Investment Policy Forum

Andrew Sibbald

Managing Director, Head of Europe, Warburg Pincus

Andrew Sibbald is a Managing Director, Head of Europe, and a member of the Executive Management Group. He is based in London and joined Warburg Pincus in 2023. Andrew was previously Chairman and before that, CEO of Evercore’s European Investment Banking business.

Prior to this, he was the Founder and Senior Partner of Lexicon Partners, which was acquired by Evercore in 2011. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics and Accounting from the University of Bristol. Andrew is a Vice President of Save the Children (UK) and an honorary visiting Professor in Bayes Business School.
 

Blair McDougall MP

Minister for Small Business and Economic Transformation, Department for Business and Trade

Blair McDougall was appointed as the Minister for Small Business and Economic Transformation in the Department for Business and Trade on 7 September 2025. He was elected as the MP for East Renfrewshire in July 2024.

In his Ministerial role, his portfolio includes the Industrial Strategy, entrepreneurs and small businesses, scale-ups, access to finance and regulation. It also covers the following public bodies: British Business Bank, Companies House, Financial Reporting Council and the Regulatory Policy Committee.

Blair began his career in the civil service in 2004 as a Special Adviser, working with ministers including Ian McCartney at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and James Purnell at the Department for Culture, Media & Sport. He was elected as the youth representative to the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee in 2006.

In 2012, Blair was appointed Campaign Director and lead spokesperson for the cross-party Better Together campaign during the Scottish independence referendum. He went on to become Director of Strategy and Policy for the Scottish Labour Party from 2014 to 2016, advising the party leader and shadow ministerial team.

Claire Brown

Partner, Life Sciences, Oxford Science Enterprises

Claire Brown has more than 20 years of experience across the biopharmaceutical industry in the UK and US, including R&D strategy, licensing, business development and corporate investment. She leads company creation and portfolio strategy in Life Sciences, working closely with founders and academics to build high-potential ventures and support their long-term growth.

Claire’s previous roles span UCB, Sanofi-Genzyme and AstraZeneca. Prior to joining OSE in 2020, she was Head of Investment at Pioneer Group, focused on early-stage venture creation. She’s also supported many UK accelerators and served as an assessor for Innovate UK.

Claire holds a BSc in Physiology, a PhD in Physiology and an MBA in Entrepreneurship.
 

Dan Faundez

Partner, Simmons & Simmons

Daniel Faundez specialises in private investment funds. He advises sponsors on the launch of private funds and institutional investors on primary commitments. Dan also advises on cross-border secondaries transactions.

Dan is a partner in our Financial Markets group in Bristol. He advises fund sponsors across multiple asset classes. Dan advises sponsors on the launch of funds and managed accounts as well as matter relating to the operation of funds.

Dan also has significant experience of advising on cross-border secondaries transactions, with a focus on LP portfolio sales, as well as acting for institutional investors on their fund investments.

Finally, Dan has a keen interest in sustainability and ESG and has advised clients on ESG regulation, including the EU's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) and Taxonomy Regulation.
 

Davide Vidotto

Managing Director, Bain Capital

Davide Vidotto joined Bain Capital in 2017. He is a Managing Director and a member of the Europe Private Equity team, focusing on investments in the Industrials vertical.
Prior to joining Bain Capital, Davide worked at Bain & Company in London and Milan, where he worked on strategy and M&A engagements mostly for industrials and consumer and retail clients.

Davide received an MS in international management from the London School of Economics and a BS in economics from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
 

Douglas Hansen-Luke

Executive Chairman, Future Planet Capital

Douglas Hansen-Luke is the Executive Chairman of Future Planet Capital. After two years of research he founded the firm in 2015, following an extensive career in global finance and as an entrepreneur in Hong Kong, London and the Middle East.

He has worked in a series of senior broking, investment and asset management roles for firms including ABN AMRO and Robeco, with a focus on emerging markets and asset classes. He was also co-founder of Hong Kong’s first regulated online equity research firm.

He has sat on the Committee of the Royal British Legion Ball and the Jesus College, Oxford, Campaign Board and has made three trips to Rwanda for social action work with Project Umubano.
 

