. Services 14 and 14A both serve the City Centre and Chelmsley Wood, routing via Saltley and Alum Rock. Services 66 and 66A run between Ladywood and Erdington and Sutton Coldfield routing via the City Centre. During the day, and at peak times, there is approximately one City Centre bound bus every 5 minutes. For further information on directions see http://bsp-a.com/contact/

Faraday Warf

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Schedule for the Mentor Day on September 6th

Tuesday September 6th will be your chance to:

Hear a pitch from each team

Decide which teams you would like to work with

Have lunch and network with the other mentors

See the accelerator space

Meet and network with the teams

Information on the teams will be given out on the day to coincide with the pitches

Agenda:

10:30 - Arrive & Coffee

11:00 - Team Pitches

11:45 - Coffee Break

12:00 - Team Pitches

13:00 - Mentor Lunch & Mentor Networking

14:00 - Mentors mingle with teams

15:30 - Close

Venue

Faraday Warf (although we may move to another city centre venue if needed).

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Schedule for one-to-one mentor day

9:30 - 10:00: Arrival / Tea and Coffee (please report to reception)

10:05 - 10:30: Meet Team 1

10:35 - 11:00: Meet Team 2

11:05 - 11:30: Meet Team 3

11:35 - 11:50: Break/Tea and Coffee

11:55 - 12:20: Meet Team 4

12:25 - 12:50: Meet Team 5

12:55 - 13:20: Meet Team 6

13:25 - 14:30: Lunch (food and drink will be provided by us)

14:35 - 15:00: Meet Team 7

15:05 - 15:30: Meet Team 8

15:35 - 16:00: Meet Team 9

16:00 - 17:00: End of the day/Tea and Coffee

[Please note that for those coming on the 9th, arrival will be 9:30 – 10:00, but the day will finish at 14:00]

Venue

Faraday Warf, Birmingham Science Park Aston

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What the teams will be doing

Here is an outline of some of the things the teams will be doing during September:

September 01: Introduction day, information about Birmingham

September 02: Pitch training

September 05: Pitch practice and feedback, coaching on working with the mentors

September 06: Mentor day

September 07: Mentor one-to-one day

September 08: Mentor one-to-one day

September 09: Mentor one-to-one half-day, Amazon web services in the afternoon

September 12: Mentor one-to-one day

September 13: Mentor one-to-one day

September 14: Mentor one-to-one day

September 15: Mentor one-to-one day

September 16: Mentor one-to-one day, weekly board meeting with Mark Hales and Simon Jenner

September 20: Mentor one-to-one day

September 22: Mentor one-to-one day

September 23: Social Media Day, Weekly meeting with Simon and Mark

September 28: Angel/VC/PE Day

September 29: Finance Day

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List of Mentors

For a complete list of mentors please visit: http://oxygenaccelerator.com/mentors/current/

William Reeve Oxalyst Systems Founder/ Entrepreneur

Internet entrepreneur / investor – founded Fletcher Research in 1997, LOVEFiLM in 2003 – now on the board of Graze, Zoopla, Secret Escapes, Paddy Power PLC, and invested in a few others. Currently working on Oxalyst, a new venture.

Matt Wood Amazon Services Tech

As the Technology Evangelist for Amazon Web Services, Matt Wood discusses the technical and business aspects of cloud computing throughout Europe. With a background in web-scale projects and a PhD, Matt is interested in helping teams of all sizes bring their ideas to life through technology.

Katy Turner Eden Ventures Finance

Katy represents Eden Ventures, an early stage software fund investing in technology companies in the telecommunications software, enterprise software, SaaS, digital media, e-commerce, internet, social media and mobile sectors. Katy joined Eden in 2008 to bring product expertise to the team. This enables both Eden¹s investment decisions and provides support to the portfolio.

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Lee Stratford Co-Founder of ISP Plus Net Entrepreneur

Lee is the visionary and entrepreneurial leader who architected the success of PlusNet as its co-founder and CEO from 1997 to 2007, leading it from start-up, through IPO and finally to exit by sale for £67m to BT in 2007. Lee became a founding board member of the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership in Dec 2010.

Andy Munarriz Founder and CEO of Hullo Mail Entrepreneur

Andy is the founder and CEO of HulloMail, a consumer smartphone voicemail service available in the USA, UK and Ireland. Andy has worked for 20 years in software and telecoms and previously founded VoxSurf, a company that pioneered the world’s first web and open standards based call completion and messaging platform currently deployed with mobile operators to 35 million end users globally. Andy has authored several mobile web and messaging technology patents, is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the British Computer Society.

Matthew Miller Ustwo Entrepreneur

Mills™ co-founded ustwo™ back in 2004 with his business partner sinx™ and a £5000 loan. Since then, ustwo™ has grown to a 90 strong team of young, talented designers and developers, working in user experience, interface and entertainment. Mills™ has successfully launched apps including the world renowned MouthOff™, the strictly professional PositionApp™, the 48 hour quadrilogy dot series game-set, and is the designer of the iPad app, Granimator™

Adil Mohammed Launch 48 Entrepreneur

Adil has been involved with the web for the last 12 years in various roles. The very first company Adil started was called EnTrip - where the user creates & plans a trip with friends, publishes a travel blog and through the site, shares their travel experiences. Among its accolades, EnTrip was a Seedcamp finalist in 2008, the winner of the Web in Travel Start Up Pitch competition held in Singapore and was one of the top 23 start ups in Europe. Adil’s other ventures include Innozon, Cinema 54, and Launch 48.

