Stan Laurent is a partner at Highland Europe. Prior to their current role, they were the president and CEO of PhotoBox Group, a European consumer print-on-demand service. Stan has also served as the chief operating officer of AOL Europe and the managing director of AOL Germany.

Stan Laurent’s educational career includes a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science from ESCP Business School.

Rana joined Balderton as General Partner in 2020. Previously, Rana was a Partner at Goldman Sachs, first in the Principal Strategic Investments Group and later in GS Growth. In that capacity, she oversaw investments in Financial Technology and Enterprise Technology, as well as the commercialization of Goldman Sachs’ technology assets in both New York and London.

Rana joined Goldman Sachs as an analyst in 2006 and was named Managing Director in 2013 and Partner in 2018. She represented Goldman Sachs on the Boards of Tradeweb, NAV, Vestwell, New York Shipping Exchange, and Swapclear @ LCH.

Rana holds a Bachelor of Science from the Wharton School and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations, both from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an MSc from the London School of Economics.

James joined Amadeus in 2019 and is an Associate in the Amadeus Digital Prosperity Fund and secondary funds team focussing on growth stage activities.James is qualified as a chartered accountant and joined Amadeus from Deloitte where he worked as a financial audit manager.

Whilst at Deloitte James had a particular focus on high growth technology-enabled and biotechnology businesses, supporting his clients with M&A, IPO readiness, and post-IPO process implementation. Prior to this James began his career at BDO, also within financial audit.

James holds an LLB in Law with French Law and Language from the University of East Anglia. Having spent time living in both Belgium and France, he is proficient in French.

Ben is a Partner on the investment team at Atomico, where he leads investments in Enterprise Software and SaaS companies. He has a particular interest in companies solving complex problems through building standout products powered by technologies including machine learning, intelligent automation, advanced analytics and simulation. Atomico invests in Europe’s most ambitious tech founders at Series A and beyond.

Phil is a Co-founder and Managing Partner of FinTech Growth Fund, a FinTech focused growth fund launched in August 2023. Phil is also the CEO of FinTech Alliance, a non-profit digital platform launched in partnership with the UK Government, tasked with supporting the growth of the UK’s fintech ecosystem by generating access to market, capital, and talent.

Previously, Phil spent over four years as Group Strategy Director at Pollinate, a growth stage FinTech focused on reinventing merchant acquiring for banks around the world. Prior to this, he spent five years at the UK Treasury, most recently as Head of Global Markets where he was responsible for all financial services activity across Asia Pacific and FinTech globally.

Brent is Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Founders Factory (global venture studios, seed programmes and accelerator programmes), Founders Forum (global community of founders, corporates and tech leaders), and firstminute capital ($320m seed fund with global remit, backed by over 120+ unicorn founders). Previously, Brent co-founded made.com in 2010 which went public last year with a valuation of $1.1bn, and lastminute.com in 1998 where he was CEO from its inception and sold it in 2005 to Sabre for $1.1bn.

Brent has backed nine unicorns at Seed stage and technology businesses Brent has co-founded have raised over $1bn and include Karakuri (provider of robotics, AI and automation systems), Founders Intelligence (entrepreneur-powered consultancy – recently acquired by Accenture), EQL:HER (network taking action to change the underrepresentation of women in technology), Founders Keepers (technology executive search firm), Founders of the Future (network that identifies and supports aspiring entrepreneurs), Founders Pledge (community for entrepreneurs committed to finding and funding solutions to global challenges), Grip (AI-powered event networking solution), 01 Founders (a network of free-to-access coding schools with a job guarantee), Founders Law (full-service tech law firm), Founders Makers (a creative partner for challengers and forward-thinking corporates), and Polygo (graduate talent accelerator).

Brent sits on the advisory boards of Google Cloud, The Tessa Jowell Foundation, the UK Government Digital Service and the WEF Digital Europe Group. He was also a founding Champion of Change for The Global Tech Group, has been an advisor to four UK prime ministers and in 2015 was awarded a CBE for his services to entrepreneurship.

