Guest Speakers

School for Startups works with many business leaders to provide training to UK startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Expert Speakers confirmed for the 22nd April 2010 “Have Your Say! Debating Doug Richard’s “Entrepreneurs’ Manifesto” at the Royal Institution, London

Dan Martin, Editor at BusinessZone.co.uk / Sift Media

Dan Martin was recently named as one of the top 10 most influential political bloggers on Twitter by The Independent and is frequently asked to deliver training on social media and social networking to senior PR executives, marketers and entrepreneurs. He has been editor of BusinessZone.co.uk, a leading online community for small business owners, for three years and has eight years experience of creating content online.
Dan has also written content for a host of leading business organisations including the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Forum of Private Business, Business Link in London and British Chambers of Commerce and regularly appears in the national press as an expert on business and social networking.

He also regularly speaks at high profile events with recent appearances including presentations and panel discussions at Learning Technologies, the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies Annual Conference, Technology for Marketing and Advertising and Publishing Expo.

In November 2009, Dan hosted the grand final of The Pitch, a nationwide competition which allows small business owners to pitch to successful entrepreneurs and investors for the chance to win business goods and services worth several thousand pounds. In 2010, The Pitch is part of The Business Factory.

In addition, Dan is PR manager at DaisychainBaby.co.uk, a UK-based Fairtrade and organic baby clothes start-up and lead organiser of the Bristol Twestival, part of an initiative in more than 200 cities around the world which uses the power of social media to bring local communities together to raise money for charity.

Rory MccGwire, MD at MarketingDonut.co.uk

Rory founded the specialist publisher BHP Information Solutions in 1991. BHP provides content to business websites such as HSBC, Business Link and Yell.com, as well as newsletters, online diagnostics, and online marketing campaign support. More recently BHP launched three business advice websites of its own, in partnership with Google and others: MarketingDonut.co.uk, StartUpDonut.co.uk and LawDonut.co.uk.

Rory has a law degree from Cambridge University. He started his career in venture capital, with 3i, then became a company analyst on the Tokyo stock market with Smith New Court (now Merrill Lynch). He founded his first business, a recruitment company, in Tokyo. He now lives in Bristol.

Sháá Wasmund, Founder of Smarta.com

A graduate of The London School of Economics, Sháá’s entrepreneurial career had an unusual start. Having won a competition to write for Cosmopolitan magazine, she interviewed World Champion Boxer, Chris Eubank; by the end of the interview he offered her a job promoting his next fight. At just 22 Sháá became responsible for promoting and organising the biggest fight to ever take place in this country; with a live audience of 48,000 and a further 18 million people watching it from home.

In 1994, she set up her first business, a PR and Marketing company. James Dyson was one of her first clients and her role in establishing Dyson as one of the best known brands in the UK won her numerous awards including Cosmopolitan Business Woman of the Year.  5 years later with Dyson now a household name, Sháá was ready for a new challenge.

In late 1999, a chance meeting with Sir Bob Geldof ignited her contagious passion for the internet and all the possibilities that it holds. As one of the founding directors of his travel company, www.deckchair.com Sháá found herself at the heart of the internet revolution. A year later, Sháá decided to pursue her own venture and in 2000, raised substantial funds to launch www.mykindaplace.com.  The company was recently sold to BSkyB.

In 2007 Shaa established a formidable partnership with fellow entrepreneur Dan Wagner to launch Bright Station Ventures, a unique investment vehicle with $100 million of capital dedicated to investing in internally generated ideas and seeding young companies that use information technology in innovative ways to create high growth business opportunities.

Shaa was selected as one of Management Today’s 35 Under 35 – their list of the brightest females of 2007 and in the same year, was named a “Young Gun” (entrepreneurs who are 35 or under and set to make big waves in the business world) by Growing Business.

Sháá is an intrinsic part of the new wave of UK Entrepreneurs combining real entrepreneurial drive and experience with a genuine desire to encourage and inspire others. Her latest venture is living proof. Smarta.com launched in January 2009 and is an innovative business platform providing free advice, networking and tools for entrepreneurs and business owners. Bringing business people together for support and inspiration, Smarta has hundreds of entrepreneur videos and bite-size guides on overcoming business challenges.  Users can access free advice from business experts and find unique tools designed to take the pain out of everyday business tasks. Smarta has the support of leading UK entrepreneurs such as Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden and Michael Birch.

Jasmine Birtles – Owner at Moneymagpie Ltd.

Jasmine Birtles is a financial expert, TV presenter and humourist. Her mission is to de-mystify money and in 2007 she founded Moneymagpie.com, a site that is packed with easy-to-read and often humorous information on money-making (including small businesses), money-saving and long-term investing. Jasmine is a regular pundit on BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky, and various radio channels. She has presented series’ such as Homes under the Hammer (BBC1) and The Insider (Channel 4). She is the author of 38 books and her latest one, Beat the Banks (£7.99, Vermilion) will be published in May. She has a daily column in the Daily Express and writes regularly for the Daily Mirror, Marie-Claire, Essentials, Tiscali and AOL among others. She also regularly runs money-management and investing workshops within companies such as 02 and the BBC and, through Moneymagpie.com, she will be running a series of seminars on basic investing skills in June.

www.moneymagpie.com

Nick James – Founder at Fresh Business Thinking

Nick James is the founder of www.freshbusinessthinking.com a leading website for UK entrepreneurs.
Launched in 2006 the site now receives around 55,000 monthly visits from owners, directors and entrepreneurs looking for information, ideas and advice.
Nick was a late convert to the world of digital and prior to the launch of Fresh Business Thinking spent the majority of his career in the exhibition and live event space.
This experience is now used to run an increasingly popular series of targeted one-day events covering topics such as; Business Growth, Finance, Sales and Internet Marketing.

