Team | FFWD London – Preparing Startup Teams For First Funding

Our Team

Doers and thinkers from the world of startups and innovation

Clarelisa Camilleri

PROGRAMME OPERATIONS MANAGER

Clarelisa, Programme Operations Manager, ensures the smooth running of The Scaleup Accelerator for scaleups raising Series A, alongside other key programmes from The Accelerator Network: Accelerator Academy for startups raising seed funding, FastForward Pre-Accelerator, and Cyber 101. She is responsible for selecting the companies, managing the delivery of the programmes and establishing strategic relationships with the companies, experts and mentors.

Clarelisa previously worked in a European Network of business innovation centres (EU BICs) for over 5 years, coordinating the certification process of about 150 global incubators according to European quality standards. During this time she also managed multi-stakeholder programmes across a wide range of sectors, such as a three-year programme (FIBIA) funded by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation to stimulate inclusive entrepreneurship at European level.

Clarelisa is Italian-Venezuelan and graduated with a masters degree from the Imperial College Business School in 2013.

Clarelisa Camilleri

Paul Sturrock

SLINGSHOT VENTURE DEVELOPMENT

I’ve spent my whole career leading the design and implementation of entrepreneurial strategy, or developing the capability of others to do so.

I founded Slingshot Venture Development in 2001 to help companies and individuals develop their entrepreneurial capacity and accelerate their ventures.

I’ve developed Simple Venture Design, an entrepreneurial toolkit which integrates creative tools such as Effectual Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking and Lean Startup with analytic ones. It’s become the the basis for teaching business design as a creative craft as opposed to an art or a science. I’ve used this approach to design bootcamps and courses for the London City Incubator, City University, Central Saint Martins, Scottish Institute for Enterprise, and Hong Kong University, and Wayra Madrid.

I have advised founders and early stage investors as a mentor, board director, and consultant. My clients have included Boots, MIT Media Lab, the SETsquared Partnership, NESTA Investments, School for Startups and Imperial Innovations.

I started my career in with Advanced Cardiovascular Systems, the most successful medical startup in Silicon Valley history. My formative experience was as founding CFO for PSG, and intrapreneurial spinoff unit. After senior posts in Europe for Guidant, I left to become European Director for Gynecare, setting up their operations prior to a successful exit to J&J.

I then joined Gorilla Park, a pan-European technology accelerator and launched their venture investment and acceleration operations in Sweden as Managing Director.

Follow me: @Psturrock

Paul Sturrock

Amy Chao

ENGAGEMENT MANAGER MARKETING & COMMUNITY

Amy, Marketing & Community Engagement Manager, shares stories of inspiring founders and investment successes to champion engagement with diverse tech entrepreneurs and further collaborative synergy with our ecosystem partners. She comes from a background across travel, fashion and retail intersecting tech in UK, US, and Asia growing lifestyle brands with roles and consulting projects for clients in design, product, strategy and digital.

Experienced with accelerators startup side as early team at Safe & The City street-smarts navigation app and consultant to connected clothing mcommerce app. She is part of Tech London Advocates RetailTech team curating events featuring startup disruptors and industry insight and discussion. Advocate of tech inclusion previously at not-for-profit VR Diversity Initiative.

Amy was right hand to founders of multi-brand accessories company later acquired by Li & Fung in $300m deal. Between London and NY, Amy was an entrepreneur in 2 Bali lifestyle businesses in fashion and surf.

Amy Chao

Ian Merricks

Chair of The Accelerator Network

Ian Merricks is deeply involved in the UK start-up community and early stage investment space as an investor, advisor, and operator.

In his 20+ years of experience within the Tech, Media & Telecoms market, he has launched a music PR agency, 2 record labels, and 16 radio stations. He also created a network of best-selling city guide books and websites, a youth promotions agency, an academic contract publishing business, a B2B media planning and buying agency, and a tech investment advisory business.

Along the way, he has also worked with the boards of FTSE100 companies like EMAP, as well as IPC and The Wireless Group as a commercial and corporate troubleshooter. He has been involved in raising over £200m of equity investment.