Chris is Co-Founder and CEO of what3words. what3words has divided the world into 3m squares and given each a unique 3 word address. It means that now people can refer to any precise location in just three words – from a delivery entrance in the city to a home in a settlement where addresses don’t exist.

Chris harnessed the idea having grown up on a farm where delivery drivers never found his house, then spending a decade running an international live music business where site entrances were unaddressed leading to widespread logistical challenges. Chris devised the what3words concept with two friends, a mathematician and linguist, the 3 went on to co-found the business together.

From Mercedes-Benz and Mitsubishi to Airbnb, DHL and the UN, today thousands of businesses use what3words to improve their efficiency, customer experience and even save lives. what3words is a team of over 100 based in London, with backers including Intel, Sony, & Ikea.

Chris is a TED speaker, winner of EY Accelerating Entrepreneur, Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Innovation, and a Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the World Economic Forum.

Joanne Dewar has been firmly at the centre of the Fintech revolution as CEO of Global Processing Services (GPS), now Thredd, where she took pride not only of what the company achieved in enabling the fintech ecosystem, at home and overseas, but also in her values based leadership. Fintechs enabled by GPS included Revolut, Starling, Monzo, and Curve. Since exiting, Joanne enjoys following her passions of advocating for embedding ESG, championing disability inclusion and mentoring female and minority ethnic CEOs on their scale up journeys. Recognition includes Businesswoman of the Year at the 2022 UK Tech Awards, Director of the Year at the 2022 UK Fintech Awards and Payments Leader of the Year at the 2023 European Women in Payments Awards.

Richard is the founder and CEO of moo.com.

Launched in late 2006, MOO helps companies bring their brands to life in a sustainable way.

MOO is focused on disrupting the trillion dollar print and branded merchandise industry, with its unique approach to design, technology and operations. This has allowed it to sustain industry-leading NPS, gross margin and top-line growth for a business of its size. To date, MOO has served millions of customers in nearly 200 countries and employs around 500 people across 5 locations in the UK and USA.

Before founding MOO, Richard worked for the design company Imagination, other past companies also include sorted.com and the BBC. Richard has spend the last ten years on public company boards as a Non-Executive Director, first with Ladbrokes PLC between 2012 and 2016, and then with N Brown PLC between 2016 and 2023.

Richard has been featured in the ‘Wired 100’ and ‘Media Guardian 100’ lists, was named amongst the Telegraph Newspaper’s ‘1,000 Most Powerful People in British Business’, and was ranked in the Guardian Newspaper’s top 10 most influential people in digital media. Richard is also an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and the Young Presidents Organisation.

Richard was awarded an MBE for ‘Services to Entrepreneurship’ in the Queen’s 2015 New Year’s Honours.

Carolyn Dawson is Chief Executive of Founders Forum Group, overseeing all FF events and businesses, and steering the strategic development of our global network. Previously, Carolyn was President at Informa Tech, a FTSE 100 UK company championing specialists in their core markets. Carolyn led a global portfolio of Digital Media, Research, Events, and Training across a variety of technology sectors and presided over the joint venture between Founders Forum and Informa Tech, prior to her assuming her role as FFG CEO.

Carolyn was recently appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her services to London Tech Week, which she’s led for the past seven years. In this time, she built its global profile and advanced its mission to showcase the best of UK tech. Carolyn is passionate about growing a dynamic and inclusive tech community to realise the positive impact of technology on our world and to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Before co-founding job search engine Adzuna, Doug was COO of property portal Zoopla. From 2008 he led the growth of the team from 5 to 100+ people, organically and through acquisitions, and left to start Adzuna prior to Zoopla’s IPO and subsequent sale to Silver Lake for $3B. Previously he was MD of Gumtree.com, the UK’s largest classified ads site, where he led the business through a strong period of growth after acquisition by eBay in 2005. Doug has an MBA from Kellogg, a BA in English Literature from Cambridge and hates to admit he is a qualified accountant.