Expert Speakers confirmed for 6th April 2010 ” Secrets to Marketing & Sales on the Internet” at The British Library, London

Illana Fox, Partner of Spoke Digital

Ilana has been working in community management and social media since 2001, when she ran Liv4now.com, the UK’s first venture-backed community-lifestyle website. Since then she’s managed community initiatives for the Daily Mail (including launching readers’ comments on the bottom of articles – a first for British newspapers at the time), the Mail on Sunday, London Lite, and The Sun. Most recently, Ilana created and implemented the social media strategy for ASOS.com, including launching a fully-integrated bespoke community platform. This won ‘Best Use Of Social Media’ at the eCommerce Awards 2009.

Robert McIntosh, Founder of Wineconversation.com

Robert McIntosh works in the wine trade. By day he is a mild-mannered ‘Brand Ambassador’ for a small number of wineries from Rioja, representing them in the UK and dealing with communications, tastings & training, particularly enjoying the opportunity to take customers over to Rioja. His ‘Social’ Alter-Ego is @thirstforwine, a twitter fanatic, wine blogger at wineconversation.com and tireless networker, spreading the love and culture of wine throughout the web.
Robert consults with wine professionals and brands to help them understand, and to take greater advantage of, the potential of social media tools to promote their own messages

Expert Speakers confirmed for 19th of January 2010 “Growing a Successful Social Enterprise” at the Royal Institution, London:

Uday Thakkar, Founder of Red Ochre

Uday founded and leads the innovative and highly respected social enterprise Red Ochre. Highly regarded for its consultancy, training and research capabilities Red Ochre has a growing reputation for its enterprise and job creation support programmes. It prides itself with improving personal and organisational effectiveness and efficiency. Red Ochre works with social enterprises, ethical businesses, the voluntary and community sectors, faith organisations and refugee organisations. It is increasingly being asked to support community and employment projects by local and regional authorities.

Uday is a leading exponent of social enterprise and financial sustainability and specialises in strategy, leadership and management support, financial management, governance and funding. A chartered accountant by training Uday has started a number of successful commercial businesses, social enterprises and a charity. Uday is the New Statesman/Edge Upstarts Social Enterprise Mentor of the year 2008. He regularly speaks at conferences on social enterprise, finance and enterprise and is often asked to comment on related topics by the media. Uday contributes numerous articles on social enterprise, finance, management and governance for publications and web sites. Uday is also a trustee of 3 charities.

About Red Ochre

Red Ochre works closely with individuals and organisations to assist them with challenges they face with change, funding, finance, management, governance and service delivery. Since its inception it has assisted over 500 individuals and organisations and in excess of 10,000 people have attended its workshops, seminars and conferences across the UK. Red ochre is also creating an online social enterprise business planning toolkit for Business Link in London.

Julie Devonshire, COO, Global Ethics Ltd.

Julie Devonshire is a fellow of her professional accountancy body and ex-director of Investors in People UK.
Julie helped to set up and became COO of Global Ethics Ltd, an award winning social enterprise selling mineral water, vitamin water and condoms, donating 100% of its profits to fund unique water pumps in Africa and other humanitarian projects.

“I am responsible for everything financial, commercial and resource related; my job is to make sure we make money. I was Global Ethics’ first employee and have devoted my time to the project for the last four years drawing a nominal salary. Most of my career has been dedicated to making shareholder’s richer but Global Ethics is about something far, far more rewarding; changing lives. I am immensely proud that we have, through our own commercial skills and endeavours, created and donated over £3m changing an estimated 1m lives, with much more to come,” explains Julie.

Anthony Ross, Bridges Ventures

Antony Ross has 14 years of private equity investment, in a wide range of businesses from early stage development opportunities to later stage management buy outs. He led 3i’s healthcare team from 2000 to 2003 supporting medical technology and biotechnology businesses across Europe. Previously he managed 3i’s Newcastle and Cambridge offices.

About Bridges Ventures

Bridges Ventures is an investment company whose commercial expertise is used to deliver both financial returns and social and environmental benefits. We believe that market forces and entrepreneurship can be harnessed to do well by doing good. Bridges Ventures manages four funds: Ventures Funds I & II, Social Entrepreneurs Fund and the newly launched Sustainable Property Fund. Bridges Ventures is an innovative and pioneering company with experience in supporting entrepreneurs and a proven social investment track record.

Jonathan Jenkins, Director of Ventures, UnLtd.

Jonathan Jenkins has over 15 years experience in fundraising for SMEs from his City career, which included time at a UK merchant bank, and culminated in his role as managing director of Plus Markets, a stock exchange created by his family to enable access to capital for smaller companies. In his time at Plus, over 500 companies raised a total of £2bn. He joined UnLtd in September 2008 as Director of Ventures, specifically tasked with creating the investment readiness programme and team, to meet the clear requirement for such intermediary support within the social investment market.

About UnLtd

UnLtd holds a £100 million endowment to invest in UK social entrepreneurs. Established in 2002 by 7 leading not for profit organisations, UnLtd’s mission is to reach out and unleash the energies of people who can transform the world in which they live. UnLtd provides individuals and informal groups with cash awards and practical support that includes coaching, training and networking opportunities to help them develop community projects. UnLtd has the biggest network of social entrepreneurs in the world and has invested approx £40 million of financial and non financial support in some 16,000 individuals, impacting on many thousands more.