Ian Merricks

Keynote Experts

Paul Sturrock

Over 25+ years’ experience leading the design and implementation of entrepreneurial strategy, or developing the capability of others to do so. Founded Slingshot Venture Development in 2001 to help companies and individuals develop their entrepreneurial capacity and accelerate their ventures.

Also developed Simple Venture Design, an entrepreneurial toolkit which integrates creative tools such as Effectual Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking and Lean Startup with analytic ones. It’s become the basis for teaching business design as a creative craft as opposed to an art or a science. This approach has been used to design bootcamps and courses for the London City Incubator, City University, Central Saint Martins, Scottish Institute for Enterprise, and Hong Kong University, and Wayra Madrid.

Experience advising founders and early stage investors as a mentor, board director, and consultant. Previous clients included Boots, MIT Media Lab, the SETsquared Partnership, NESTA Investments, School for Startups and Imperial Innovations.

Paul Sturrock

Roger Planes

Originally from Barcelona, Roger moved to London in 2010 equipped with a degree in Computer Science from the UAB. He quickly found his passion in entrepreneurism. With a vision to re-invent the blogging experience Roger lived between San Francisco and London building and designing his venture, Glipho.

His experience as a founder sparked his passion for helping others balancing business and product development.

Roger has been a Nintendo fan since he discovered Mario at 5 years old. Forget about beer, it’s all about Red Wine (Rioja) and cooking food.

Roger Planes

Di Wheatley

Di is a brand and marketing consultant with more than 20 years international experience who today specializes in market positioning, messaging, identity, marketing and communications.

A business studies grad, she spent the early years of her career in Asia, first in Tokyo and then in Hong Kong, working for major advertising networks on clients that included Coca-Cola, LG Electronics,Sheraton Hotel Group, Phillips Electornics and TAG Heuer.

After a sabbatical in Italy, a return to London saw her work with the likes of Intel, MasterCard, Marriott Hotels, PwC, Boots Healthcare and EDF Engergy on a range of UK and international projects.

In 2010 Di made a sideways move into pure brand consultancy. It was here that she was first introduced to the dynamic world of start-ups. Going on to devise strategies to help bring to market a range of new products and services. In 2017, Di decided it was time for a change and set up her own consultancy. A chance meeting providing an exciting opportunity to work for the CEO of a rapidly growing, London-based tech consultancy. There she became a convert to the world of stand-ups, retros, sprints. She enjoyed it so much that she’s had a hand in the London tech scene ever since.

Di Wheatley

Becks Armstrong

Becks has dedicated her career working towards improving the lives of women of all ages and in all situations. She created Clarity to create awareness and support for the issues that uniquely affect women as they get ready for and go through menopause – at whatever their age.

As an experienced COO in high-growth tech startups in London as well as having trained as an acupuncturist, Chinese medicine, mindfulness practitioner and doula, Becks combines operational excellence with a deep understanding of women.

Becks has a passion for improving the lives of women as well as their families. She believes with the right access to support, education and information, women can make a real improvement to their lives.

Becks Armstrong

Andrew Ross

Andrew represents clients in a variety of industry sectors with a focus on technology and healthcare. He is noted in Legal 500 UK for private equity and venture capital transactions.

Andrew Ross

Shaun Beaney

Shaun works on ICAEW’s communications, public policy initiatives and corporate advisory projects, particularly for innovation investment, access to finance, scale-up businesses and venture capital. He devised, researched and co-authored: Creative Industries – Routes to Finance; Boosting Finance for Engineering & Technology; UK Television in Focus; Boosting Finance for the UK’s Industrial Strategy; and AI in Corporate Advisory.

Shaun chairs Immerse UK’s Access to Finance & Investment Working Group and is a member of the ‘Financing Growth’ group of the UK government-sponsored Creative Industries Council. He has spoken at events organised by the British Business Bank, Central Saint Martins – University of the Arts London, Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Enterprise Europe Network, Innovate UK, PwC, The Accelerator Network, the Victoria & Albert Museum (with Creative Entrepreneurs), and the Westminster Policy Forum.

Shaun Beaney

experts

Mentors

Thierry Ackermann

Thierry is a CxO and business transformation leader with international experience. He worked in senior tech and business leadership positions in Switzerland, Belgium, Ireland and UK/US, covering the entire arc from strategy development to daily operations. He has a deep understanding of how business functions operate, and how global issues and technological developments affect people in large and small organisations.