Fred Thomas MP

Member of the Defence Committee

Fred Thomas MP was elected as the Labour MP for Plymouth Moor View in July 2024. Fred is a member of the House of Commons Defence Committee. Before politics, Fred joined the Royal Marines out of University and served for seven years, rising to the rank of Captain.

Harriet Assem

Head of Sustainability Policy, UK Private Capital

Harriet Assem is UK Private Capital’s Head of Sustainability. Her role is focussed in supporting industry/market practice and delivering on strategic projects/initiatives with policy related work on new international sustainability standards (and other emerging initiatives).

Prior to joining UK Private Capital she spent a number of years in environmental consultancy. 
Her most recent role included leading a team which provided ESG related strategy services to cross sector clients including private equity. She also played a lead role in developing and publishing the ESG Transparency A Private Equity and Venture Capital Index.

Previous to that, her career started in environmental due diligence where she worked on several high-profile merger and acquisition deals, providing environmental due diligence advice.

Isobel Clarke

Director of Policy, UK Private Capital

Isobel Clarke is Director of Policy at UK Private Capital, with Sarah Adams. Isobel and Sarah have worked as a jobshare partnership since early 2020. They lead the Policy team and their work across tax, legal, regulatory, accounting and sustainability matters, working closely with members and UK Private Capital's committees to progress key technical and strategic policy issues.

Isobel has over 13 years’ experience of working on government policy, mainly at HM Treasury but also at the Ministry of Justice. She has led policy work on business rates, tax devolution and the scrutiny of tax reliefs. She was, with Sarah, Deputy Director for Business Tax Strategy and then Deputy Director for Open Justice and Dispute Resolution.

Isobel lives in London with her family. She read French and German at the University of Cambridge, spending a year in Berlin. Before joining HM Treasury she was a research and evaluation consultant.

James Gribben

Head of Communications, UK Private Capital

James Gribben is Head of Communications at UK Private Capital where he leads the association's media relations and editorial content, telling the story of the industry to media and stakeholders.

James has spent over 15 years working in communications roles for leading business associations in the UK and Europe, including Be the Business, IPSE and the Federation of Small Businesses.

Jan Beitner

Director, Data & AI, Inflexion

Jan Beitner is the Director for Data & AI in the Value Acceleration team, helping to drive commercial success with data, machine learning and AI at portfolio companies and Inflexion itself.

Jan previously worked at the Boston Consulting Group as Lead Data Scientist and Project Leader, where he engaged with clients in a wide range of sectors and use cases.

He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge in the field of Quantum Information.

Outside of work, Jan continues to follow his passion and has built the deep-learning-based "PyTorch Forecasting" library with 100k+ monthly downloads. Away from the screen, he enjoys spending time with his family, travelling to new places and sampling local cuisine.
 

Jeremy Brown

Head of Climate Strategies and Investment Principal, Anthemis

Jeremy Brown is an Investment Principal at Anthemis and leads on the firm's climate and energy initiatives, focused on early investments across Europe. He is a former geophysicist and has been a venture investor in Silicon Valley, Berlin, and London. He has a background in deep technology investments spanning construction/built environment, energy, manufacturing, and climate.

Jeremy holds a Ph.D in geophysics from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
 

Joel Bamford

Executive Director for Mergers, CMA

Joel Bamford was appointed Executive Director for Mergers at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on 12 February 2024. On 1 July 2024 he became Executive Director for Mergers, Office for the Internal Market and Subsidy Advice Unit.

Joel is a member of the senior executive team and the Board, and leads the mergers function to ensure that the CMA delivers an efficient and robust merger control regime. Joel is also the executive lead for the Office for the Internal Market and the Subsidy Advice Unit supporting the effective operation of the UK Internal Market and the UK’s subsidy control regime

Joel Kenrick

Deputy Director, National Wealth Fund

Joel Kenrick is Deputy Director at the newly created £27 billion National Wealth Fund (NWF), which was created by the new UK government in October 2024 building on the UK Infrastructure Bank.