Jacyn is an entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Epos Now. In 2011, as a bar owner, he experienced firsthand the lack of high-quality, flexible and affordable technology solutions accessible to small business owners like himself. Determined to create the technology he wanted, Jacyn set out to develop his own cutting-edge point-of-sale and embedded finance platform, augmented by artificial intelligence.

Since then, Epos Now has grown into a leading global embedded finance and POS solution provider, boasting a global workforce of over 600 employees, headquartered in the UK, and with head offices in the USA and Australia. Operating in 74 countries, Epos Now serves customers in over 67,000 locations across the retail and hospitality sectors.

Today, Epos Now is one of the UK’s largest and fastest-growing tech scale-ups, with an average of 65% growth YoY over the last 6 years and recurring revenues in excess of £100mm – completely organically funded.

Jacyn has received over 20 business awards, such as IOD Director of the Year, the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, and presented with an honorary doctorate from the University of East Anglia.

Tugce is passionate about the power of AI and the positive change it can bring to the world. As a serial entrepreneur, Tugce started a number of AI businesses including Streetbees where she served as the CEO for 8 years. She is currently working on Alchemy, a new dating service that brings executive matchmaking to the masses using GenAI tools to deliver hand-picked matches to its users.

Previously, Tugce was a strategy consultant at EY-Parthenon advising Private Equity houses on M&A and portfolio businesses. Tugce is a published author and a Cambridge economist, focusing on the use of technology to bolster economic development.

Jeremy is CEO and Founder of Attest, a SaaS business based in London and New York. Attest exists to inform every intuition and dissolve any doubt, by making it simple and fast to uncover opportunity with consumer data.

He previously worked at McKinsey & Company across >25 countries, holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, also studied at MIT, and was originally a scientist, focusing on behaviour, genetics and ecology.

Jeremy’s charity board roles include – Chair/Trustee/Member at REAch2; supporting and improving ~60 primary state schools across the UK – and also Trustee at Nesta; the UK’s innovation agency for social good; a ~£450m endowed charity which designs, tests and scales new solutions to society’s biggest problems.

Ben founded and led the Karmarama Group of companies specialising in marketing services and digital transformation. Karmarama went on to become one of the biggest independent agencies in the UK. Ben worked directly with the CEOs and CMOs of start-ups like Lucky Saint and household brands like Costa, IKEA, Just Eat and the BBC advising them on their marketing strategies and campaigns. In 2016 he led the sale of Karmarama to Accenture where he became responsible for all the agency acquisitions in Accenture Song, working with over 1,000 creatives and helping to form Accenture’s Global Creative Council. Ben left Accenture last year after completing his earnout and is now working with brands and agencies as a Consultant and Chair / Non-Exec.

Co-Founder and former CEO at identity unicorn Onfido. Now Founder and CEO at new startup Quench.ai – using internal recordings to empower smarter work by delivering relevant learning in the flow of work. WEF Tech Pioneer; Forbes Contributor and “30 Under 30”; BA in Economics and Management from Keble College, Oxford.

Danielle is Duco’s Chief Financial Officer. Danielle has held numerous senior leadership finance roles, largely across financial services bringing experience from industries including Inter-dealer broking, investment banking, and insurance. Danielle has a track-record of leading financial strategies, delivering significant transformation programmes and managing M&A financials for both acquisition and divestment, including the delivery of the TPICAP integration/separation. Danielle holds a BA in Accounting & Finance from Nottingham Trent University.

Future Fifty program alumni, Yannick is a data-led, customer-focused, and commercially minded expert who has 15+ years of experience with renowned international brands like Expedia and Zipcar as well as scale-up businesses like Oddbox (food), LloydsDirect / Echo (health-tech), Lenstore (eye-care), and PeoplePerHour (talent marketplace). He has held leadership positions for 10+ years, and at C-level for 6+ years with board-level experience.

