The Entrepreneurs’ Lunch

The Entrepreneurs’ Lunch is a joint initiative between Smith & Williamson and www.freshbusinessthinking.com bringing together a select group of entrepreneurs and business leaders to allow high-level networking and exchanges of ideas.

Date: Thursday 21st March 2019

Time: 12.30 – 15.00

Location: Private Dining Rooms of Smith & Williamson

Address: 25 Moorgate, London, EC2R 6AY (see map)

 

Speaker:

 

Ajaz Ahmed | Legal365.com

Ajaz Ahmed is best known for being the founder of Freeserve, which was once the UK’s largest ISP, now known as Orange broadband. He came up with the idea when he bought a computer in PC World Leeds and nobody in the store could tell him how to get into the internet, the rest as they say, is history. He persuaded Dixons to launch Freeserve and it was eventually sold by Dixons to France Telecom for £1.6bn.

His latest venture is Legal365.com, which is disrupting and innovating the legal market by introducing new customer friendly business models and affordably fixed pricing, he is also involved with law firm, LCF LAW. Ajaz also sits on the advisory board at the University of Huddersfield Business School.

 

The guests:

 

Peter Ibbetson | JournoLink

Peter Ibbetson is a co-founder of JournoLink, an interactive platform enabling you to manage your own PR and send out your business stories to journalists, broadcasters and bloggers. Former chairman for small business banking at Royal Bank of Scotland, Peter is an experienced director with 30 years’ experience in the financial sector, ranging from investment banking to retail banking.

 

 

 

Alex Kammerling | Kamm & Sons

Alex Kammerling is the creator of Kamm & Sons, and has been working in the drinks industry for over 22 years, having first cut his teeth making cocktails in bars, hotels and restaurants all over the world. In his time as a bartender, Alex has made drinks for royalty, rock stars, and world-class actors, invented hundreds of cocktails and published his own cocktail book. He has also worked on some of the world’s biggest brands such as Grey Goose, Campari and Bombay Sapphire.

 

 

 

Andy Solomon | Yomdel

Andy Solomon is the founder of Yomdel, an award-winning provider of customer enhancing services and pioneer of 24/7 managed live chat in the UK. He launched the business in 2014 after seeing how companies were struggling to keep web visitors engaged.

 

 

 

Arnold Ma | Qumin

Arnold Ma is the founder of Qumin, Europe’s first and largest digital and creative agency focused on the Chinese market. With its senior team and full Chinese creative studio in London, Qumin helps European brands create world-class content to market themselves to a Chinese audience.

 

 

 

Christian Eckley | WISE

Christian Eckley is the CEO of WISE Analytics Group, focused on building and acquiring businesses that use data to help clients, brands and consumers make better choices. As CEO, Christian is responsible for driving the development and execution of the WISE strategy. Christian spent over 15 years in the IT industry including Computacenter and IBM.

 

 

 

Amer Hasan | Minicabit

Amer Hasan is the founder and CEO of Minicabit, the service that allows customers to compare and book real-time quotes from licensed cab operators across the UK. A former cab driver himself, Amer has experience as head of apps at Vodafone and data product manager at O2.

 

 

 

Alec Watt | Accouter Group

Alec Watt is the founder and CEO of Accouter Group, one of London’s most innovative and creative portfolios of companies specialising in prime real estate services, luxury interior design and furnishings for some of the world’s leading businesses, institutions and private clients.

 

 

 

Anthony Adjei | Carrington Blake Recruitment

Anthony Adjei is a director at Carrington Blake Recruitment, one of the UK’s largest recruitment agencies, serving nearly 2,000 clients. Launched in 2002, it provides an innovative and dynamic way to look in the recruitment industry, providing roles across a range of sectors and industries.

Nate Burke | Diginus

Nate founded Diginius in 2011. He is known as an early e-commerce pioneer and entrepreneur. He launched his first internet business in 1997 and is a two-time nominee Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. He has a BA in Computer Science and an MBA from the University of Alabama.

 

 

 

Steve Wells | Fast Future

Steve Wells is a global futurist, keynote speaker, and the COO of Fast Future. He has a particular interest in helping clients anticipate and respond to the disruptive bursts of technological possibility that are shaping the emerging future. Steve is a contributing author to Beyond Genuine Stupidity—Ensuring AI Serves Humanity and The Future Reinvented—Reimagining Life, Society, and Business.

 

 

 

 

Rohit Talwar | Fast Future

Rohit Talwar is a global futurist, award-winning keynote speaker, author and CEO of Fast Future. His prime expertise lies in helping clients understand and shape the emerging future. He has a particular interest in how we can create a very human future by putting people at the centre of the agenda.