At the NWF he is Head of Policy (Climate Change), and previously led the policy and strategy team at the UK Infrastructure Bank and policy teams setting up the UK Emissions Trading Scheme at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, and creating the Office for Environmental Protection at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Joel previously worked at the European Climate Foundation, Boston Consulting Group, WWF-UK, Confederation of British Industry and as a Special Advisor to the UK Government Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. He studied International Relations at the London School of Economics, and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
 

Kaasim Mahmood

General Partner, Advent Life Sciences

Kaasim Mahmood joined Advent in 2005 with a background in clinical medicine, finance, and mergers and acquisitions.

Kaasim gained an MB BS from the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London, after which he joined Cutfield, Freeman and Co, a London based corporate finance boutique.

Since joining Advent, Kaasim has worked on numerous direct investments and has also assisted with the legal and financial aspects of many more. Example portfolio companies include KaNDy Therapeutics, CN Creative and Speciality European Pharma.

Kaasim currently serves on the Board of F2G, NeRRe Therapeutics, Orphalan and Ventus Medical.
 

Karim Palant

Director of External Affairs, UK Private Capital

Karim Palant is Director of External Affairs at UK Private Capital, where he leads the Public Affairs, Communications and Research functions.

Karim and his colleagues tell the story of private capital through high-impact engagement with policymakers, stakeholders and the media.

Karim also oversees UK Private Capital’s agenda-setting research programme, which includes the Performance Measurement Survey - the largest primary research survey of its kind in the UK, and the annual Report on Investment Activity. 

He has two decades of experience in tech and economic policy. From 2015, he led public policy and economic impact work at major tech firms -  at LinkedIn and previously Facebook. Earlier in his career, he served as Head of Policy to the Shadow Chancellor. 

Karim studied PPE at the University of Oxford, following his education at Calderstones Comprehensive School in Liverpool.

Kerry Baldwin

Co-Chair, MoD Defence Investors Advisory Group

Kerry Baldwin has 28 years deeptech VC experience as the co-founder of IQC. She has a leading role driving transformative policy across the UK’s innovation, defence and economic growth agenda, with expertise in mobilising private capital into strategically important sectors. She is the Co-Chair of the Defence Investors Advisory Group (DIAG) advising the MOD’s Defence Finance Investment Strategy and is a Member of the Defence Industrial Joint Council.

She serves as Vice-Chair of the University of Plymouth, a Member of the Competitiveness Advisory Board at the City of London Corporation, and an Independent IC Member at the BBB for direct technology investments. She previously served as Chair of UK Private Capital, (2021/22) and as Chair of the Mansion House Pension & Private Capital Expert Panel (2023–25), focused on unlocking DC pension capital. Kerry is an Honorary Fellow of Entrepreneurship at Cambridge University JBS.

Keshvi Radia

Head of Product, Balderton

Keshvi Radia joined Balderton in 2022 to lead the strategy and implementation of all investment team and portfolio value-add related products, focusing on delivering data and insights.

Before joining Balderton, Keshvi led the product function for payments at Allica Bank – a challenger bank in the UK focused on established SMEs. This included building and launching to market their first current account. She has worked with organisations to drive data-driven decision-making across EMEA during her time in consulting at Mastercard and Applied Predictive Technologies (now a Mastercard company).

Keshvi has worked with multinational corporations, large financial institutions, governments and start-ups to demonstrate the value of external and internal datasets, as well as productising their delivery.

Keshvi read Mathematics at the University of Oxford, where she specialised in numerical method solutions to real-world problems.
 

Lauren Juliff

Head of Investor Relations & Sustainability, Clean Growth Fund

Lauren Juliff leads Clean Growth Fund’s engagement with investors and is responsible for driving sustainability initiatives across the firm’s operations and portfolio. Lauren brings a wealth of experience from senior roles in sustainable finance and institutional investment, including Climate & Sustainability Product Lead and Head of UK Institutional at Storebrand Asset Management UK, and prior positions at SKAGEN Funds, Schroders, and Fidelity Investments.

A recognised voice in sustainability and climate finance, Lauren has contributed to industry publications and spoken at leading forums on sustainable investing. In 2025 she was named Professional Pensions ESG and Sustainability Woman of the Year for her influential research that helped pension funds understand portfolio climate risk and advance climate-related financial risk reporting.

Lauren holds an MSc in Climate Change: Environment, Science and Policy with Distinction from King’s College London, where she received the Best Thesis Award, and a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Leeds.
 