Yannick is also an advisor to start-ups and scale-ups in various industries (men’s fashion, pet tech, food & drink, eye care), supporting founders / CEOs and their marketing teams.

David Shriver is Chief Reputation Officer at Ocado Group, a FTSE-100 listed company which provides end-to-end online fulfilment solutions to some of the world’s largest grocery retailers. He has served as a Supervisory Board member for online pet food retailer zooplus AG, as Strategic Adviser to the Chief Executive at Groupe Carrefour, and as Managing Partner of Tulchan Communications, a leading financial PR agency. David began his career in investment banking and was Managing Director and top rated equity analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston.

Stan Laurent is a partner at Highland Europe. Prior to their current role, they were the president and CEO of PhotoBox Group, a European consumer print-on-demand service. Stan has also served as the chief operating officer of AOL Europe and the managing director of AOL Germany.

Stan Laurent’s educational career includes a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science from ESCP Business School.

Hussein is a partner at Hoxton Ventures. He currently represents Hoxton on the boards of Avantia Law, Baseimmune, BeyondRisk, Biocortex, Biotx, DruidAI, Finesse, Fy!, Giraffe360, Kbox, Kitt, Luminary, Peptone, PillSorted, Raptor Supplies, Really Clever, Rensair, Replai, Replan, Skin Analytics, TourRadar and XYZ Reality, and serves as a board observer on Behavox and Karakuri. He previously served on the boards of Babylon Health (NYSE:BBLN), bd4travel (acquired by Dnata), Campanja (acquired by 24/7 Media), Darktrace (LSE:DARK), Deliveroo (LSE:ROO), Panakeia, SOCOS (acquired by Sophos), Yieldify (acquired by Publicis) and Vidya Health.

Hussein serves on the board of UCLB, the commercialization company of UCL and also sits on the advisory board of GTO Partners, a tech mid-market buyout firm, and Landscape, a venture capital review site. Previously he served on the board of Tech Nation, a UK quasi non-governmental organization. In a personal capacity, he is an angel investor in Apex:E3, Builder.ai, Callaly, GoCardless, Mellizyme, MyGlamm, Reachdesk and Signpost.
While forming Hoxton, he helped Eros STX Global develop ErosNow, an online streaming video platform for Bollywood. Prior to Hoxton, Hussein was an associate with Accel Partners. He joined Accel from Microsoft Corporation. Earlier in his career, he worked with three startups, Safe-View (acquired by L-3), Radiance Technologies (acquired by Comcast) and Studio Verso (acquired by KPMG).

Hussein holds an MBA from London Business School and did his undergraduate studies in Symbolic Systems at Stanford University.

Rana joined Balderton as General Partner in 2020. Previously, Rana was a Partner at Goldman Sachs, first in the Principal Strategic Investments Group and later in GS Growth. In that capacity, she oversaw investments in Financial Technology and Enterprise Technology, as well as the commercialization of Goldman Sachs’ technology assets in both New York and London.

Rana joined Goldman Sachs as an analyst in 2006 and was named Managing Director in 2013 and Partner in 2018. She represented Goldman Sachs on the Boards of Tradeweb, NAV, Vestwell, New York Shipping Exchange, and Swapclear @ LCH.

Rana holds a Bachelor of Science from the Wharton School and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations, both from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an MSc from the London School of Economics.

Phil is a Co-founder and Managing Partner of FinTech Growth Fund, a FinTech focused growth fund launched in August 2023. Phil is also the CEO of FinTech Alliance, a non-profit digital platform launched in partnership with the UK Government, tasked with supporting the growth of the UK’s fintech ecosystem by generating access to market, capital, and talent.

Previously, Phil spent over four years as Group Strategy Director at Pollinate, a growth stage FinTech focused on reinventing merchant acquiring for banks around the world. Prior to this, he spent five years at the UK Treasury, most recently as Head of Global Markets where he was responsible for all financial services activity across Asia Pacific and FinTech globally.

