Claire Browns 20 year professional career spans academic research, R&D leadership at three global biopharmaceutical companies and Venture capital.

She is currently responsible for the investment activity of Biocity Group Ltd which includes the management of Alderley Park Ventures, a Healthcare focused Seed fund, and sits on the board of several early stage businesses.

Prior to joining Biocity Group, Claire held a variety of Scientific and Strategy/Business Development roles in the UK and USA in several large organisations including UCB, Genzyme and AstraZeneca-MedImmune including MediVentures, a corporate £400M investment fund.

Claire currently holds a BSc(Hons), a PhD and an MBA having completed her post-doctoral training at the University of Tennessee Medical Centre in the USA. Recently Claire also completed her Investment Management Certification.

Martino is the first CEO of the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst an ambitious concept to develop an Incubator and Accelerator, followed by a world class Science Park for the Life Sciences sector. Martino has a PhD in Biochemistry from Cardiff University and spent 4 years at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX in Cardiovascular research. Martino joined Amersham International in 1991 and subsequently went on to manage the R&D Technology Transfer Group, based in Cardiff and developing high throughput screening technologies for the Pharmaceutical sector. Following the merger of Amersham with Pharmacia Biotech, Martino became the Science Director for the Cardiff site, Martino then became a Business Manager for Manchester Biotech Ltd. and subsequently Manchester Innovation Ltd. in June 1999. When the Universities of Manchester and UMIST merged, he became Managing Director of UMIC and MICL and was a Board member of UKBI. Martino was also acting Chairman for a start-up company, sri Forensics Ltd (2011-2014) and has previously been on the Board of Cartesian Technologies , BIONOW Steering Committee and was also a non -executive Director for Queen Mary Bioenterprise Ltd (2009-Aug 2010).. Martino has recently been a Board member of the Hertfordshire LEP. Most recently, Martino has been on the Trust Board for the North Herts Studio Schools (Stevenage, Letchworth and Thomas Alleyne Schools) and on the Local Governing Body for the Da Vinci Studio School Stevenage. Martino has also been appointed to the Life Science Wales Hub Board as a Non –Executive) and was recently therecipient of a Herts Chamber of Commerce award for “outstanding contribution to Herts Business “ (May 2014). Martino is also on the assessment panels for CRACK-IT (NC3Rs) and TSB (now Innovate UK) Biomedical Catalyst Funding respectively.

Dr Sven Molner is a Lecturer in Marketing at Cass Business School, City University London. He received his PhD from the University of St.Gallen in 2015. Prior to joining Cass, he has been a Research Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School. In his work, Sven investigates the marketing and commercialization of early stage technologies emerging from university labs. Specifically, he is interested in how inventors, technology managers, and science-based entrepreneurs explore and define the market space for early stage technologies. Sven’s research is based on a collaboration with Cambridge Enterprise, the technology transfer organisation of the University of Cambridge. Sven’s unique expertise allows him to advise early stage science-driven companies about finding or creating their unique market niche.

Murat Yildiz is the founder of Avergen Pharmaceuticals Gmbh located in
Martinsried, Germany. He has received his doctorate in molecular
oncology from the University of Munich (lMU) and went to medical school
at the University of Wurzburg. Prior to founding APG, he assessed
scientific licensing-in opportunities for Mundipharma (part of Purdue).
He has worked in medical affairs at Janssen, Cilag, Teva and Novartis.
His academic research focus was in multiple sclerosis in the cantonal
hospital of Saint Gall and schizophrenia at the University Hospital
Basel, Switzerland. He was a principal investigator in several clinical
studies. He is a neurologist with a research focus in CNS indications.
Specifically, he is interested in neurodegenerative diseases and
oncology.

Yuri has nearly 20 years experience in start-ups, research institutes and multi-nationals as a scientist, manager, director and investor.
 
He is the founder of Nabla Ventures, a start-up advisory firm where he works with a portfolio of deep technology ventures in a variety of fields including Quantum Technology, Cybersecurity, AI and IoT.
 
Having had an early career as a physicist at CERN, he left his PhD studies to join a start-up that was building the world’s first online trading platform for financial products. The company was subsequently acquired by CMC Markets, now a $1bn bank.
 
He has since founded and co-founded several other start-ups including FXOnline, a Hong Kong-based fintech company. He also spent over five years working for BNP Paribas, a French investment bank, where he managed multi-million pound technology programmes. In addition, he runs an independent investment firm that has been involved in several projects ranging from Cleantech solutions in Africa to London property development.
 
