The Accelerate Forum on the 27th September will be our most interactive event ever with QR codes giving delegates exclusive access to a range of promotions and launches of new products- so make sure you bring along your iPads and smartphones!
Also make sure you are following us on Twitter and using the hashtag #ECForum.
There’s a saying that “there is no better time to start a business than during a recession”- costs are lower and markets are crying out for innovation- fertile ground for entrepreneurs looking to grow their business. But with the political and economic will clearly backing entrepreneurs, we ask if Britain’s businesses are taking full advantage? Accelerate 2011 is about how entrepreneurs can capitalise on the current economic and technological landscapes to make their business smarter and more relevant for a globally competitive market.
Confirmed Speakers:
- James Caan - CEO of Hamilton Bradshaw and Serial Entrepreneur
- Julie Meyer - Founder & CEO of Ariadne Capital, Online Dragon for the BBC
- Martyn Dawes - Founder of Coffee Nation
- Austin Healey - Former England Rugby International & Investor
- Tim Levene - Managing Partner of Augmentum Capital
- Kevin Godlington - Former Soldier & Heropreneur
- Lloyd Dorfman - Chairman of the Travelex Group
- Will King - Founder of King of Shaves
- James Akrigg - Head Of Technology for Partners, Microsoft
- Duncan Cheatle - Founder of Prelude Group
- Lara Morgan - Entrepreneurial Ceo & Owner of Pacific Direct Ltd
- Bradley Starr - Chief Executive of Bizantra
- Martin Lyne - Marketing Director of Small and Medium Enterprise - Orange Business Services
- Timothy Leeson - Partner at Crowell & Moring
- Robert Gorby - Global Head Of Small Business Marketing – AVG Technologies
- Pete Boswell - Founder & CEO of Pixsurance (& Past ECForum Entrepreneurial Pitch Participant)
Speaker Biographies
James Caan - CEO of Hamilton Bradshaw and Serial Entrepreneur
James Caan is one of the UK’s most successful and dynamic entrepreneurs. He is the founder and CEO of Hamilton Bradshaw, based in Mayfair, London. The company was founded in 2004 and specialises in buyouts, venture capital, turnarounds, and real estate investment in the UK.
James knew from a young age that he wanted to run his own business. His father was probably his biggest influence: he owned a successful leather goods manufacturing business and hoped James would one day takeover. James decided not to pursue a career in the family business and instead followed his own path to become an entrepreneur. At sixteen he left school with no qualifications. Despite this in the mid 1980′s, he began a successful career in recruitment. Just a few years later James founded Alexander Mann, a UK recruitment business which he successfully grew to £130m turnover with 30 offices worldwide. During the same period, James was keen to explore the international market and launched Humana International, a franchising model, establishing 147 offices in 30 countries. He subsequently sold both businesses in 1999.
In 2007, James was invited to join the panel of the highly popular BBC TV show Dragons’ Den. During his time on the show, James invested in a diverse range of businesses and as a result increased his profile in the media. James has always believed that the UK is an excellent platform for British entrepreneurs, and that advances in technology provide today’s entrepreneurs with many more opportunities than when he started out. He is passionate about the SME sector and understands their challenges
James has worked on a number of projects to support the British entrepreneur. He is currently working with Business Secretary Vince Cable as a member of the Entrepreneurs’ Forum to help and advise government on the new business policies.
Julie Meyer - Founder & CEO of Ariadne Capital, Online Dragon for the BBC
Julie Meyer is one of the leading champions for entrepreneurship in Europe. With over 20 years investment and advisory experience helping start-up businesses, she is the well known founder & CEO of Ariadne Capital, co- founder and Managing Partner of the Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund, founder of Entrepreneur Country and co-founder of First Tuesday. Julie has added a successful media career to her business commitments, recently joining BBC's Online Dragon's Den, in addition to her regular contributions to Business Week, Computing, FT Digital Business, Spectator Business.
"Wall Street Journal's Top 30 Most Influential Women in Europe"
Martyn Dawes - Founder of Coffee Nation
Martyn is an award winning entrepreneur and CEO with a proven track record in delivering high growth and impressive shareholder returns. He is the Founder of Coffee Nation Ltd. Coffee Nation successfully created an entirely new market category of branded self-serve coffee bars selling gourmet coffee-to-go in high footfall retail locations.
Martyn led the business as CEO from start-up in 1997 through to 2007 and remained on the board until the business was sold in 2008 at which point the company operated from some 560 locations across the UK in premium quality retail outlets. Long term contracts include Tesco, Welcome Break, Moto, Esso, Sainsbury and Somerfield. The company was sold to Milestone Capital Partners for £23m in March 2008 and on to Whitbread/Costa for £59.5m in 2011.
He is Chairman of the London Westminster Chapter of Young Presidents Organisation for 2011/12.