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Ian Broom Launch 48/ Weboo Entrepreneur

Ian is a co-founder of Launch48 which has helped to teach over 700 entrepreneurs about starting their own business and helped to start over 30 businesses. He also runs a digital agency called Weboo in the UK and Australia. Ian was originally a developer, IT manager, project manager, and now is an entrepreneur. Ian believes strongly in the power of entrepreneurs and is active in the UK entrepreneurial scene.

Mark Hales Optimo Care Group/The Rabbit Hole/Business Desk Entrepreneur

After building up Claimar Care Group Plc from what was a small family business to the 4th largest provider of care services, it was sold in November 2009 for an enterprise value of just over £40m. Mark has created his own Growth Capital fund, investing in small businesses in a variety of sectors where he believes he can add value with more than just money. Mark is a shareholder and Non Executive of Thebusinessdesk.com (a regional online news service), a shareholder and Non Executive of The Rabbit Hole (a social media gaming engine), largest shareholder and Chairman of Optimo Care Group (a buy and build in the domiciliary care sector), a Founding Investor in Springboard (another tech accelerator based in Cambridge) and mentors a number of other businesses and individuals.

Barnaby Lashbrooke x Founder of SupaNames Entrepreneur

Barnaby started his first business, web hosting company SupaNames, in 2000 with a budget of £150 and sold it for £2.1M to Pipex Communications PLC, one of the UKs largest ISPs, in 2006. Since selling SupaNames, Barnaby has built several other businesses, including the UK’s largest Virtual Assistant company, a revolutionary fixed cost accountancy company and a high growth cloud hosting provider based in the city of London.

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Mike Butcher TechCrunch PR

As well as editing TechCrunch Europe, Mike is involved in a project to bring European technology entrepreneurs and investors together in a club environment called TechHub, in London initially. A long time journalist, Mike has written for various UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. He is a former editor of New Media Age magazine, the leading new media weekly in the UK, and the European edition of The Industry Standard magazine. Since 1996 he has launched or re-launched numerous media web sites and in 2000 he was nominated as NetMedia’s European Internet Journalist of the Year.

Adam Bird CEO Esendex Entrepreneur

Adam is co-founder and chief visionary of Esendex, the business SMS service provider. He, with his co-founder, has taken an idea and a couple of PCs in his attic with mobile phones zip-locked to them and turned it into a multi-million pound, international business. Headquartered in Nottingham with 45 employees, Esendex now services over 11,000 customers and has offices in Barcelona, Melbourne and San Francisco.

Jon Bradford MD, Springboard.com Entrepreneur

Jon Bradford has helped to found and operate the acceleration Springboard Cambridge and the Difference Engine. Prior to this, he was the Investment Manager at the Design and Creative Fund for North East Finance. Jon has spent most of the last ten years working in and around start-ups; both for advisory firms and venture capital backed start-ups, including an Oxford University spin-out.

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John Stokes Partner, Real Ventures Finance

John co-founded Montreal Start Up in November 2007. He is currently Managing Partner of the Fund and sits on the boards of Beyond the Rack, Book Oven, Oneeko, Emotify, KeenKong, Mobilito and Standout Jobs. John has more than 15 years of experience, both as a founder and an investor, in start-up, early stage and growth companies.

James Leavesley Crowd Technologies Entrepreneur

James Leavesley is CEO and Co-founder of CrowdControlHQ, a web-based social media management tool that provides all sizes of marketing and communications teams with the ability to effectively plan and efficiently execute social media marketing strategies. Prior to moving into technology, James spent 10 years in business development working in multiple sectors across the UK and Eastern Europe. In addition to attaining his MBA, James has also lectured for the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Anthony Hicks Strategic Partner & Platform Integration Manager, Paypal Tech

Anthony works with strategic partners integrating PayPal’s APIs. He advises companies on optimal checkout flows, order management and integrating seamless payments into all types of applications. He has a particular interest in encouraging early monetisation of startups through building effective usable payments into applications as part of their core, rather than attempting bolt on payments at a much later stage.

John Lunn Director of Platform and Integration, PayPal X Tech

John looks after the technical side of PayPalX in the EU and has been at PayPal for 4 years. Previously he worked in Bank Security at RSA and was the Director of Technology for CyberSource in the EU. John is an all purpose hacker, evangelist and start-up mentor. Try catching him at one of PayPalX’s many EU events. His expertise inclues: Hacking in PHP, Java, Android and anything else. 12 years experience in Online Payments. Seedcamp and Launch48 mentor with years of experience helping big and small companies get their payment strategies and systems working.

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Julian Ranger Founder STASYS Entrepreneur

Prior to forming J Ranger Limited and subsequently iBundle Limited, his innovation hub, Julian Ranger was formerly Vice President of International Strategic Development, responsible for development and execution of the international strategy of the Systems for Integration business group of IS&S, Lockheed Martin. Previously Julian was the founder (1987) and Managing Director of the UK company STASYS Limited, which he sold to Lockheed Martin in 2005. Julian is Chairman of iBundle and its subsidiaries.