Leandros Kalisperas

Chief Investment Officer, British Business Bank

Leandros Kalisperas is the Chief Investment Officer of the British Business Bank. Prior to that, he was Chief Investment Officer of the West Yorkshire Pension Fund (WYPF), based in Bradford, leading an in-house investment office managing £20bn of assets across public, private and alternatives markets for its more than 300,000 members.

Before joining WYPF, Leandros was Head of Portfolio Solutions at abrdn, based in London, responsible for asset allocation, implementation and ongoing portfolio management of customised, complex mandates for a range of institutional clients.

Prior to that, Leandros spent six years at the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) in several senior investment roles supporting the development of USS’s regulated in-house investment office following the global financial crisis. His time at USS also informed his subsequent policy thinking about the importance of building wealth creation across the UK.

His early career included experience in investment banking and boutique asset management businesses, as well as setting up his own small business.
Leandros is a Companion Caller for the Alzheimer’s Society, which helps people with dementia feel more connected and less lonely. He is also a former Chair of the Staffing and Resources Committee for a state school in North-West London.

Leandros has an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford and an MBA from INSEAD. He has also completed the Oxford Fintech Programme at the University of Oxford.
 

Matthew Neal

Partner, 5654 & Company

Matthew Neal leads the Health and Life Sciences practice. He is a strategic healthcare communications and investor relations expert. He has advised listed and private companies across their financial and corporate communications strategies, M&A, activism and crisis communications. Matthew has a particular interest in supporting innovative companies achieve their corporate objectives with industry, financial and political stakeholders.

Previously, he was a founding member of Consilium Strategic Communications which grew into Europe’s leading strategic healthcare communications agency. Matthew has worked with businesses across pharma, biotech, medtech, healthtech, healthcare services, investors and industry organisations. 
 

Melanie Onn

MP for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, Labour Party

Melanie Onn is a Labour Party politician. She has been the Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes since the 2024 General Election. She previously represented Great Grimsby from 2015 to 2019 and served on the Labour frontbench as Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Commons and later as Shadow Housing Minister.

Melanie sits on the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, which scrutinises the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and its associated public bodies, examining policy, spending and administration in its area.

Before entering Parliament, Melanie began her working life at the Labour Party headquarters, where she spent a decade and rose to become Head of the Compliance Unit. She then worked as a regional organiser for UNISON, covering local government in Yorkshire and the Humber. After losing her seat in 2019, Melanie remained active in the energy and community sectors. She served as Deputy Chief Executive of RenewableUK, where she was a key spokesperson on offshore wind and chaired the Investment in Talent Group. She later became a senior adviser with Blakeney Group and Strategic Adviser to Humber Marine and Renewables.

Michael Moore

Chief Executive, UK Private Capital

Michael Moore is Chief Executive of UK Private Capital (formerly BVCA) .

Michael and his colleagues are focused on supporting the development of the private capital industry, as it invests in thousands of businesses and supports millions of jobs across the UK. As policymakers work on the competitiveness of the UK’s investment climate, Michael is confident that private equity and venture capital will continue to create significant public value through investment in growth, innovation and people.

Over the past 30 years Michael has operated at senior levels in both politics and business. In his political career he served in the Cabinet at the time of the Coalition Government, as Secretary of State for Scotland. He was a Member of Parliament for 18 years.

After the 2015 General Election, Michael became a Senior Advisor at PwC. Prior to entering politics, he qualified as a chartered accountant with the firm.

Michele Giddens

CEO & Co-Founder, Bridges Fund Management

Michele Giddens co-founded Bridges alongside Philip Newborough and Sir Ronald Cohen in 2002 and was Co-CEO alongside Philip Newborough from 2019-2024. Michele became CEO in summer 2024 and oversees all Bridges’ investment activity across our platform of funds, as well as strategy, operations, people and all other aspects of the business.

Michele has played a leading role in the growth of the sustainable and impact investing sectors in the UK and worldwide. She was an adviser to the UK Treasury’s Social Investment Task Force in 2000 and chaired the Community Development Finance Association from 2003-2005. She chaired the UK National Advisory Board on Impact Investing (part of the Global Social Impact Investment Steering Group) from 2016-18, chaired a Global Working Group on Policy for the G7 Impact Investment Taskforce, and sat on the BVCA Council. She served as a Non-Executive Director on the board of CDC (now BII), the UK Government’s Development Finance Institution, from 2014-2022. Michele was also a Trustee for the Bridges Impact Foundation from 2018-2024. She is currently on the Board of GSG Impact.