Thierry is advising, coaching and mentoring clients at all levels of the organisation, from young talents to senior executives through to board members. His engagement style is pragmatic and solution-driven, giving his clients a safe place to explore their topics, raise awareness and establish practical and actionable solutions.

Thierry Ackermann

Sam Bird

Sam Bird is the portfolio Manager for L Marks, an investment and innovation advisory firm, specialising in applied corporate innovation. He supports the development of the 35+ startups L Marks have invested in to. Prior to that , Sam led the development of 2 start-ups from their infancy. With a passion for the start-up ecosystem, he is keen on helping the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Sam Bird

Tammy Marks

Tammy works as a Startup Scout at L Marks. She is responsible for identifying the best innovative startups to collaborate with her corporate partners. Since joining L Marks, Tammy has sourced the best teams from a wide variety of industries. Currently her focus is on companies within the retail, proptech and energy sectors.

Tammy Marks

Ajay Palekar

Ajay is the Head of Operations at WorkClub, the go-to platform for remote professionals looking for convenient and affordable spaces to work and meet. He is also a mentor to early-stage entrepreneurs in The Accelerator Network’s Fast Forward Program and a strategic advisor to multiple startups.

Ajay Palekar

Luigi Meschini

Head of the Accelerator Funding Network, Luigi supports alumni from The Accelerator Network to help them secure funding post-programme. He also looks after Investor Relations at The Accelerator Network. Luigi supported over 80 start-ups with investment readiness over the last 12 months. He has previously launched, and successfully exited a startup based in Italy. Luigi started off his career as a lawyer before he saw the startup light!

Luigi Meschini

Eoin Marsh

Originally from Ireland, Eoin spent six years in the San Francisco Bay Area and was part of the founding teams of two startups, including e-commerce platform Outdoorsie.com. Since coming to London in 2018 he has advised several startups in the UK and since January 2019 he became the Entrepreneur Engagement Manager for Tech Nation in London.

https://technation.io/news/meet-eoin-marsh-our-london-entrepreneur-engagement-manager/

Eoin Marsh

Helen Roberts

Multi award winning fast growth business strategist for SME’s, Entrepreneur, Investor, Strategic advisor & Keynote speaker. Helen is passionate about helping people play full out to become the best they can be, doing what they love. She spent the last decade studying and observing the psychology of influence & interviewing 1000’s of successful business owners to understand human behaviour & how it relates to creating success across business & personal transformation.

Helen is an entrepreneur in her own right and has built & invested in multiple successful businesses across a variety of industries. She has addressed and worked with all levels of business including corporate entities, small & medium sized enterprises & Start Ups. A business expansion strategist with a 20 year track record of success, Helen has coached, mentored trained & supported thousands of people across all industries on 4 continents. Her expertise is in; leadership & peak performance, business scale-ups, sales & marketing strategies & talent management.

Helen has created 300+ training programmes on and offline across all core aspects of growing a business. She has spoken at industry specific events & worldwide conferences working with many leading organisations. Helen knows how to get people authentically engaged to maximise their game in life & business.

Helen Roberts

Alex Somervell

Alex is co-founder and CEO of One Third Stories, a D2C children’s educational subscription box that went through FFWD 5 years ago. It now turns over $1m per year, has raised over £500k in investment and sent over 100,000 products to children around the world (mostly UK and US).

Areas of expertise are D2C, subscription boxes, fulfilment/supply chain, Facebook Ads, Kickstarter, raising investment, developing MVPs and monetisation.

Alex Somervell

Eduardo Brunger Paperini

Eduardo has over 10 years of professional experience across consulting, M&A, corporate finance and investment. He has participated in or led over 30 rounds of venture investments. His prior experience includes: Founding a consulting company where he worked on projects ranging from corporate growth and expansion strategies to acting as Entrepreneur/ Founder in Residence.

Investment Manager at Breed Reply, a Seed to Series A VC focused on IoT (B2B Software & Hardware) across Europe.

Investment Manager at Collider, a marketing & ad tech accelerator, where he introduced their investment process and structure.