Sue Summers CEO, Finance Birmingham Finance

20 + years experience of the financial services industry in the UK, Europe and the US. Ex-MD of Europe’s largest trading platform for IFAs

Matt Upton CEO, Clarity Pharma Entrepreneur

Matt is currently Chief Executive of Clarity Pharma, a business that provides consultancy and distribution services to the Pharmaceutical industry. Since joining the company in September 2009, Matt has overseen the redevelopment and launch of Clarity’s e-commerce site which is central to the strategy and proposition going forward.

Mike Roger VP of operations, Woo Media Inc Tech

Mike Rogers trained in telecomms and has 20 years Internet service management experience managing the infrastructure for high growth organisations and startups based primarily around unix and free software. Mike was involved (in Technical director or similar roles) in Demon Internet from inception to sale, Netbenefit in its move from private to stock market listing, Tiscali and Claranet during their acquisition and consolidation phases, Co founded Redbus Interhouse, and is currently responsible for operations at startup Woo Media.

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Ryan Foster Creative Director, Ryan Foster Design Designer

I am a digital designer with over 13 years’ experience and founder of RyanFosterDesign, a small design studio specialising in UI/UX design for SaaS products and eCommerce. Working with tech startups and early stage eCommerce businesses all over the world. I design websites and web applications for companies big and small in the UK, USA and Australia.

Simon Buckingham CEO Mobile Streams & Appitalism Entrepreneur

I’m a serial entrepreneur, having started 3 companies: Mobile Streams which is famous for Ringtones.com, Zoombak which does location based services for consumers and enterprises, and most recently Appitalism (the social app superstore). When I’m not working, I’m generally eating, traveling, writing, reading or looking at modern art.

Nic Ferrier CTO, Woo Media Inc Tech

During the last 10 years I have been an independent consultant for Thomson, BT, vibrantmedia. Last 4 years CTO of WooMedia doing real time video dating. Built an international tech team using agile techniques (skype, our own video dogfood). Been through two rounds of funding.

Scott Gillespie Partner, T2VC Finance

30 years from IT mergers/acq/divestitures to smart city development to own investment and venture accelerator to supporting early stage ventures in Gulf Region as part of T2VC.

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Rob Hawkes Tech Evangelist, Mozilla Tech

Rob Hawkes (@robhawkes) thrives on solving problems through code. He’s addicted to visual programming, and can’t get enough of HTML5 canvas. Most of his waking life is spent working on crazy projects involving all sorts of new and exciting technologies, both on-line and off. Aside from his practical work, Rob is the author of Foundation HTML5 Canvas, which is all about making games with the new Web technology. He works for Mozilla as a Technical Evangelist, which puts him in the fortunate position of being able to work on his hobbies full time and still feed himself.

Marisa Teh Director New Business Strategy, Philips Professional

Marisa Teh is a Director of New Business Strategy at Philips. An MBA graduate from the University of Cambridge, her background includes 10 years of commercial experience in investment planning and technology in telecommunications, energy to skincare. In Cambridge, she co-founded the 2008 Entrepreneurship for a Zero Carbon Society conference which was featured on CNN.

Ezequiel (Eze) Vidra Google Tech

Ezequiel (Eze) Vidra is an experienced product and business development Internet professional. Eze is a Strategic Partnerships Development Manager at Google London, responsible for the launch of Google Shopping Spain and establishing business relationships in the commerce space across EMEA. Most recently, Eze was the Principal Product Manager of AOL Search in Europe, leading a team responsible for the user experience, monetization and distribution of AOL’s search across 18 European markets and 30 online properties. In 2003, he also co-founded a startup in Israel developing text input solutions for touch screens.

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Frederic Lardieg Principal, Vodafone Ventures Finance

Frederic is a principal with Vodafone Ventures, the venture capital arm of Vodafone. He focuses on investment opportunities in internet, mobile and telecommunications in Europe. Prior to joining Vodafone Ventures, Frederic worked in merger and acquisition for Vodafone Internet Services and in corporate strategy for Sony Ericsson. Previously, he worked for and founded start-ups in the mobile and internet space, holding various operational roles on the technical side. Frederic holds an MBA from INSEAD and an MSc in Industrial Engineering from the Ecole des Mines de Nancy.

Joe Neale M8 Capital Investor

Joe has worked in marketing, business development and the creative industries for nearly a decade prior to joining m8 Capital. Most recently he served as Global Head of Online Presence and Engagement for Symbian, the world’s largest mobile operating system. In this role, Joe was responsible for identifying, developing and bringing the world’s leading mobile application developers onto the platform.

Sean Owen Associate, PenTech Ventures Tech

Sean is an associate with Pentech Ventures, an early stage technology VC fund investing in software companies in the UK and Ireland. He was previously a senior software engineer at Google in New York, helping build Google’s Mobile Web search and part of Android. He is VP for Apache Mahout, an open source scalable machine learning project. Sean holds an MBA from London Business School and a degree in Computer Science from Harvard

Ilan Abehassera CEO, Producteev Entrepreneur

Ilan is an internet and mobile entrepreneur with strong experience in business development, marketing, and user interfaces. Ilan first worked as general manager of ClickOVA (a java application), alongside the previous founder of SCANBUY, which was named Brakeout Company of 2005 by Fortune Magazine. He then went on to manage US operations of Zlio.com, a venture-backed e-commerce site. There he handled business development in the US and UK and helped to open 240,000 online shops. Ilan

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founded Producteev.com in 2008, the first collaboration tool of its kind — a multi-platform task management application.