Chris is an entrepreneur, investor, and mentor. He is the Managing Partner of Outrun Ventures, and one of Europe’s most prolific investors in Fintech companies. After a ten year career at GE Capital, he co-founded a specialty finance company that became one of the fastest growing businesses in the UK. He and his partners sold the business to a NASDAQ listed entity and specialist buy-out fund in 2014. After exiting he turned his attention to venture investing and mentoring founders. He led the Techstars Fintech Accelerator for five years during which time he made 50 investments – making first cheque investments into Everledger, Cuvva, Cutover, Shieldpay and Seldon. He has also invested as an angel into a further 130 companies, many of them now notable, including Railsbank, Kuda Bank, Quant Network, Marshmallow, Smart Pension. Monese, and Atom Bank. He was named the UK’s Angel investor of the year in 2018/19 and Sifted named him the most active fintech angel in Europe in 2020. Chris formed Outrun Ventures to facilitate investment into the growth stage round of some of his most exciting portfolio companies.

Ben is a Partner on the investment team at Atomico, where he leads investments in Enterprise Software and SaaS companies. He has a particular interest in companies solving complex problems through building standout products powered by technologies including machine learning, intelligent automation, advanced analytics and simulation. Atomico invests in Europe’s most ambitious tech founders at Series A and beyond.

Maria is a product builder and a fintech veteran. Maria spent the last ten years in product leadership positions at successful UK fintech startups and growth- stage companies, namely Nutmeg, Bought By Many and Ebury. Maria is currently a fintech business and product consultant, an advisor to startups and an angel investor with a focus on the UK, Europe and US. Maria holds an MBA from Stanford, a Masters degree in Physics from Pisa and a Postgraduate Certificate in Software Engineering from Oxford.

James joined Amadeus in 2019 and is an Associate in the Amadeus Digital Prosperity Fund and secondary funds team focussing on growth stage activities.James is qualified as a chartered accountant and joined Amadeus from Deloitte where he worked as a financial audit manager.

Whilst at Deloitte James had a particular focus on high growth technology-enabled and biotechnology businesses, supporting his clients with M&A, IPO readiness, and post-IPO process implementation. Prior to this James began his career at BDO, also within financial audit.

James holds an LLB in Law with French Law and Language from the University of East Anglia. Having spent time living in both Belgium and France, he is proficient in French.

Previously Director Apple Education EMEA, then China/AsiaPAC. Led the team who built Education Podcasting, iTunesU Europe then China, worked on the development of Apple Education mobile strategy, iOS Education APPs. Developed the SEED CSR project in China, a collaboration between Apple, Foxconn and Pearson.

Current portfolio includes; Director Trust Architect at ASI.Tech (previously Digest.Ai) conversational Ai. Senior External Advisor McKinsey & Co. Health Tech and Education. Director BD, Strategy and International at Spooler.fm digital media publishing, podcast technology/platform. Non-Executive Director at eKidz.eu language, literacy Ai platform, project with Government of Ukraine supporting 5m+ children. Board Director iOi Institute of Imagination, Charity. Advisor/Contributor to CognitionX Conference & Education APP. FRSA Fellow, The Royal Society of Arts, London. Mentor at Village Capital (Washington DC.), Meaningful Business (London), Deeptech Labs (Cambridge).

Roles and responsibilities include; Non-Exec Director, Board Advisor and Consultant to a portfolio of both early stage and established education, health technology, Ai, blockchain and digital businesses, worldwide. Portfolio includes companies located in London, Berlin, Stockholm, Zurich, Dubai, Delhi, Tokyo, and New York. Contribute across multiple disciplines including; venture building, fundraising for early stage and scale-up technology businesses. Business scale-up: strategy, BD, technology architecture and platform development, brand development, international engagement, channel partnerships, and content strategy/partnerships.

Skyscanner’s CEO, Gareth Williams, became fascinated with computers as a teenager. Pursuing his love of code, he went on to study mathematics and computing at Manchester University, where he met Bonamy Grimes and then Barry Smith, who went on to become Skyscanner co-founders.