Almost 5 years at EY in Brazil within M&A, Financial Services and Advisory.

Eduardo speaks fluent English, Portuguese and German and conversational French, Spanish and Italian. He holds a BA in Business Administration and a Masters in Finance. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking for his wife, reading, cycling, going to the gym, training and giving Krav Maga classes.

Eduardo Brunger Paperini

Philippa Seal

Philippa is an experienced business and marketing professional with specific expertise in growing and mentoring start ups and owner managed businesses, by increasing their customers through creating value. She co-founded and ran a successful BTB communications agency.

Her particular expertise is understanding what a business is actually selling, and helping its founders work out the value that differentiates them from their competitors so customers know why they are buying or signing up.

She is a Chartered Marketer, on the London board of the Association of Business Mentors, Chair of the Mentors’ panel of the Centre for Entrepreneurs and as a member of the livery company, The Worshipful Company of Marketors, she matches marketors with small charities enabling members to give back.

Philippa Seal

Nathan Mullings

Analyst at Innovation Warehouse. Sourcing seed/series A startups for the Innovation Warehouse Investment Network of funds, angels, and family offices. Running Investment sessions, and connecting startups with investors.

Nathan Mullings

Dipesh Sanghrajka

Strategically minded marketing professional with a high level of commercial acumen and strong consumer centricity paired with a problem-solving ability and creativity.

Innovation catalyst with the ability to design, develop and deploy market-leading propositions and end-to-end customer experiences while maintaining commercial parameters. Experienced in P & L management with a full understanding of the levers and pricing models that impact revenue, margin and profit. An entrepreneur and founder of an online subscription-based start-up. Mentor to many start-ups via UK’s leading pre-accelerator programme.

Dipesh Sanghrajka

Nicole Vehlo

Nicole has spent a decade in investment banking in various roles, the last one as VP of Cash Equities at Macquarie Investment Bank, London.

She set up her first business in South Africa as a B2B online training platform that raised 2 rounds of funding. The second was an online business, teaching startups how to apply the Lean Startup methodology to get their ideas off the ground, which ironically didn’t do too well. While helping hundreds of women start a business, she learnt that females didn’t always have the same financing options and knowledge available to them, or know which direction to choose on their funding journey so Seed Angels was born; her third company.

Investor and early-stage advisor to female founders, she under-represented founders with fundraising readiness and help implement lean startup the right way.

Nicole Vehlo

Emma Nicholson

Emma has over twenty years’ experience in public relations, communications and marketing having worked at some of the world’s top communications agencies including Ketchum, Fishburn Hedges and Edelman; where she was a Board Director. Emma has headed up a variety of UK and global consumer and B2B brands. More recently, she has developed marketing and communications plans for a range of start-up businesses across the USA, Canada, Mexico and the UK in a variety of sectors such as food and drink, technology, real estate, gardening, hospitality, tourism and travel. She has founded a number of non-profits/charities and fundraising initiatives including Cortez Rescue, The Los Barriles Food Bank, The Baja Kennel Club and The LB Dog Show.

Emma Nicholson

Jennifer Chen

Jennifer is an award-winning creative professional with over 10 years of experience helping brands within the FMCG, retail, startup and charity sector deliver innovative advertising and design solutions. Having worked for top advertising agencies like Ogilvy & Mather and Havas, she has helped global clients including Unilever, Sainsbury’s, and YouTube communicate created value and drive customer engagement. She has also mentored startups, advising founders on cultivating the power of storytelling and developing clear communication approaches. She is now on the board of the Heritage Crafts Association, working in partnership with the government to support craftspeople in the sustainable protection of traditional craft skills.

Jennifer Chen

Ali Merfield

Ali Merifield is a communications specialist who has worked in the public, private and social sector in the UK, US and Africa. Having started in public relations in the tech sector, she has worked in corporate communications, stakeholder relations, network building and event management, sponsorship, fundraising, social media and digital marketing. Her clients have included multinationals including HSBC, Shell, NOKIA, BT, Google and CNN; large NGOs and charities such as UNICEF, WHO, WaterAid, PayPal Foundation; as well as emerging market entrepreneurs and tech start-ups.