Andy Skipper CTO , Made.com Tech

CTO at Made.com, with a love of open source stacks of many shapes and sizes, especially rapid development frameworks such as Django, Zend, Rails, Node.js and Magento. Forming and leading the most productive and happy agile teams is what gets me up in the morning, and I also have a passion for creating scalable infrastructures in the cloud.

Alice Regester 33Seconds PR

Alice Regester founded 33Seconds, a specialist PR and Social Media Marketing agency in January 2011. She has more than 12 years PR & communications experience, including developing and implementing the launch strategy for pioneering internet TV platform, Joost. In 2007 she joined MySpace as UK Comms Director and oversaw every aspect of the social network’s communications, from corporate and consumer to product and trade. Most recently she has devised the European and US communications strategy and execution for fast-growing audio platform, SoundCloud, who are now one of 33Seconds’ founding clients.

Simon Jenner Birmingham Science Park Aston Entrepreneur

In 2008/09 Simon launched two web startups, inbizvest.com & ilikeucoz.com. Both failed but provided an important learning experience. In 2009 Simon then co-founded Urban Coffee Company, which now has 2 outlets in Birmingham and plans for further national growth. For the last 5 years Simon has been working with young entrepreneurs in the West Midlands by volunteering as a business mentor for the Princes Trust

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Nicola Fleet-Milne Fleet-Milne Residential Entrepreneur

When she first set up her own property business in the summer of 2004, Nicola Fleet-Milne set herself the goal of achieving 100 lettings in the first 12 months. Her newly created company, FleetMilne, managed over 230. Since then the award-winning entrepreneur has seen the business grow from strength to strength.

Andy Povey Finance Birmingham Finance

Andy has over 30 years experience in the financial services industry. Andy started his career with a high street bank before working for two European banks. More recently Andy has worked for Investbx the regional stock exchange and Finance Birmingham the access to finance vehicle for Birmingham City Council. Andy has worked with and supported start up businesses through to major global businesses and has advised over 1,000 businesses. His major skill is risk analysis although his career has provided a wealth of wider business experience that he is very happy to share.

Darren Walker Cobbetts LLP Professional

Darren is a lawyer in the corporate team of law firm Cobbetts, a full service law firm with offices in Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester. As well as almost 10 years experience in legal practice, Darren has a wider commercial understanding enhanced by recently completing an MBA at Birmingham Business School. He is also the current chair of professional networking organisation Birmingham Future.

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Clive Bawden Catalyst Corporate Finance Finance

Clive is Business Development Director at award winning international corporate finance advisor Catalyst, which has a main office in central Birmingham. Catalyst advises management teams on how to raise capital, owners on their growth and exit options, and corporates on their merger & acquisition strategies. Clive is a former chairman of the Institute of Directors Young Directors Forum, a role which included representing the UK at the G8 Young Business Summit in Italy in 2009. Clive holds an MBA with Distinction from Birmingham University, and is a trustee of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Simon Ford E-Supply Shops Entrepreneur

After graduation, Simon pursued a career in retail management for Next in central London. This led to a number of opportunities including opening up Next stores internationally and running the flagship branch in Oxford Circus, London. In 2003 Simon moved to Dubai in the UAE to run the Middle East’s flagship Debenhams department store, part of the Al Shaya Group, before opening up my first business in 2005. Returning to the UK, Simon has pursued new opportunities with a focus on low risk, zero fixed cost, location independent businesses.

John Handley Chariman, Finance Birmingham Finance

Qualified Chartered Accountant and leading Private equity practitioner for 20 + years (former Senior Director of LDC).

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Chris Unitt Head of Social Media, MadeMedia Entrepreneur

Chris Unitt leads the social media and content team at Made Media, where he works with leading arts organisations on digital and social media projects. Chris started his working life as a litigation lawyer at a national law firm before forming his own consultancy. In 2009 he set up Meshed Media, a social media agency that was sold to Made Media in 2011. He was nominated for Birmingham Young Professional of the Year in 2010. Chris is also the editor of Created in Birmingham, an award-winning arts and culture blog.

Dr David Hardman Birmingham Science Park Aston Entrepreneur

David is CEO of Birmingham Science Park Aston, having joined the business in November 2008. He has led the rebranding of the science park and is now driving the delivery of the new strategy; refocusing the park’s offering to catalyse the knowledge economy and its part in the regeneration of Birmingham and West Midlands. In Birmingham David is looking to build on the park’s pedigree, integrating its activities into Birmingham’s economic development plans, to generate new infrastructures, physically within the geographic bounds of the park and virtually within the region, directed at the low carbon economy covering innovation in ICT, clean technologies and energy products and services. He was awarded an MBE for services to science in 2009.

Rob Styles Talis Tech

Rob Styles is a web technologist who has been building web-based systems since the early nineties. He was one of the team behind the launch of Egg in 1999 and several other innovative finance sites. He was one of the early voices behind Open Data Commons (http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/1-0/) and has a keen interest in data on the web. He has spent the last five years building technologies for the next generation of the web at Semantic Web company Talis, where he is known for his technical expertise as well as his understanding of intellectual property law.

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Lee Kemp Million Films Entrepreneur

Lee is the Managing Director of Vermillion, an award-winning corporate film company in Birmingham. Despite being based in Birmingham for less than two years, the company has produced films for Style Birmingham, Retail Birmingham, Marketing Birmingham and a showreel for Screen West Midlands that was screened to international producers at the Cannes Festival to promote the region.

