Speaker Bios 2007/2008

Paul Graham

Paul Graham is an essayist, programmer, and programming language designer. In 1995 he developed with Robert Morris the first web-based application (ASP), Viaweb, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998. In 2002 he described a simple Bayesian spam filter that inspired most current filters. He’s currently working on a new programming language called Arc, a new book on start-ups, and is one of the partners in Y Combinator.

Paul is the author of On Lisp (Prentice Hall, 1993), ANSI Common Lisp (Prentice Hall, 1995), and Hackers & Painters (O’Reilly, 2004). He has an AB from Cornell and a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard, and studied painting at RISD and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.

Paulgraham.com got 9.7 million page views in 2006.

Brent Hoberman

Brent co-founded lastminute.com in April 1998 with Martha Lane Fox and was CEO and took the company to profit and gross bookings of over $2bn. The company floated in March 2000 when the dot-com bubble was at its peak - the IPO was 40 times oversubscribed and the price increase during the process was a record for a UK company. lastminute.com acquired 14 businesses after the IPO to supplement the annual growth of the core brand which was over 100% from 1998 – 2004. In 2005 lastminute.com was sold to Sabre for $1.1bn.

Brent most recently founded another VC-backed internet based startup, mydeco, the online interiors site that will revolutionise the way we shop and design for our homes.

He is a Governor of University of the Arts College, London and a non-executive board director of Guardian Media Group. From January 2007, he took on the role of Non-Executive Chairman of Wayn.com – a travel and leisure social network with over 10 million members. Brent is also an angel investor in several internet companies including Viagogo, Wayn.com and moveme.com.

Alex Hoye

Alex brings a broad range of entrepreneurial experience from Europe and around the world. He co-founded GoIndustry plc from the proverbial napkin, nurturing it from bootstrap, product development stage through to its current status as a publicly-listed, 15-country market leader.

Alex's start-up passion first emerged with his founding of a student publication while in university and has carried on into organisations and companies ever since. After leaving GoIndustry in June 2006, he has been encouraging and participating in the wave of entrepreneurial inspiration capturing Europe.

To this end, Alex acts as angel investor, principal or mentor in various Web 2.0 and cleantech projects including Seedcamp.org, carbon and solar projects, a web-based industrial trading platform, and bringing the power of the web to sports brands with edgy Faction Skis.

Alex cut his teeth at McKinsey & Co. and Disney, acquiring analytical, restructuring, finance, and M&A skills. He has worked out of the UK, Germany, US, and Latin America, speaking their respective languages to varying degrees. Whilst obtaining his BA in Economics and International Relations from Stanford, USA and an MBA from Harvard. Ever the entrepreneur, he co-founded the wine club at both.

Kieran O'Neill

Kieran founded the video sharing website HolyLemon.com when he was 15 (in 2003), which was acquired in April 2007 for $1.25m by the NASDAQ-listed company HandHeld Entertainment.  At only 19 years old, Kieran was the sole owner of the company and amazingly handled both the negotiation and auction process between a number of different parties whilst undertaking his studies at the University of Bath’s Business School.

In the same year (2003) Kieran co-founded PlayStation Universe – one of the largest video games news and reviews site in the world (1m+ unique gamers reading the site each month). Kieran has taken investment from the largest ad sales firm in the US for the entertainment vertical and has landed some very high budget advertisement campaigns. Also in 2003, Kieran co-founded www.ps3forums.com which has experienced solid growth ever since – the site's forum is growing by 120,000 posts per month and has recently entered the top 1000 forums globally.

Additionally, Kieran also has experience working at DoubleClick/Tangozebra where he has managed a range of large agency accounts.

Jay Bregman

Jay Bregman is co-founder of the revolutionary deliveries company, eCourier.co.uk which, since 2004, has been a major disruptive force in the UK's same-day courier market.

eCourier.co.uk is the only courier company worldwide to employ an intelligent, automated dispatch solution. Their proprietary technology platform removes the middleman and overcomes the service and scalability limitations that encumber conventional operators. For the first time, clients are able to track their packages in real-time as they travel across the UK, all the way from pick-up to destination.

eCourier.co.uk's achievements have not gone unrecognised, with the company most recently winning the Evening Standard's Most Inspirational Business 2007 award, together with previous accolades including The Department of Trade & Industry's (DTI's) Innovator's Award for Transport, The British Computer Society's inaugural Mobile Computing Award, and The National Customer Service Award for eCommerce for 2005.