Michele has over 30 years’ experience in sustainable and impact investing and international development finance, having previously worked with International Finance Corporation, the private sector financing arm of the World Bank Group, and with Shorebank Corporation, one of the leading community development banks in the USA, where she ran small business lending programmes in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, and advised on microfinance in Bangladesh, the Middle East and Mongolia.

Michele has a BA Honours in Politics, Philosophy & Economics from Oxford University and an MBA from Georgetown University, Washington, DC. She was awarded an OBE for services to international development and social finance in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Michelle Beck

Director, Financial Conduct Authority

Michelle Beck serves as Director, Markets at the Financial Conduct Authority, responsible for the Wholesale Buyside group. Since starting her career in financial services in 1986, her focus has been on derivative products and risk management. Her previous roles include serving as a risk management fellow in the Analytics Office of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management; chief risk officer for buyside firms including TIAA Financial Solutions, Nuveen and Russell Investments; and leading roles in market and operational risk, as well as derivative product trading roles, for banks in the US and Europe including Bankers Trust and Deutsche Bank. She previously lived in London from 1989-1995 while leading the market risk function for Europe at Bankers Trust.

Michelle earned an M.A. in Government from Harvard University, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington in Seattle. She has served on the board of trustees of the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP), the CFA Society of Chicago, and served as president of GARP’s Buy Side Risk Managers Forum.
 

Paige Portal

Associate Director, Henham Strategy

Paige Portal leads much of Henham’s policy work, supporting clients in developing a wide range of products and initiatives that advance their strategic objectives. Before joining Henham, she spent seven years as a Government Economist, where she led economic policy analysis on multiple high-profile projects across investment, international trade, local growth and economic security. Most recently, Paige played a key role in the development and publication of the new Industrial Strategy, working closely with the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council to shape its policy direction.

Rachel Ellehuus

Director-General, Royal United Services Institute

Rachel Ellehuus joined RUSI after serving nearly three years at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as the United States Secretary of Defense Representative in Europe and Defense Advisor to the United States’ Mission to NATO.

Prior to that, she was Deputy Director of the Europe and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC and a Senior Advisor at WestExec Advisors. Previously, she served in multiple roles in the U.S. Department of Defense to include Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy. Her time in the Pentagon also included an exchange to the UK Ministry of Defence's Strategy Unit, where she worked on the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review.

Rachel has numerous publications to her name, most recently Europe’s High-End Military Challenges (2022) and The Challenge of Political Will in Europe (2022). She holds a BA from Colgate University and a MA from the College of Europe.
 

Richard Fuller MP

Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury

Richard Fuller MP is the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the Government's Opposition, a position he has held since November 2024. In this role, Richard acts as the primary opposition to the equivalent Governmental position, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who is deputy to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

He has been the Conservative MP for North Bedfordshire since 12 December 2019, having previously represented Bedford as MP between 2010 and 2017.

Under the previous Conservative Government, Richard held the role of Economic Secretary to the Treasury in 2022.

Before politics, Richard worked for the management consultancy company LEK Consulting, and then the assets firm Investcorp.
 

Sarah Adams

Director of Policy, UK Private Capital

Sarah Adams is Director of Policy at UK Private Capital, with Isobel Clarke. Isobel and Sarah have worked as a jobshare partnership since early 2020. They lead the Policy team and their work across tax, legal, regulatory, accounting and sustainability matters, working closely with members and UK Private Capital's committees to progress key technical and strategic policy issues.

Sarah has over a decade of experience making policy in the centre of government, mainly at HM Treasury. She has led on policy areas across tax, spending and financial services, including pensions tax, venture capital and insurance markets. With Isobel, she has been deputy director for business tax strategy at HM Treasury, and deputy director for open justice and dispute resolution at the Ministry of Justice.

Sarah lives in London with her family. She studied economics at the University of Cambridge and worked on global health economics before joining the civil service.