Paul Heaven Blue Sky Corporate Finance Finance

Blue Sky Corporate Finance was formed in 1998 by Paul Heaven. Paul has 20 plus years of general management experience and is, by profession, a qualified chartered accountant. Over the years, Paul has become an expert in corporate finance, venture capital, private equity and asset lending and has extensive experience of acquisitions, disposals, flotation and fund raising.

Robert Miles MD, Premier Software Entrepreneur

Robert started selling calculators to his maths teachers while at school and has not really stopped being involved in running business since then. Now, almost 30 years later, he is running a software company in Cannock Staffordshire which he has built up from an idea to 37 staff with over 3500 clients around the globe. Robert has a passion for all things business; especially new start-ups and helping others try and achieve their goal in creating a worthy business. Robert has only ever worked for himself and has a wealth of experience of the good, the bad and the very ugly realities of building and running a sustainable business.

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Marc Reeves Editor, TheBusinessDesk.com West Midlands PR

Marc Reeves is a highly experienced journalist, editor, senior media executive and digital entrepreneur. He is editor of TheBusinessDesk.com in the West Midlands, and is a former editor of the The Birmingham Post. He is regarded as one of the best-connected figures in the West Midlands, with links to community groups, business leaders, politicians and influencers throughout the region. In 2010 he joined theBusinessDesk.com to launch its website in the West Midlands.

Dominic Cook Director 33 Seconds PR

Dominic Cook founded 33Seconds, a specialist PR and Social Media Marketing agency in January 2011. Working with clients including Turner Broadcasting and Cancer Research UK, Dominic leads social media strategy development and execution. He has been building and engaging with online communities for more than 12 years, initially for artists signed to Virgin Records and later, EMI Records.

David Burden MD Daden Entrepreneur

David Burden started his career in army communications before being “demobbed” in 1990, when he then worked for a variety of IT companies ending up as Marketing Director of Aseriti, a £70m B2B IT services company. During the Dot Com boom David founded a wireless data company developing both WAP and Voice XML systems, as well as founding the Midlands chapter of the First Tuesday Networking organisation.

Deborah Leary CEO, Forensic Pathways Entrepreneur

Voted as one of Britain’s Top 100 Women Entrepreneurs by Real Business Magazine in 2009, Deborah Leary, OBE is considered to be one of the most motivational and entrepreneurial women of the time. Deborah is Founder and CEO of award winning Forensic Pathways (FPL). In addition to her role as CEO of Forensic Pathways, Deborah runs her own consultancy practice supporting new and growing businesses in terms business strategy, developing brand, CSR policies and international trade.

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Nick Johnson Mazars Finance

Nick has significant business experience gained from a 20 year career in professional services – most recently he combined his boutique advisory business, Atticus, with Mazars, a major international professional services provider. Prior to setting up Atticus he was a Corporate Finance Advisory Partner with Deloitte for 7 years leading the highly successful Midlands corporate finance business for several years.

Tracy Scribner Investment Manager, MMC Ventures Finance

Tracy is an Investment Manager in the London based early stage venture capital fund, MMC Ventures. At MMC she is responsible for finding new investments and managing portfolio companies which currently include myvideorights and Breathing Buildings.

Paul Bragg Chairman, Adept Scientific plc Entrepreneur

Paul is Chairman of Adept Scientific plc which he co-founded in 1984. Adept Scientific is a specialist supplier of software & hardware for technical computing applications and is the leading company in its field in Europe with offices in the UK, Germany and Denmark. He was a co-founder, in 2000, of Pro-Talk Ltd a publishing business which developed and operated 13 web sites serving specific vertical business sectors, mainly in the engineering, construction and technical products areas. The business was sold to Centaur Media plc in 2006. He is also a founding partner in several other technology startups including Livecyte and Business Marketing Online.

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Steven Greenall Investment Manager, Midven Finance

Recruited by Midven in 2010, Steven is Investment Manager for the Exceed Partnership. He has over fifteen years experience working in the creative industries and from 2000 – 2007 served as Executive Director of an international music association based in the United States. Joining the Advantage Creative Fund in 2007 as Managing Director of Da Capo Enterprises, ACF’s small investment portfolio, Steven was appointed a non-executive director of the Advantage Creative Fund in 2008. He also serves as a Course Tutor and Visiting Lecturer on the University of Warwick’s MA in Creative and Media programme.

Giovanni Finocchio Investment Manager, Midven Finance

Giovanni joined Midven in September 2010, as investment manager on the Early Advantage Fund. Prior to this, he spent almost four years with Connect Midlands helping early stage businesses prepare for raising equity investment. He has extensive sales and marketing experience within the SME environment, having held business development and marketing roles in five early stage businesses that were VC and business angel funded. Giovanni is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing having achieved the Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing.

Keith Woodcock SVP New Business development, Travelport Professional

Senior Business Development Executive with proven ability to build and lead global organizations. Present role: SVP New Business Development – Travelport – Focus on new business models/acquisitions for Travelport a Global $700m EBITDA Travel business Past: CIO Travelport – 1100 team across 5 countries, budget $150m.

