Irene Graham OBE

Irene Graham is the CEO and a board director of the ScaleUp Institute. A former senior banker at Standard Chartered Bank where she held both European and global managing director roles, she set up, ran and scaled several of the bank’s key client and product businesses across its corporate and institutional bank and led several global M&A activities.

She led a host of strategic work across the industry from the regulatory and business perspectives, including leading the Business Finance Taskforce set up by the CEOs of the UK banks which resulted in the creation of the BGF, the Enterprise Research Centre, the SME Finance Monitor, and Mentorsme as well as being responsible for new export and business policy initiatives including the Small Business Act, expanded UKEF products and Open Banking which Irene advised Government and industry upon.

She is a Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at Strathclyde University and holds a variety of non executive director and advisory roles across the creative, business and finance communities.

Margaret Rice-Jones

Margaret has more than 20 years of board-level experience at public and private software and technology companies. She is currently senior independent director at De La Rue plc, chair at scaleup Origami Energy, and non-executive director at Holiday Extras Investment and Calnex Solutions Plc. Previously she was senior independent director at Xaar plc and chaired private companies Skyscanner and Confused.com until they were sold for £1.4bn and £509m respectively.

Cate Poulson

Liz Warburton

Liz heads up the Marketing & Communications team at BGF. She is responsible for raising awareness of BGF’s investments and activities among new and existing audiences, as well as providing guidance to investee companies on their PR and marketing programmes. Liz began her career at global PR agency Fleishman-Hillard, an Omnicom Group company, working with blue-chip and small and mid-sized clients in the manufacturing, technology, business services, financial and travel and tourism sectors. She joined BGF from boutique financial services agency Greentarget, where she specialised in banking, financial market infrastructure and fintech for privately owned and listed companies.

Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne

Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne is a chef and entrepreneur. After completing her degree in Physiology at Queen Mary’s, University of London, she went on to train at Leith’s School of Food and Wine, before honing her skills at Conran’s Bibendum Restaurant. Lucinda’s entrepreneurial breakthrough moment came when one of her sons was diagnosed as gluten intolerant and she discovered there was no tasty gluten free bread available. She resolved to develop this badly needed product herself. On the back of this ground breaking innovation, she founded Genius Foods in 2008 and launched her bread nationwide a year later. Since the first listing of Genius bread, Lucinda has overseen the creation of Britain’s leading “free-from” bakery brand, revolutionising the industry and normalising the lives of millions of people who have to or choose to live on a gluten free diet. Genius now exports to Europe, Australia, and North America from its bakery in West Lothian.

Lucinda is a Non-Executive Director of both the National Skills Academy of Food and Drink and of the ScaleUp Institute. She was also recently nominated as one of the Maserati Top 100 Innovators and named in the top 100 Women to Watch in the annual Cranfield University Female FTSE Board Report 2018.

Marcus Stuttard

Marcus Stuttard is Head of AIM and has responsibility for Primary Markets in the UK across both AIM and the Main Market. He is responsible for the management and development of AIM, London Stock Exchange’s international growth market for small and medium sized enterprises.

Simon Bumfrey

Simon Bumfrey is CEO, HSBC Innovation Banking UK and is responsible for leading, developing and scaling the Bank’s business across the UK and Nordics. HSBC Innovation Banking is a full-service UK subsidiary Bank with all local operations and functions under Simon’s leadership.

Simon previously held the role of Head of Technology and Life Sciences for HSBC Innovation Banking UK & Nordics. He was responsible for client relationship and debt structuring teams focused on fast growth innovation businesses, from early-stage, venture capital–backed companies, to those that are publicly listed and private equity–owned.

Simon has spent more than 35 years working in commercial banking, with the last 25 years focused on the technology, media and telecommunication sectors. Before joining HSBC Innovation Banking in 2017, he led teams at Barclays Bank, Bank of Ireland and Lloyds Banking Group. While at Barclays, he expanded his expertise into global markets by managing credit risk for clients in Africa, the Caribbean and Middle East.

Simon works out of London and frequently spends time with clients and investors across the ecosystem.

He sits on The Scale Up Institute and Gender Index Advisory Boards. He is also the executive sponsor of Innovation Banking’s Gender Equality Employee Resource Group.

Sahar Hashemi OBE

A former lawyer, Sahar Hashemi founded Coffee Republic, the UK’s first US style coffee bar chain with her brother and built it into one of the UK’s most recognised high street brands with 110 bars and a turnover of £30m.

She left the day-to-day management of Coffee Republic in 2001 and published a bestselling book, Anyone Can Do It, Building Coffee Republic from our kitchen table, which has been translated into 6 languages and is 2nd-highest selling book on entrepreneurship after Richard Branson.

In 2005 she founded Skinny Candy, a brand of sugar free sweets which was sold to confectionery conglomerate Glisten PLC in 2007.

In June 2012 Sahar was awarded an OBE for services to the UK economy and to charity.

She is currently co- chair of the Government Scale Up Taskforce and is actively involved in the roll-out of Change Please, a social enterprise that trains and hires homeless people to run coffee carts. She is finishing her third book, “Start Up Forever, 10 ways to behave like a start up when you’re not a start up” based on her experiences of working with large organisations.

Professor Tim Vorley

Professor Tim Vorley is Pro Vice-Chancellor and the lead for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise within the Vice-Chancellor’s Group.

Prior to his role at Oxford Brookes University, Tim held positions at the Universities of Sheffield and Cambridge, and at the Saïd Business School (University of Oxford). He currently leads the Innovation Caucus, co-funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Innovate UK, and has previously led several projects funded under the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, Horizon Europe and ESRC.

Tim is an economic geographer by training and his research focuses on entrepreneurship, enterprise and regional economic development. He works extensively with a number of central government departments and agencies, as well as with Local Enterprise Partnerships and local government bodies. He is a member of the ESRC Strategic Advisory Network, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Skills and Talent Advisory Group, and chairs the ESRC’s Transforming Business through Social Science advisory group.

Tim is also the Vice-Chair of the Small Business Charter, created by Lord Young, which is leading the delivery of the Help to Grow Management programme through business schools across the UK.