  Jay's passion for technology was stirred at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, where he co-authored a study which was used to advise ICANN on its first member election. Jay holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Dartmouth College and an MSc in Media and Communications Regulation & Policy from the London School of Economics

Stephanie Bouchet

Stephanie brings over 8 years of marketing expertise from successful global start-ups and global corporations in the digital media, telecom and entertainment industries.

Stephanie is currently the Global Marketing Director at Joost (the peer-to-peer online video platform). Prior to Joost, she was Head of Product Marketing at Skype, responsible for driving Skype client downloads from 23 to 83 million in 2006 and monetizing the Skype userbase. This experience allowed her to extend her expertise in technology, product and guerilla marketing while enriching her customer-centric approach.

Stephanie’s passion for innovative and entrepreneurship projects first emerged at the start of her marketing career, where – after earning her BA and MA in marketing in three countries - she contributed actively to the launch of the first DVD on the Australian/NZ market as Marketing Executive for Warner Home Video. She then joined British Telecom new Ventures division, to build awareness of one of the first videophones on the UK domestic market and re-invent BT online services, creating and launching BT Communicator with Yahoo! Messenger.

Stephanie’s eagerness for new challenges and adventure has always grown beyond her professional curriculum. Her spirited “je ne sais quoi” of Niaque (French for “Chutzpah”), shared with her sister Peggy Bouchet (first woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean), led her to win the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles in 2004 (a women’s SUV rally across the Sahara), compete in the Raid Amazones while on a round-the-world voyage and hold a black belt in karate.

Stephanie stands out as one of the few women in Europe’s contemporary entrepreneurship circle. Her eagerness to understand and be a part of the future of the business and to share her knowledge inspired her to mentor and advise several entrepreneurship organizations, such as Seedcamp and other growing internet based start-up brands, such as Faction Skis.

Dr David Tatchell

David founded Flomerics, an engineering analysis software business, in 1988. It now employs over 200 people in 12 countries, and trades on AIM with a market cap of £12m. Before founding Flomerics, David received a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College, London.

  Flomerics specializes in computational fluid dynamics (CFD). What makes it different from other CFD companies (and other engineering analysis companies) is its focus on providing solutions for specific engineering problems. For example, its main business is providing CFD-based software for the thermal design of electronics equipment, in which it is the global market leader

Michael Stephanblome

Michael brings over 10 years experience in all aspects of internet advertising to AdJug. He has an extensive background in general management, marketing, sales and product development both in small and large growth businesses and a deep knowledge of strategic marketing with regards to online marketplaces. Before founding AdJug, Michael was the Managing Director of Gumtree.com, the UK's leading online classifieds site which was acquired by eBay in 2005. Michael took the company from break even to high margin profitability doubling annual revenues, users and traffic.

Prior to that Michael was eBay's Marketing Director in Germany for over three years, directly responsible for a 100+ million dollar annual marketing budget and managing, building a high-powered marketing team. During his tenure, eBay's reach in Germany grew from 6% to over 50%. Michael started out as eBay's Head of Categories in Germany in 2001. Other positions included Managing Director of web startup urbia.com UK Ltd and Head of Interactive at Zippel Communications. Michael holds a BA in Journalism from Cologne Journalism School and a Master of Business from Cologne University.

Nick Jenkins

Nick Jenkins founded the online greeting card company Moonpig.com in 1999.

Moonpig.com has revolutionised the process of purchasing greeting cards – the company has developed a system for ordering humorous, personalised cards online which are then printed onsite and either shipped directly to a recipient or to the original customer.

Moonpig.com has rapidly grown from word-of-mouth recommendation and innovative advertising campaigns to be the UK’s number one online personalised greeting card company.

Nick holds a BA in Russian Language and Literature from the University of Birmingham and a MBA from the Cranfield School of Management, UK.

Sutha Kamal

Sutha Kamal is the chief executive at planQ, a stealth stage start-up, building a next-generation mobile application platform (Intruders.tv interview). He was previously a product manager at Rogers Wireless (a wireless carrier) and SOMA Networks, founder and CEO at Ambient Vector, and entrepreneur in residence at Celtic House Venture Partners in Toronto and London, UK.

  He studied Computer Science at the University of Toronto and is now spending his time focussing on mobile technology that can create engaging, intuitive and valuable experiences for customers