Ali Merfield

Charles-Augustus Nas-Omogiafo FRSA MBA

I work with businesses to discover and create ideas, systems and plans to deliver value for customers and achieve social impact. My approach is to bring simplicity and clarity to complex environments making them as frictionless as possible. I mix my expertise and skills as a designer and a strategist to enable a business to understand what is happening and what needs to be accomplished to achieve its goals. I am driven by empowering individuals and communities to achieve their greatest and best use in life and work.

Charles-Augustus Nas-Omogiafo

Franesco Fiume

Francesco is a brand builder with almost 20 years of international experience in sales & marketing for the fashion industry. He has worked client-side for large apparel companies such as Nike, New Era, and Marc Ecko, for indie brands such as Zoo York and SBM, plus various start-ups and lifestyle projects.

He is now the CMO of Fashion Technology Accelerator. As a consultant, he helps companies grow through content, SEO and digital branding activities for lead generation, customer acquisition and retention.

Franesco Fiume

Houtan Froushan

Houtan Froushan is a jack of all trades when it comes to mentoring founders, specialising in founder coaching, the importance of understanding assumptions that underpin business strategy and the implementation of evidence for growth. He loves helping fine tune presentations and improving sales stories. Happy now working in the EdTech sector, after a decade in newspapers, including being the commercial head of education at ESI Media (The Independent and Evening Standard media group), a middle school teacher in South Korea and sales director and trainer in tech scale ups. Currently helping start-ups grow at UCL with a focus on ensuring the education innovation sector understand the importance of an evidenced approach both to developing learning products.

Houtan Froushan

Liam Houlahan

Liam is focused on saas businesses, developing new products and bringing them to market. He sold his last company and is now developing products within an established Saas company, as well as helping startup founders bring their products to market.

Liam Houlahan

Sarah Williams

Sarah started her career at strategy firm L.E.K. Consulting, before going on to work in customer strategy and insight roles at Channel 4 and dmg media. Now freelance, Sarah is focused on helping businesses evolve their customer propositions, optimise their use of customer insight, and identify and implement business process improvements – all with the goal of driving business growth. Recent engagements include establishing a new Marketing Strategy and Insight function at Selfridges in 2018, and leading operational, planning and business change projects for the Telegraph’s subscriptions business last year. She also co-founded and launched a new pet-friendly travel website – All Four Paws – in 2016.

Sarah Williams

Ruben Theva

A bold and passionate MBA graduate with over 18 year’s experience in digital, strategic planning, e-commerce, marketing, product, commercial, global client management, client strategy and business development. After studying internationally, at Imperial and UCL in marketing, business, planning and strategy; undertook global transformational, organizational design and change management projects across marketing, strategy and business areas in a variety of company environments; to have exposure to the different elements of the marketing mix and across engagement touch-points; building profitable customer partnerships and global brand development. Ruben is responsible for successfully developing, and implementing strategic business, and marketing plans to positively impact profits; extensive experience managing cross functional, customer-centric and multi-disciplinary teams in multi business cultural environments on the agency, consultancy and client-side; applying strong team building, and collaboration skills.

Ruben Theva

Simon Barry

Simon is a fintech veteran and start up expert. He has worked in high technology and fast paced corporations and also has spent over a decade working with startups. His speciality is working with technology, operations and processes, sales, marketing and social media. He currently works as a founder on a number of startups and a coach to small/medium sized companies who crave high growth.

Simon Barry

Gareth Thompson

Is on a mission to co-create a rapidly scaling eco-startup company that protects and restores the natural world and improves the health and wellbeing of people simultaneously – a Green Swan.

He started his career as a doctor to use his love for science to make a positive difference to society. Went to business school to learn how to lead projects that have high impact and caught the entrepreneurial bug after winning a class competition.

Gareth is currently working on 4 eco-startup projects and is ever keen to offer his views and perspective to early startups at FFWD.

Gareth Thompson

Daniel Holloway

Daniel specializes in turning experts into Influencers, and Influencers into Scalable Businesses. He does this via his company that helps companies choose a medium, platform, target audience, and define & create value propositions.