Yuri studied Applied Physics, Electrical Engineering and Astronomy at Linköping, Stanford and Cape Town universities. He also holds an Executive MBA from London Business School.

Nick Lyth is co-founder and manager of Green Angel Syndicate (GAS), the first business angel syndicate in the UK to specialise in investments in energy and water sectors. He is responsible for finding and selecting the companies in which the syndicate invests, as well as business development for the syndicate.  Prior to GAS, Nick founded, developed and managed International Resources and Recycling Institute, which specialised in applied research, working in European partnership projects exploring innovations in renewable energy, water management, sustainable transport, waste and recycling, and other areas of resource use.  

Nick has contributed to forums advising Scottish Government on water policy, and renewable energy policy; the Northern Irish Government - advising on the development of community renewable energy; has hosted presentations on renewable energy policy to the European Parliament in Brussels and has been invited to assess innovation competitions in the UK run by the Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK) and Scottish Government.  He has also served on charitable Boards for the Big Issue Scotland, and Dundee Cyrenians, as well as many commercial Boards ranging from sectors as varied as Denholm Ship Management and Drambuie Liqueur Company. Nick is married, has three children and lives in Edinburgh.

Dr Sharmila Bakshi is an experienced biotechnology consultant and is familiar with the priorities of academic, industry, non-profit, and governmental research organizations. Furthermore, she is experienced in leading the lifecycle management of critical research and development projects, as well as establishing and maintaining successful collaborations between academia and industry.

Providing consultancy to biotech and pharma companies, she is focused on the development of drugs, vaccines, adjuvants, anti-infectives, biologics, and therapeutics, as well as medical devices and diagnostics. Her specialties include drug development, project leadership, business development, medical communications, and the set up and management of collaborations and consortia.

Dr. Bakshi is the founder of Kaizen Bioconsulting and has recently founded Personalize My Medicine. Previously, she held positions such as project manager and senior research consultant at GSK, the European Vaccine Initiative and Origimm. She obtained her PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Oxford and subsequently a graduate Diploma in Law from BPP Law School, London.

After a whirlwind nine years in 34 countries, Shirah settled in Lausanne, Switzerland where she studies entrepreneurship & technology commercialization at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). She is co-founder of financial market technology firm Competence Map Solutions, which wields one of the world's most efficient resource allocation systems. She enjoys coaching entrepreneurs through the early stages of developing the business concept as well as design thinking, UX/UI, branding, marketing, and communications. 

Prior to pursuing doctoral studies, Shirah graduated from Aalto University School of Business (Helsinki) with a master in Strategy. She holds a BBA in International Entrepreneurship. In addition to having worked or interned at the community, state, and federal levels of US government, Shirah has enjoyed working with social entrepreneurs in the U.S., Cambodia, Guatemala, Nepal, Finland, and around the world. Shirah speaks French, Russian, Finnish, and Spanish. She is a passionate Latin ballroom dancer, early morning riser, and lover of steep mountains and milk tea. When the tea pot's empty, you're likely to find her exploring something new to write about on her travel blog (www.shirah.mobi).

Liz Aab works on commercializing new technologies at Shell -- in particular Shell GTL Fuel, a cleaner burning diesel fuel. Before joining Shell, she advised foreign businesses on how to do business in China, based in Beijing, and worked in finance in New York. She studied international relations and computer science at Stanford University and has an MBA from London Business School, where she has co-chaired, judged and mentored for the CleanTech Challenge. Liz's husband co-founded a successful Silicon Roundabout mobile app commerce company, Poq. They are proud parents of baby boy Hunter, born last December.

Philip is currently Commercial Director at PassivSystems Ltd, a smart technology provider in the clean energy sector. He has a background in energy and cleantech, with over 12 years’ experience in business development, commercial strategy and investment. Having started out as an energy analyst, he joined the commercial team at New Energy Finance and helped grow the company both in Europe and Asia, where he was based out of Beijing and Tokyo. While at the firm, revenues grew from $300K to over $30m, and the business was sold to Bloomberg. After leaving BNEF in 2014, Philip helped develop not-for-profit platform to accelerate finance for clean energy, and also worked at a cleantech-focused venture capital firm. He is an angel investor and advisor to a number of start-up companies; he has a degree in Modern Languages from Bristol University and an MBA from London Business School.