After leaving in 2019 he is now ‘funemployed’.

Kutlu is the head of ventures for Creative Destruction Lab at University of Oxford, overseeing the scouting, selection, support and alumni relations across AI, fintech, climate, health and space programmes. He has 20+ years of business experience, advising startups and technology companies around the world. Before joining the CDL programme, Kutlu launched and ran startup programs in UK and EMEA, including UKBasecamp, SUCool, Founder Institute, Galata Business Angels, Endeavor Turkey as well as cofounding an enterprise innovation software company, WeDecide. Previous to that, he worked as a banker in New York and Jakarta. He holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering with distinction from Stanford University. He is also an investor in ~100 startups across North America and EMEA, part of European Investment Committee of Angelschool, part of Stanford UK Angels.

Rhona Munro is a passionate go-to-market strategist and business development executive with a deep strategic and entrepreneurial conviction. With over 30 years experience, Rhona’s proficiency and expertise in business strategy, go-to-market strategy and scale up is second to none, having orchestrated the business development and expansion of over 60 brands throughout the UK, EMEA, USA and Canada in a variety of sectors including, consumer electronics, wearables, telecoms, biotech, health & wellbeing, lifestyle and fashion.

As an added string to her bow, Rhona also holds a Masters in Coaching & Development working with founders and associated teams to enhance leadership communication, authentic influence, inner confidence and resolve imposter syndrome.

Dr. George Windsor is Director of Research and Intelligence at Notion Capital, a pan European, UK based VC, investing in business software companies at Series A. George also holds advisory positions with data, consulting, and research organisations. Prior to Notion Capital, George was Director of Data and Research at Tech Nation, working with scaling tech companies, UK government, and enterprise clients to better understand the dynamics of UK and global tech ecosystems. George was a researcher at innovation foundation, Nesta, and holds a PhD from Loughborough University, where he explored the relationship between migration and entrepreneurship.

Tom is an experienced IP/IT and Tech lawyer with a focus on the European Fintech space. Having built up the practices of two multi award winning UK FinTech companies, he launched Founders Law in 2019 and its became part of the Founders Forum group in late 2022. Founders Law provides a full service, bespoke and embedded legal service to high growth companies across the UK, Europe and the Middle East.

Ed is passionate about entrepreneurship, and has worked with start-ups and scale-ups since 2016. and supports Series A – C founders as the Fintech and Enterprise lead for PwC’s Raise | Ventures team, the highly-regarded and well-renowned fundraising accelerator. He is also part of Cardiff Capital Region’s Innovation Investment Fund’s investment team. Further to his day-to-day work, he is also an advisor to Skin in the Game group, an early-stage investment syndicate focusing on the future of human performance, marrying his passions for entrepreneurship and investing with his love of sport.

Katy Trost is a coach and advisor to tech CEOs in London and New York City. They partner with her to become more effective leaders and build healthy organizations while navigating the challenges of scale. Understanding the responsibilities and challenges that come with serving a company and its people, her mission is to support CEOs at Series B and beyond on their growth journey.

Her clients include companies backed by leading investors, including SoftBank, First Round Capital, Primary Venture Partners, Felix Capital, Octopus Ventures, Inflexion, Maven, and more. Katy is a coach and judge to Tech Nation Future Fifty and Upscale, Octopus Ventures, Founders Forum, Techstars, Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs, PwC Fintech, and the Mayor of London Mentoring Program as well as an advisory board member of various startups.

Dora has spent the last 10+ years in different capacities in the tech and startup ecosystem both in Silicon Valley and in Europe. Currently, she is working with mostly European tech CEOs and their exec team as they start scaling their business. Previously, Dora held leadership roles at Google, YouTube, and SoftBank’s Vision Fund where she helped to scale the operations and the team from 4 people to 200+. Dora has also co-founded a personality-profiling startup and holds executive coaching certifications from HBS and Animas.