Naz Bashir

Mentor, Executive and Director at Evolutia Venture Partners

Naz has over twenty years of experience as an entrepreneur in early-stage companies, in/out licensing, investment strategies and in commercial and business development. He has achieved success in driving sales from licensing, strategic partnerships in the biotech, chemicals, biofuels and food sectors; deal packages ranging up to $100million. 

Naz is the Co-founder of an Omega 3 company and has a PhD in chemistry and an MBA from the University of Exeter.

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Ayesha Iqbal

Mentor, Investment professional and entrepreneur

Ayesha is a seasoned investment professional and entrepreneur. Her current focus is on sustainable and resource-efficient technology solutions and she advises start-up founders and SME CEOs on topics including fundraising strategy, scaling challenges, business strategy, and corporate governance. She does this independently as well as in her role as a Zinc VC Fellow and FiveThirteen Scout.

Ayesha has an MBA and is a Sloan Fellow from London Business School.

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Mark Selby 

Mentor, Chief Innovation Officer at Ceres

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Susan Brench

Mentor, Director and Founder of Akemi Associates 

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Susan has over 30 years' manufacturing sector experience in strategic and commercial management, stakeholder engagement, marketing, competitor intelligence, international business development and M&A activity. Her expertise is derived primarily from the fine and specialty chemical manufacturing sector.

Susan is a Physical Natural Sciences – Chemical Engineering graduate from the University of Cambridge, with an MBA from Leeds University Business School.

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Graeme Cruickshank 

Mentor, CTO at Center for Process Innovation 

Graeme is part the leadership team at CPI (High Vale Manufacturing Catapult) enabling the UK’s ecosystem of academics, SMEs and large companies to de-risk the development and scale-up of their complex, high value healthtech, sustainable materials and formulated products.

Graeme joined CPI from Procter and Gamble where he spent 20 years in a range of senior product design, R&D and technology innovation roles. He has a chemistry PhD from the University of Edinburgh.

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Mark Verrall 

Mentor, Chairman at Helio Display Materials 

Mark has more than 30 years leadership experience in R&D and product innovation, including international roles (Taiwan and Germany) developing materials technology business to >£1 billion/year revenues. Until 2019 he was Senior VP and global head of R&D for Merck KGaA Display Materials business.

Mark has a scientific background in chemistry (Exeter University) and materials science (PhD, Southampton University). He is currently Chairman of an Oxford-Cambridge start-up Helio Display Materials.

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Alexander Reip 

Mentor, CEO of Oxford nanoSystems

Alex is an award-winning tech entrepreneur working with start-ups across nanotechnology, cleantech and biotech, helping their early-stage growth, through investment readiness and development of their ongoing technology strategy and operations.

He is a Co-founder and now CTO of Oxford nanoSystems (OnS), developing energy efficient coatings. Alex has a PhD from Brunel University, where he is now a Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence.

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Jon-Paul Griffiths 

Mentor, CTO and Founder at OXECO 

Jon-Paul is a PhD organic chemist, CTO and Founder of Oxford Advanced Surfaces (now OXECO) in 2006.

He has since led the team developing OXECO’s Onto™ technology platform from university benchtop chemistry through to commercial product roll out, solving challenges in controlling surface chemistry in new and emerging markets for transportation, wind energy and MedTech applications.

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Simon Turner

Mentor, Partner at Alacrita 

After an early career at Eli Lilly and ICI Agrochemicals, Simon spent 10 years as a strategic management consultant to blue chip life science companies.

He was the first CEO of University of Cambridge spin-out Biotica Technology, which he led for five years and is currently Managing Partner of boutique biopharma management consultancy Alacrita.  

Simon has an MA in Natural Sciences and a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge.

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Srin Madipalli

Mentor, Investor, former CEO at Accomable

Srin is an entrepreneur and investor who previously founded a business called Accomable that exited to Airbnb. Srin is now an active angel investor with a portfolio that includes many deep tech companies in the healthtech, pharma and climate/sustainability sectors. He also serves as a mentor at the Creative Destruction Lab, the Oxford Foundry and Helmholtz Institutes; supporting entrepreneurs looking to develop and scale highly technical/scientific start-ups.  

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Srin graduated with a degree in Genetics and later practiced as a corporate lawyer in the City of London for a number of years. He also received an MBA from Oxford University. 

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David Astles

Mentor, former CEO at Ionix Advanced Technologies 

David is an experienced business leader who worked in a mix of technical and commercial roles in Shell, before leading three VC-backed start-ups, most recently as CEO of Ionix Advanced Technologies. 

With a Chemistry PhD background, his interests are in creating effective commercial strategies for businesses faced with a complex range of potential markets and applications; and building key relationships with blue chip partners and clients. 

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