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Everard Mascarenhas Mercia Fund Finance

EEverard also holds a PhD in semi conductor devices from Nottingham Trent University, and an MBA from Imperial College. Everard is a highly experienced business development focused manager with a successful track record of commercialising ICT technologies. He also has significant experience of project managing early stage technology to commercialised product. Previous experience includes IP Group plc, Honeywell, IO Global, New Venture Partners LLC, QE Intellectual Property Ltd, and PA Consulting Group. Everard has led venture capital investments, and sits on the boards (as a director or observer) of the following Mercia Fund Management portfolio companies: Allinea Software Ltd, Concurrent Thinking Ltd, Nightingale EOS Ltd, Sarissa BioMedical Ltd, and Streamline Computing Ltd. Everard has particular expertise in Advanced Materials and ICT & Digital Media.

Richard Kastelein CEO, Agora Media Innovation Entrepreneur

Richard Kastelein is the CEO of Agora Media Innovation (AMI) in London, UK and Publisher of Appmarket.tv – a popular online publication that’s focused on Social TV, TV Apps, Connected TV and Transmedia Formats. He’s a Canadian expatriate based in both the UK and the Netherlands, and was Winner of 2010 Deloitte Tech., Media & Telcom (TMT) Predictions for Entrepreneurs in Holland for futurist views on Social TV and Media Convergence. AMI is a boutique agency that works with emerging technologies that enable broadcasters, cable companies, content creators, developers and CE manufacturers in delivering and consulting around the emerging convergence.

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Pietro Bezza Angel Finance

Pietro is a passionate entrepreneur, turned active early stage investor with 12+ years experience in Internet, Mobile and Media sectors. In 2000, Pietro co-founded Neo Network and as CRO bootsrapped from garage startup to being a global player in digital entertainment with > 30€M annual turnover. Neo Network merged with Magnolia in 2005, and then was part of the De Agostini take over in 2006. After acquisition, Pietro remained for 4 years as Ceo. Neo Network has renamed Zodiak Active. Pietro is creator and executive producer of teen property The Qpiz (www.theqpiz.com). Currently Pietro is Seedcamp mentor and angel investor in digital ventures (Picklive, PluggPluss, FourThumbs), and in sweety ventures (Dri Dri, italian gelato).

Stephen Rockman Founder, Merism Capital Finance

Stephen founded Merism Capital in 2010 to provide seed funding for early stage social businesses. Merism is in the vanguard of UK impact investment supporting entrepreneurs with equity investments of between £50k to £150k and by providing skills and resources via a social venture incubator in Central London. Previously he was an advisor to and angel investor in early stage web and mobile companies and discovered social enterprise’s challenges and opportunities whilst mentoring entrepreneurs for NESTA and UnLtd.

Rose Lewis Founder, Pembridge Partners Finance

Rose Lewis is a founding partner of Pembridge Partnership Ltd, and specialises in mentoring of high growth companies in the digital space to raise equity funding or in preparation for sale or MBO. Pembridge has also made over 10 investments in the sector. Rose also leads the investment team on the gateway2investment programme, which has raised over £12.5m for 27 companies since July 2010. Rose is a Non-Executive Director of Blue Goose, Licence to PR and Skew. She also advises several smaller funds including The Creative Capital Fund.

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Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine Founder, MobiCart Entrepreneur

Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine is a British serial entrepreneur who first envisioned the MobiCart concept, arranged bootstrap financing and is the direct manager of MobiCart’s employees and activities. Prior to MobiCart, Wladimir was Managing Director at Dpivision ltd., a successful software development and web design studio that has been in operation and profitable for 7 years. MobiCart is a startup that is taking m-commerce to a new level of personalization by enabling anyone to quickly deploy a native storefront application on iOS and Android devices. MobiCart is a completely free solution that combines a customized application development platform with an online ecosystem for sharing extensions.

Sunil Gunderia Sunil Gunderia Entrepreneur

Sunil is a digital media executive with broad based international expertise in business development, marketing, operations and finance working with partners across the globe including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo and Samsung. He advises companies on mobile/digital strategies and execution. He also serves on the board of his children’s primary school and is a mentor at Seedcamp, Springboard and UCL Advances.

Phil Gainley Founder, Cloud Interactive Entrepreneur

Following a career in teaching, Phil travelled to the USA to retrain as a software developer and received the Advanced Achievement award for his Gaming and Design degree in Florida before he came back to the UK, where he has worked on various companies covering Ecommerce, Content Management Systems, Multitenant web solutions, Screen scraping, and consultancy for leading digital agencies. Phil has one exit to his belt as Lead Developer for Breakingviews.com, that provides financial news for all major banks. He also currently provides consultancy for Thomson Reuters and other clients while testing start-up ideas.

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Fraser Davidson Director, Preparation Capital Limited Finance

Fraser Davidson is CEO and founder of Preparation Capital Limited (‘PCL’),a growth media and software focussed advisory firm and angel investor hub. Fraser is a marketeer turned investor. Fraser has over 9 years private equity investing experience, at PCL and August Equity LLP, with a particular focus on the media and technology sectors. Prior to his financial career Fraser worked at Renault UK and had product management responsibility for the Clio.

Pierre Abouchahla Magazines, Luxury and Consumer advertising executive, Financial Times PR

After 3 years experience in the hospitality business, as an HR coordinator, and a bar manager, Pierre joined the Financial times for a graduate program. This training has taken him to the verticals of the industry from circulation, print site, logistic, communications, conferences, marketing, and advertising sales. He is now working as a sales representative, advising clients on their branding and recruitment campaigns. His speciality sits with Luxury and Consumer goods clients.