 

 

 

 

Nick Thompson | DCSL Software

Nick Thompson is Managing Director and owner of DCSL Software Ltd. Nick started his software career in 1997. He bought out his then-employers in 2013 and went on to grow DCSL from a handful of staff to a 100-person company in 5 years with offices in Farnborough and Central London. He also part-owns and serves on the board of Hospify Ltd, a messaging app similar to WhatsApp, but GDPR compliant and designed for hospital clinicians.

 

 

 

Keith Springall | Lisamo Holding

Keith is the founder of Lisamo Holdings, a company that provides high street retailers and SME’s of all sizes through the LoLo App, a unique Coalition Loyalty Scheme increasing footfall and delivering Big Data and Marketing Control, including mainstream media on a barter basis.

 

 

 

 

 

Soumyadip Rakshit | Mystery Vibe

Soumyadip is the co-founder and CEO of British pleasure brand, MysteryVibe. The company’s main focus is to create highly personalised, luxury pleasure products through user-driven design and cutting-edge technology.

 

 

 

Andrew Yeoman | Concirrus

Andrew Yeoman is CEO and co-founder of Concirrus, which helps businesses harness the power of the Internet of Things (IoT). Andy has a successful track record in telematics, big data and insurance with extensive experience of fast-growth business strategies, turnarounds, and M&A. He’s passionate about the new business models that technology can unlock for insurers and their customers.

 

 

 

Jeremy Tear | Gov Grant

Started as a graduate trainee with Thorn EMI Ltd, then moved into technology innovation in the chemical and plastics industries, leading to operating the UK’s leading garden chemicals company, acquired by Sumitomo Corp Japan, became Vice President Sumi Agro Europe and Global General Manager involved in Mergers and Acquisitions setting up operations on 6 continents. More recently founded a group of advisory companies focused on supporting small and medium technology development companies in the UK, The Experience Group: GovGrant Ltd, Evolution CBS Ltd, Innovators Highway Ltd, DMS Ltd

 

David Alberto | London Belgravia

David Alberto is the owner of London Belgravia, a group of investment, brokerage, surveying and real estate businesses specialising in the property, retail, insurance and investment markets.

 

 

 

 

 

Julia Elliott-Brown | Enter the Arena

Julia Elliott Brown, CEO and Founder of Enter The Arena, is the UK’s leading equity fundraising expert and specialist coach, working exclusively with women entrepreneurs.

As a serial entrepreneur, Julia has successfully raised millions of pounds in equity finance for business growth from angels, VCs and crowdfunding, both for her own business, and has supported dozens of her amazing female founder clients in doing the same.

 

 

 

 

Liam Flanagan | Enable Business Solutions

Liam Flanagan is the founder of Enable Business Solutions. Over a few three decades, Liam has enjoyed championing a personal approach to our product development of Enable PitchPerfect and Enable Revenue Manager and love discovering solutions to seemingly unworkable situations. In short, when helping deliver business critical projects

 

 

 

 

David Lumsden | Enable Business Solutions

David Lumsden is the CEO of Enable Business Solutions. David has over 30 years experience in the legal IT industry with both in-house and vendor roles. The first role was CIO of Ashurst for six years and he then joined Tikit becoming the CEO in 2000. Tikit was the premier vendor for UK legal technology and were instrumental in finding and introducing many emerging applications from the US such as InterAction, Carpe Diem and DM systems. Tikit was acquired by BT in 2013.

 

 

 

 

David Williams | Shuttle

David Williams is the founder of Shuttle, a service designed to improve the customer experience in client onboarding. David has over 15 years experience in building teams. As a portfolio investor in buy to let property, David is passionate about making the application process safer, quicker and easier.

 

 

 

 

 

Duncan Cheatle | Learn Amp

Duncan is the founder and CEO of Learn Amp, an employee experience platform which makes it easy to manage the Employee (or student) Journey driving higher effectiveness and longer retention. It has been named best in class globally for the last two years.

Duncan has spent nearly 20 years championing UK enterprise, In 2003 he set up The Supper Club, now home to nearly 500 of Britain’s most innovative, high growth entrepreneurs. He also sits on the Chartered Management Institute’s Board of Companions.

 

 

 

David Cummings | Draper Esprit

David founded Draper Esprit EIS in 2012, alongside his co-founder Richard Marsh, and has since raised over £100 million. He is also an active angel investor in technology companies and a member of Cambridge Angels. David is currently an Independent Member of the Investment Committee for The Royal Society’s Endowment Fund and a Trustee of the Lazard Pension Fund.

 

 

 

 

Mats Stigzelius | Takumi

Mats is the co-founder and board member of Takumi, a platform that connects Instagram influencers with brands and agencies. To date, Takumi has worked with over 800 clients across over 2,000 campaigns across Europe and North America. Mats has been a serial entrepreneur for the past ten years as a founding Partner at Rainmaking. Over the last decade, Rainmaking has helped build and scale over 720 startups through Startupbootcamp

 

 

 

Alison Shadrack | Adia PR

Alison is the founder of Adia PR and serial entrepreneur with a wealth of connections and a talent for raising awareness and building influence. Alison’s passion for good PR is at the heart of everything she does, which is why you’ll find her listed as one of the UK’s Top 100 Media Influencers in the entrepreneurial space.