Coffee Nation won the Sunday Times/Virgin Atlantic Fast Track Award for Innovation in 2006 and Martyn was recognised as Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, South Region, Consumer Products & Services in 2005. Coffee Nation was ranked as one of the UK’s top 100 fastest growing privately owned companies in 2005 & 2006.
Austin Healey - Former England Rugby International & Investor
Austin Healey has been announced as a keynote speaker at the Entrepreneur Country Forum on the 27th September discussing the topic of 'If people are your biggest assets why aren't they on your balance sheet? Making sure you have the right team to be successful!'
One of the most dynamic and versatile professional rugby players of his generation, Austin Healey has more recently become a household name for his regular TV appearances as well as gaining a growing reputation as a shrewd business mind and angel investor.
Austin is co-founder of DNA Capital and holds several non-executive and advisory roles across a variety of sectors, utilizing his skills in marketing, communications and consumer insight. He spent twelve years playing professional rugby with the Leicester Tigers, England and the British Lions, following which he went on to work for Credit Suisse Private Banking. He is also a patron of 3 charities; The Rainbow Trust, NSPCC and the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation.
Austin's tenacity and ferocious work ethic as a professional sportsman has earned him growing plaudits as his profile in the boardroom grows. Few individuals know the importance of building a winning team and maintaining the constant drive for excellence than high performance athletes.
Tim Levene - Managing Partner of Augmentum Capital
Tim began life as an entrepreneur when he opened his first juice bar in Canary Wharf in the late 90s following a successful career with Bain and Company in Moscow, Sydney and London.
Crussh now has 25 stores throughout London and Tim remains an active shareholder in the business. In 1999 he became the founding employee in London, of Flutter.com and later became Commercial Director in 2001 following the merger with Betfair.com. The combined entity revolutionised the gambling industry by building the world’s largest sports betting exchange.
Today, Betfair manages more than £40 billion in transactions each year, and facilitates more transactions each day than the rest of the European stock exchanges combined. Betfair has become one of Europe’s most successful internet businesses and has been richly rewarded by being the only company to have won the CBI Business of the Year twice. Tim led the internationalisation of the business, and laid the foundations across Asia, Europe and the rest of the world. He moved to Asia in 2004 to launch the business in Asia, and today remains an active shareholder and supporter of the business.
In 2009, Tim returned to London to embark on his next venture. He formed Augmentum Capital with the backing of RIT Capital and Lord Rothschild, and focuses relentlessly on finding entrepreneurs who have businesses that are disruptive technologically and reinvigorate markets that are lacking in fresh innovation.
Over the years, Tim has advised and personally invested in a number of exciting and innovative businesses, including Codilink, Borro.com, Crussh and Betfair.com.
Kevin Godlington - Former Soldier & Heropreneur
Kevin Godlington grew up in Lancashire, in various children's homes and in state care. After a spell on the streets committing juvenile crime as a teenager, as result of abandonment and child abuse, he joined the army with no qualifications. Kevin left regular and reserve service in 2003 having served on operations all over the world.
Since leaving the army Kevin has founded a series of businesses and charities. Founder and CEO of an African development company specializing in former conflict nations, he leads investment teams in setting up large scale agricultural, resource and extractive businesses, managing assets of over $100M in four different countries across Africa.
An active ambassador and patron for service and veterans charities, he's raised over £2.1 million pounds in the last 5 years. Kevin has also pioneered new development courses for disaffected youth and young people (NEETS) who have underprivileged backgrounds through his company Treejumpers and the Treejumpers Academy. In 2010 Kevin set up the Godlington Foundation, a charity that operates orphanages in Sierra Leone and funds veterans initiatives in the UK.
In his spare time Kevin develops media projects, writes and travels. He lives in Kent with his wife and three children.
Lloyd Dorfman - Chairman of the Travelex Group
Having briefly sampled the bar and investment banking, he started his own currency exchange business in 1976 from one small shop in central London. Following the £440m acquisition of Thomas Cook's Global & Financial Services business in March 2001, the Travelex Group has now become the world's largest non-bank foreign exchange business.
In 2001 Lloyd Dorfman was the winner of the Consumer Business Category in the UK "Entrepreneur of the Year" awards sponsored by Ernst & Young, Citibank and The Times. In 2002 he received the British American Chamber of Commerce's UK Entrepreneurial Award, and the Institute of Economic Affairs' Free Enterprise Award.
He is a Non-Executive Director of M & C Saatchi plc, a Governor of St Paul's School, London, a Patron and Deputy Chairman of The Prince's Trust Development Board, and an Honorary Fellow of St Peters College, Oxford.
Will King - Founder of King of Shaves
The King of Shaves brand was created by Will King in the depths of the UK recession in the early 1990's.