Philip Wattis Director, Flinca Entrepreneur

Shortly after graduating from Aston University Phillip took his first steps into Entrepreneurship when joint he founded Power Internet Ltd in 1995, a b2b ISP during the early days of the Internet. Having turned around the company’s fortunes in 2009, he later exited the business to form flinca limited with a former colleague. Phillip gets a real buzz out of working with embryonic IT businesses and finding new ways of utilising existing technology.

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James Villareal Glide Utilities Entrepreneur

The frustrations of collecting money for household bills from his university flatmates sparked a simple business idea for James Villarreal in 2006. Five years later, his company has a multi-million pound turnover and he’s just about to finish his year as the youngest ever Birmingham Young Professional of the Year.

Iris Ben-David Founder, StyleShake Entrepreneur

Iris Ben-David founded StyleShake, an online fashion platform where users can design and wear their own fashion. StyleShake generated millions of user-created fashion designs, and sold and manufactured tens of thousands of unique user-designed high-fashion dresses, across the UK, France and Germany. Prior to StyleShake, Iris was a strategy and innovation executive at Euro RSCG Digital (Euro 4D), and led various ecommerce and online content ventures and projects.

Nigel Gittins MD, Webroaster Entrepreneur

Nigel is currently the Managing Director of Webroster Ltd. After various employed and consultant software development roles within the TV, Oil & Retail sectors, Nigel started this company back in 2003 selling its www.webroster.net Software as a Service (SaaS) to the recruitment and healthcare sectors. These web services are now used by over 3000 daily users employed by 22 Local Authorities and over 250 private/charitable organisations. The company now has a turnover of £1Million, including £850k of recurring revenues, and employs 16 permanent staff & 4 consultants. Nigel also enjoys the occasional game of golf, triathlon and spending time with the family.

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Mark Beeny Founder, CEO Net Lynk Group Entrepreneur

Founder of Net Lynk Group which are responsible for the majority of broadband hardware shipments in the UK. Traditional warehousing and commercial background combined with technological slant. Success in setting up multiple profitable companies involving major technology infrastructure, data handling R&D.

Matt Mead Investment Manager, NESTA Finance

Matt joined NESTA in January 2010. He oversees all aspects of NESTA’s investment activity. Matt has over 14 years’ experience investing in UK and international early stage ventures and was a Partner in 3i’s Venture Capital business. He has worked with companies as a Board member through high growth, turnaround, exit and acquisitions. He recently led the secondary market disposal of 3i’s Venture portfolio of assets in both the US and Europe. Matt has worked across all technology sectors but has specialised in the ICT market.

Emma Roe Partner, Cobbetts Professional

Emma specialises in commercial contracts and has experience acting for both public sector clients as well as organisations from the private sector. Emma has wide-ranging experience advising clients on commercial issues including distribution, agency, franchising, supply and manufacturing agreements, outsourcing arrangements, intellectual property rights, competition issues, data protection and information technology matters.

Ashley Norman Partner, Cobbetts Professional

Ashley is a highly experienced employment lawyer. He deals with all types of advice both contentious and non-contentious across a range of client sectors. He is particularly noted for his expertise in the field of equality & diversity, having acted on a number of major discrimination cases and advised clients on various equality policy matters, including age discrimination compliance.

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Adrian Cutler Partner, Cobbetts Professional

Adrian is a partner in the corporate services team. Working for a range of owner managed businesses, Adrian's main area of expertise is corporate finance including private acquisitions and disposals (many involving private equity), management buy-outs, buy-ins, joint ventures and corporate reorganisations. Major transactions with which Adrian has been involved include the management buy out of an international pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor, the IBO of an international recycler, the MBI of a national automotive group from a multi-national plc and various acquisitions in the food leisure and tourism sector. Adrian also undertakes work for many national private equity houses and holds several non executive positions with new ventures and growing businesses. Adrian is also a mentor to the Oxygen Accelerator and a business board member of the NSPCC.

Dr Will Lovegrove Managing Director, Release Consulting Ltd Entrepreneur

Will runs an IT consulting company, Release Consulting Ltd, which was created when he outsourced his IT department out from Universal Music Group International in 2008. Today he continues to help Music Industry companies with their technology project and in particular specialises in rapid development of proof-of-concept projects in emerging mobile technology such as iOS, Android & Windows Phone.

Nigel Gardner Partner, Cobbetts Professional

Nigel specialises in the drafting and negotiation of commercial contracts. He has extensive experience of manufacturing, supply and logistics agreements advising both providers and customers, and he advises clients (representing both principals and agents) on Commercial Agents Regulations cases. Nigel also has particular expertise in non-contentious media, music, film and television production. He also advises on a range sports law matters, including events, sponsorship and regulatory issues. Nigel is a member of BAFTA.

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John Dixon Managing Director, JDO Ltd Entrepreneur

Worked for Corporate for 17 years in Supply; Purchasing; Product Development; Senior Management. John has spent 25 Years running an IT Company (Computime IT Solutions Ltd) which he started as a one man business and grew it to over £1,000,000 turnover, with some 20 staff. For the past 18 months, John worked part-time mentoring MBA students; MBA Entrepreneurs (pilot program); and is also a Business Angel.