 

 

 

 

Steve Knight | Productiv Delivery

Steve Knight is the founder of Productiv, a last mile delivery provider that works with online ordering platforms for both food and non-food companies, to ensure that the customer receives their order as quickly as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

Jonathan Allan | MarketInvoice

Jon is the vice president of marketing at MarketInvoice. He is an international marketing leader with experience gained in EMEA, APAC and Japan working for some of the world’s most exciting technology companies. He focuses on marketing strategy, performance and customer experience and delivers through building teams that create great brands, open new channels and new ways of working and execute with precision to deliver fast return on investment, growth and scale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Erika Brodnock | Karizma Kidz

 

 

 

 

Marc Woodhead | Holograph

Marc Woodhead is the founder and CEO of Holograph, a successful software development business based in Hastings. He has a passion for understanding technologies at their deepest levels – then deploying them for practical value using a combination of wide-ranging skills, commercial experience and a fierce creative drive.

 

 

 

 

Adam Scott | Odyssey Airlines

Adam Scott is the founder & CEO of Odyssey Airlines. Adam previously spent 10 years at Goldman Sachs in London and Moscow. He was also involved in developing the Airbus A318 transatlantic concept from London City Airport and has served as Commercial Director for a Canadian Private School.

 

 

 

 

Francesca James | Great British Entrepreneur Awards

Francesca James is the founder of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards. Now in its seventh year, the Great British Entrepreneur Awards acknowledges the hard work and inspiring stories of entrepreneurs in the UK.

 

 

 

 

 

The hosts:

 

Philip Barker | Head of Industrials at Smith & Williamson

Philip is Head of Industrials at Oaklins Smith & Williamson, one of Oaklin’s member firms in the UK. A PwC-qualified Chartered Accountant, Philip has spent his career to date providing corporate finance advice to UK and global engineering businesses.

Over the past 20 years, Philip established, developed and led Cavendish’s Industrials team. During this time he has advised on over 50 engineering and specialist manufacturing businesses across a range of sectors including aerospace, automotive, industrial services and HVAC.

 

 

Steve Cave | Business development, financial services, Smith & Williamson.

Steve joined Smith & Williamson in July 2015, with over 27-years of experience as a financial adviser in both private clients and employee benefits.  Steve now heads up business development for the financial services team across Smith & Williamson, and is the key financial services contact for a range of clients in a variety of sectors and industries.

 

 

 

Tabitha Luxmoore-Style | Client Relationship Manager, Entrepreneurial Services, Smith & Williamson

Tabitha’s role, as an independent and objective relationship manager, allows you to provide candid feedback on our service, team, relationship, value-add and pricing.

Tabitha has a track record in account management and developing high-value business relationships. Tabitha ensure we provide an exceptional client experience, that not only serve a retrospective assessment of our service delivery, but also an understanding of our clients’ future strategic goals.

Tabitha joined the firm in 2018 after four years’ experience in the financial services and technology sector where she specialised in account management of large enterprises, high net worth clients and entrepreneurs.

 

 

Chetan Mistry | Director, Technology, Smith & Williamson

Chetan works alongside start-ups and fast-growth tech and entrepreneurial businesses, enabling them to succeed in their growth objectives, investment plans and exit strategies. Assisting with a range of assurance and business services from statutory financial reporting, audit, through to grant claims, Chetan helps to advise his client’s on a day-to-day basis.

The Smith & Williamson technology group aims to work in conjunction with your business’ management team to make dealing with professional advisors a smooth and undemanding process, so your business can focus on its key strategies – whether that be growth, securing additional funds or international expansion.

 

 

Hema Mistry | Associate Director, Tax, Smith & Williamson

Hema Mistry manages the corporation tax affairs and advises a portfolio of clients across various sector groups primarily focusing on the financial services sector.  Hema is a member of the Financial Services & Markets Group at Smith & Williamson.

Her portfolio includes owner-managed businesses, large groups and investment funds.  Hema has been involved with a wide range of advisory projects for her clients, including assisting with the preparation and submission of AEOI reports, Qualified Intermediary reviews, transfer pricing reviews, fund structures, transactions and reorganisations

 

 

 

About the hosts:

Smith & Williamson are accountants and business advisers with a focus on entrepreneurs and growth businesses.  They offer their energy and expertise to help their clients grow, delivering a personal, commercial approach and providing access to “end to end” services including corporate finance, accounting, tax and a wide range of other financial services. Clients include both the private and quoted sectors and range from early stage to mature businesses with values of tens and hundreds of millions.