Following redundancy, King decided to build his own business, King of Shaves, and his first product was shaving oil, which solved his personal problem with shaving - razor burn. It wasn't long before he was filling thousands of small plastic bottles in the kitchen of his home, and then his big break came when he landed a deal for Harrods to stock his product in September 1993, followed by Boots in May 1994.
Fast forward seventeen years and today over thirty different King of Shaves brand products, including the iconic wet shave system razor, the Azor, are stocked in all major outlets across the UK as well as being available in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and Brazil. King of Shaves products are also sold throughout America in a landmark distribution deal with Remington and the company has recently launched its first electrical range, sold exclusively in Argos. Combining its wet shave hardware and software products, King of Shaves is second only to Gillette in the UK, and King is a multi award-winning businessman, and considered by many as one of the UK's most creative and passionate entrepreneurs.
James Akrigg - Head Of Technology for Partners, Microsoft
James has worked in and around the IT industry for over 20 years, which includes the last 10 years at Microsoft in the UK. His passion for technology and what it can do to deliver real value and benefit to businesses of all sizes and to individuals is clear to see when he presents and meets with Microsoft partners and customers. With experience in infrastructure, architecture, software development, business process, information management, software and hardware technologies, James is able to simplify how to use what can be a complex mix of technologies to deliver solutions in today’s business environments.
Duncan Cheatle - Founder of Prelude Group
Duncan Cheatle has spent over 10 years championing UK enterprise and worked with over 1000 entrepreneurs. He is founder of The Prelude Group whose mission is “to make Britain the most enterprising nation in the world”. Duncan co-founded StartUp Britain a private sector led initiative to inspire and support startup and early stage entrepreneurs which got substantial support from corporates and SMEs as well as (non financial) backing from the Prime Minister and government.
Lara Morgan - Entrepreneurial Ceo & Owner of Pacific Direct Ltd
Lara Morgan is an entrepreneurial CEO and part owner of Pacific Direct. She started the company as a sole trader back in 1991, and sold a majority share holding of the company for £20 million in 2008. Having had time out to travel with family, she has enjoyed time at home rebuilding an Old Rectory in Wiltshire. Lara is now spending her time working out how to improve opportunities around the world through business inspiration and looking to mentor on a grand scale.
Pacific Direct manufactures and supplies luxury branded toiletries and guest amenities to Hotels, Cruise Lines and Airlines. For many years Lara has been at the forefront of innovations and licensing leading toiletries and cosmetics brands for the hotel industry.
Bradley Starr - Chief Executive of Bizantra
Bizantra is different to any other business management software. It’s designed specifically for smaller businesses, which means you get all the tools you need to help your business fulfil its potential but without the functions you simply do not need.
Bizantra can help you work securely with people inside and outside of your business; keep track of your contacts and sales leads, project tasks and events, sales and purchasing orders, employee information and finances; efficiently set up email marketing campaigns; and work uninterrupted, whether you’re online or offline.
Martin Lyne - Marketing Director of Small and Medium Enterprise - Orange Business Services
Martin is responsible for the development of marketing propositions and the broader business development of the segment. He is focussed on establishing Orange as the first choice for small to medium business customers through providing compelling offers and a best in class customer experience. Prior to his current role, Martin held a variety of positions in Orange UK including Commercial Director for Sales and Service where he developed and implemented a new channel footprint and sales strategy; and Commercial Finance Director for Consumer and Small Business where he was pivotal in driving the growth of Orange UK. A chartered accountant, Martin joined Orange in 1998 from Dixons Group, where he worked for eight years, in a variety of financial roles.
In his life outside work, Martin enjoys spending time with his family and keeps fit through running half marathons. He is also a keen Sheffield United fan!
Click here to purchase your ticket to the Entrepreneur Country Accelerate Forum on the 27th September in London
Timothy Leeson - Partner at Crowell & Moring
Timothy Leeson is a partner in Crowell & Moring's London office. He has significant experience in the full range of corporate (and associated commercial) work including private equity, venture capital, public offerings, takeovers, restructurings and distressed debt purchases. He has over twenty years experience in the technology, media and telecommunications and defence sectors, and more recently has been active in the energy and natural resources sectors.
Click here to purchase your ticket to the Entrepreneur Country Accelerate Forum on the 27th September in London
Robert Gorby - Global Head Of Small Business Marketing – AVG Technologies
Robert Gorby is the Global Head of Small Business Marketing at AVG Technologies (Internet Security market leader). He describes his role as ‘Championing the cause of Small Business Security’ and is passionate about educating the small business about the ever-evolving cyber threats so that they are empowered to protect themselves and their business both online and offline.
Pete Boswell - Founder & CEO of Pixsurance
Peter first got involved in the technology industry 6 years ago after a burning desire to develop an idea he had for a software application. During this time he has been involved in the design and delivery of a number of successful software applications such as PowerPressed and Blubox.
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