Sarah Olney MP

Liberal Democrats Business Spokesperson

Sarah Olney MP is a Liberal Democrat politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for Richmond Park since the 2019 General Election. She currently serves as the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Business and was appointed Trade Envoy for North Africa in January 2025.

Within Parliament, Sarah has served as Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for the Treasury (2022-2024), International Trade (2020), Education (2017), and for Business from January 2020 to 2024 and again since September 2025. She has also co-chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Business Owners.

In December 2016, Sarah won the Richmond Park by-election, before losing the seat at the 2017 snap General Election. Following her defeat, she was appointed Chief of Staff to Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Vince Cable in September 2017.

Before entering parliament, Sarah worked in a number of finance roles across several organisations, including Barclays, Arts & Business, Distilled Ltd, SCi Sales Group, and the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington. She became a qualified accountant through the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in 2016.

Steve Race MP

MP for Exeter, House of Commons

Steve Race is the Labour MP for Exeter, elected in 2024. He has previously been a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Department of Health and Social Care, member of the Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee, Chair of the All-Party Group on the Great South West, Chair of the APPG for Pharmacy, Chair of the APPG for ClimateTech, and Co-Chair of the APPG on Nutrition for Development. In 2024 Steve introduced the Animals in Medical Research (Prohibition) Bill, to phase out animal testing in medical research over the next decade.

He has previously been a local councillor for six years, including 2 years as a member of the Skills, Economy & Growth scrutiny committee, and 4 years as a member and later Chair of the Planning Committee.
He has been a governor of Willowbrook Primary School in Exeter, and is currently Patron of St Petrock's, Exeter's local homelessness charity.

Steve has had a career in business, providing consultancy support in communications and policy to companies including Aston Martin, British Airways, HSBC, National Grid, and Nissan. He also spent nearly 4 years on the UK executive board of McKesson UK, owner of LloydsPharmacy and other healthcare businesses, leading a team of 8 people covering crisis, policy, regulatory, and government communications. In this role he was involved in the team which set up the system and distributed Covid vaccines from manufacturers to dispensing points across the whole western half of the UK on behalf of NHSE.
 

The Rt Hon Lord Willetts

Chair, Regulatory Innovation Office

The Rt Hon Lord Willetts is a Conservative peer and former Minister for Universities and Science (2010–2014), where he played a central role in shaping the UK’s innovation and research landscape.

He currently serves as Chair of the Government’s Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, providing leadership to efforts to reduce regulatory barriers and support businesses bringing new technologies to market, particularly in high-growth sectors. He also chairs the UK Space Agency and is a leading voice on science policy, economic growth and the role of regulation in enabling investment.

Tim Rotheray

Chief Sustainability Officer, Viridor

Tim Rotheray joined Viridor in 2019 to drive decarbonisation and circular economy projects and to work with Government and Regulators to help ensure the policy environment enables the right investments.

Since 2020, he has also led Viridor’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) work, overseeing development and implementation of Viridor’s ESG strategy with a focus on Decarbonisation and Circular Economy. In May 2020 Viridor published its sector-leading Decarbonisation Strategy setting out a pathway to achieve Net Zero in 2040 and become climate positive by 2045.

This was followed in December 2021 by Viridor’s Circular Economy Ambition, including five commitments to help create a circular economy for waste plastics in the UK.

Prior to joining Viridor, Tim was the CEO of the Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE), where his work focussed on enabling more energy users to directly benefit from the transition to a low carbon economy. Tim has a BSc and a PhD in Ecology and is also Chair of the ESA Climate Committee.

In his spare time Tim enjoys cycling and has been up Mont Ventoux three times.
 

Tom Adeyoola

Executive Chair, Innovate UK

Tom Adeyoola is an experienced entrepreneur, executive and board director across creative industry companies, private to public. He grew his fashion technology startup Metail to exit raising £25m, and as a NED has taken women’s personal wellness company Elvie from inception to Series B and Net-Zero strategy consultancy Verco through 3x revenue to acquisition.

He now sits on various boards, including Channel 4 and leading independent school St. Paul’s. He is actively involved in investing and policy, co-authoring the Labour Startup Review and sitting on the steering board of tech industry voice The Startup Coalition.