He has experience teaching the methods of connection, relationship building, prospecting, lead generation, sales and conversion. He supports founders in in setting up strategies, tactics, systems and tech, of how to build a scalable business.

Daniel Holloway

Daniel Ebeling

Head of Services and co-founder of F6S, the world’s largest platform to help founder grow. Daniel is currently leading the Startup Services team where they offer R&D Tax Credits, Startup Accounting, incorporation support, grant writing, and more across Europe and North America.

Daniel Ebeling

John McKeown

John was involved in the “dot com” boom of the 2000’s, with a successful project to his name. He has worked with RIFT for over 5 years and is a Non-Executive Director for the company. John has a background in finance, an industry in which he has worked since 1982. He was a qualified IFA for over 20 years, working with SMEs in all areas of taxation and investment and looking after shareholder interests. John’s current expertise lies within identifying R&D tax credits, working with Patent Box and locating grant and funding opportunities.

John McKeown

Andrew Ross

Andrew’s practice focusses on private equity-backed transactions, domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, venture capital transactions, joint ventures and corporate group restructurings. He acts for private equity houses, venture capital investors, portfolio companies, management teams, early-stage companies, entrepreneurs and corporates.Andrew represents clients in a variety of industry sectors with a focus on technology and healthcare. He is noted in Legal 500 UK for private equity and venture capital transactions.

Andrew Ross

Graham Halliday

Graham is an Associate in our Corporate Team. Graham specialises in M&A and venture capital transactions with a particular focus on businesses in the technology sector. Graham also assists in advising on venture debt transactions and general corporate and company law.

Prior to joining Marriott Harrison Graham studied History and Politics at the University of Southampton and completed the GDL followed by the LPC at the College of Law where he gained a distinction. He has an EIS Diploma from the EIS Association.

Graham Halliday

Richard Blakesley

Richard Blakesley spent more than a decade working in mergers and acquisitions at Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan. He left the City in 2003 to work for and invest in fledgling businesses. Richard co-founded Capital Pilot in 2016, which matches angel investors, mentors and advisers with start-ups across Britain. It has more than 700 companies registered and has helped to fund new ventures such as the beauty booking service Secret Spa and Blocksure, which has developed a blockchain-based insurance platform. A visionary multilingual Chief-Executive with a proven track record in the strategic and financial management of businesses on a global basis. Leader, entrepreneur and investor with the skill-set todeliver on ambitious objectives, primarily in technology-driven industry sectors.

Richard Blakesley

Bethany Greer

Bethany is a Senior Investment Associate at Bethnal green ventures. She is responsible for identifying and analysing investment opportunities for BGV. Previously she worked at Centre for Fashion Enterprise, supporting startups to run and scale their businesses.

Bethany Greer

Srikar Karri

Srikar is an Investment Associate for Mercia’s EIS Team with a focus on investing in early and growth-stage software and digital companies. In addition to deal origination and execution, Srikar sits on the board of a number of companies within Mercia’s EIS portfolio. Srikar joined Mercia in 2018 as a Research Analyst for Mercia’s Platform team after graduating from LSE with a Maths and Economics degree. As part of this role he worked closely with Exec team on Mercia’s acquisition of NVM’s VCTs and producing valuation reports for Mercia’s direct investment holdings.

Srikar Karri

Thomas Goddard

Thomas worked at American Express for over ten years. He has developed a wide range of business-to-business skills, including being people focused, analytical, and implementing transformational projects which he now shares with established small and mid-sized organisations eager for growth and efficiency improvement.

Among his expertise:

Stakeholder Management & Customer Management
Presentation & Communications
Business Analysis; Projects
Research Capabilities (Primary & Secondary)
Policy & Compliance Improvement
Indirect Spend/ Expense Management; Cost Reduction

Thomas Goddard

Chris Kilroy

Chris is an Investment Director at Mercia Asset Management PLC with a focus on investing in early and growth-stage digital and software companies. In addition to deal origination and execution, Chris sits on the board of a number of companies within Mercia’s portfolio and is also responsible for the management of Mercia’s EIS Fund investment activity.

Prior to joining Mercia, Chris worked at an investment group based in London helping build and invest in disruptive technology companies.

Chris Kilroy

mentors