Steve Kennedy Director, NetTek Ltd Tech

Steve has over 20 years of relevant 0experience (many years ago he worked for Cellnet and designed and rolled-out their wide area tcp/ip network in the early 90′s). Steve previously worked at Demon and helped it grow to become the largest consumer ISP in the UK and stayed there through the acquisition by Scottish Telecom and floatation as THUS Plc. After leaving THUS he then consulted for a while, before joining Textic Ltd as CSO. More recently, he is a director of Rummble Ltd and also DBVu Ltd (which he is actively participating in) and has just launched a new start-up, Storyworks Interactive, which is producing an interactive eBook reader/platform. He also writes for technology sites and is an early stage investor.

David Chapman Partner, Mazars LLP Finance

David is the Regional Managing Partner for the Midlands. He trained with Mazars prior to working in industry and the venture capital sector where he gained wide experience by sitting on many diverse company boards. Upon returning to Mazars as a partner, he has concentrated on RSLs and corporate finance, particularly within the housing movement and renewable energy sector. David splits his time and responsibilities between the UK, India and Sweden, as he is the UK Partner overseeing the India operation of Mazars, and has recently taken on a similar role with Sweden.

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Ian Holder Partner, Mazars LLP Finance

Ian is an Audit Partner with Mazars and has significant experience of working with large and medium sized International enterprises. He works closely with his team and local connections such as the local chambers, banks and lawyers to ensure a value added service is provided. His experience includes due diligence and transaction support. Ian also heads up the Midlands region not for profit team which deals with a significant number of local, national and international charities.

Ian Smith Director, Being Guided Finance

Ian has held VP- and Director-level roles in venture-funded tech firms out of Silicon Valley, including BEA (acquired Oracle and Mercator (acquired by IBM). He has lived and worked in Silicon Valley as GM for UK high tech firm Meiko and has spent the last 10 years as an independent consultant, helping high tech start-ups develop a sales and marketing strategy especially designed to meet the challenges of selling new, and often incomplete concepts to early adopter customers, to leverage both early-stage angel and venture funding plus customer-funded R&D. Ian is networked with a range of high net-worth angel investors, who can invest between UK£50,000 and UK£250,000 per project. Ian lives and works in the Jewellery Quarter, right in the heart of Birmingham.

Jack Gavigan Consultant Entrepreneur

After shutting ZedZed.com down (which Jack was CTO of), he went to work in the City, building online trading systems for Deutsche Bank. After moving to Morgan Stanley, he ended up on the trading floor, managing a $2.5bn equity swaps portfolio. Following the credit crunch, Jack became a freelance consultant and he has spent the last three years working with companies like Lloyds Banking Group and Standard Bank, specialising in electronic trading and automated risk management systems. He also advises on cybersecurity in the defence sector and helps organise DEFCON, the world’s largest annual hacker convention. Jack has an Executive MBA from London Business School. He made his first angel investment earlier this year and is an informal advisor to two other early-stage startups

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Keith Simpson Alacriom Limited Finance

Having qualified in 1979 his 30+ year career in the banking industry was spent around the West Midlands and included experience with several major players in the sector. Keith held key Midlands based leadership roles in business and commercial banking for many years and until 2007 was Area Director – Birmingham for a major bank where his team specialised in managing relationships with £2M to £20M turnover businesses. In 2008 Keith was invited to take the role of Group Chief Operating Officer of an independently owned Invoice Finance company and having helped steer that business to a sale to a multi-national in late 2009, he set up Alacriom Limited in 2010, with the intention of providing consulting and implementation support to the SME sector. He is also a Senior Consultant for another independent consultancy Technolink Limited.

Michael Waschnig VentureBull Entrepreneur

Michael is the founder and managing director of VentureBull which is operating in the area of business acquisitions and investments primarily focused on the Mexican market. Michael also founded its sister company

www.elnegositio.com , which is an only market place to buy and sell small businesses. In London, Michael founded and organizes the fast growing entrepreneurial group London Business Starters and as an entrepreneur is currently involved with a mobile e-commerce start-up.

Sol Jeewa Director, Soloman Associates Professional

After graduating from Cass Business School London, Sol spent his early career as a founder establishing a mobile communications business in the UK which was successfully sold within 2 years of being established. Sol Jeewa is the founder and managing director of Soloman Associates Ltd, a UK based executive search & talent management firm that helps some of Europe’s leading edge technology firms build dynamic leadership teams.

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Mentors are still being added, meaning the above list is not exhaustive

Ann Bibby Partner, Mazars LLP Professional

Ann joined Mazars in 2008, during which time she has had responsibility for advising clients on a number of tax compliance and planning matters. Ann has over 15 years experience including “big-4” experience with Deloitte. Ann is a qualified accountant as well as a chartered tax adviser. Her client portfolio has included (and still includes) companies ranging from small owner managed businesses to quoted and unquoted groups based both in the UK and overseas. Ann is also part of the national tax solutions team developing and implementing innovative tax solutions for a variety of clients and is the Midlands representative for ensuring the firm continues with delivering our corporate social reasonability program.

Barrie Murray-Upton Consultant, BM-U.Com Professional

Barrie has served as a Managing Director on the Boards of six companies, three being the European subsidiaries of American ‘start ups’, two UK Publicly quoted and my own ‘start up’. Barrie has a wide range of business experience in the UK, Europe and North America and has operated as a consultant on number of occasions since 1992. I have proven experience in the areas of strategic development, change implementation, operational management, cost control, business planning, staff recruitment, motivation and reward systems, sales process development and IT systems selection and implementation.