Speaker Bios 2008/2009

Sachin Duggal

At 25, Sachin Duggal's profile is a rich mosaic of experiences. He was an entrepreneur at 15, worked for the United Nations and wrote the declaration of youth rights before he completed his first degree from Imperial College. Sachin has also built a successful software business and was an investment banking prodigy in parallel. Sachin's dream now hinges on his attempt to redefine computing completely by introducing simple, economical & effective services.

Sachin started his public foray very early in life; at the age of 12 he went on stage in front of 1200 people and the world media to demand something be done about the state of the environment. He further went on to work as a Youth Minister and wrote the Declaration of Youth Rights and handed this to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Sachin's career began at the age of 15, when he formed SMX Corporation along with a friend. They began operations (fixing computers) from his house. From there the company went through various iterations; from building PCs to virtual hosting onto software development. By 18, Sachin had taken the company solo and started work on SMX's first portal for an agriculture client. By 19 Sachin and SMX had got their first big customer and since then the software business has evolved and transformed into a global provider of management systems.

In the midst of setting up this multi-million dollar business he obtained an Information Systems Engineering degree from the prestigious Imperial College, joined Deutsche Bank as their youngest employee at the age of 17 and built systems that generate tens of millions of dollars for the bank. Sachin is continuously striving to change the world. At Deutsche Bank he was branded a serial innovator and shared the table with the topmost management on the board of innovation. Because of that, Sachin is still approached time and again for ideas and suggestions from his previous bosses.

In August 2004, Sachin co-founded SMX iNet Global Services SA (now Nivio), a new addition to the SMX family with a view to explore Internet technologies. He got seed funding from two of his bosses! Originally named myremoteworkstation, he believed that the world of computing would change, become simple & hassle free. He dreamed of a desktop that was anywhere and nowhere; that was stress-free and fault-proof. Hence Nivio!

Fast forward to 4 years later: Nivio SA was selected as a technology pioneer at the World Economic Forum in January 2009. Sachin made history by being the youngest attendee at the WEF in Davos. Furthering his accomplishments, he is one of the youngest in WEF Davos history to win the Technology Pioneers of 2009 award. He now joins the elite likes of Google and Infosys.

Sachin's other accolades include the PriceWaterhouseCoopers Leader of Tomorrow, the BBC Young Asian achiever of the Year and UNEP Global 500 Youth Award.

Sachin is also driven by the desire to educate the 3rd world and particularly the children below the poverty line. He hopes to do this with his NGO in the making.

Emmett Kilduff

Emmett Kilduff resigned as Director at Credit Suisse in February 2008 in order to focus on his internet start-up: cmypitch.com.

cmypitch.com provides services for UK entrepreneurs and small businesses, and they are also one of our sponsors.

He spent 8 years in investment banking at Credit Suisse and worked in the equity capital market and corporate broking departments. Companies he worked with include Airtricity, BSkyB, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Diageo GlaxoSmithKline, Indochina Capital, Kingfisher, Michael Page, Micronas, Moneysupermarket.com, Reckitt Benckiser, Riverdeep, STMicroelectronics, The Carphone Warehouse and Wellstream.

Oliver Woolley

Oliver is a Founder Partner of Envestors LLP in 2004 and an Executive Director of the British Business Angels Association (BBAA).

Envestors LLP matches entrepreneurs with investors. The firm runs a network of 420 private investors looking to invest between £20,000 and £2m in early-stage ventures. It holds events every two months where companies seeking finance present to private investors, banks and investment funds. In 2008, Envestors won the BBAA Business Angel of the Year Award and Best Equity-backed Deal of the Year Award.

The British Business Angels Association (BBAA) is the National Trade Association for the UK's Business Angel Networks and the early stage investment market and is backed by the UK Government (Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform). The BBAA promotes the recognition of Member Business Angel Networks and organised angel groups. Its roles include highlighting the contribution business angels make to the entrepreneurial culture, lobbying government and encouraging the exchange of best practice.

After Bristol university, Oliver decided not to become an accountant but instead raised private equity and bank debt to start his own venture in the food industry - including a retail catering business in central London and organic sausage shops in the south-east of England. In 1997 he sold the business and moved into early-stage investing. Oliver has invested in, and sits on the board of, several early-stage businesses. Oliver has a MBA from Imperial College, London.

Hermione Way

Hermione Way is the founder of new media social enterprise Newspepper.com and this year she graduated with a degree in Journalism from London Metropolitan University as well as an NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists) qualification which is usually taken as a post-graduate course.

She is the younger sister of 28-year old dot-com millionaire Ben Way, a man who was reportedly worth £18.3 million in the 2001 Sunday Times Rich List, aged 20, only to later have a dispute with his investors, losing everything. He went on to advise the UK and US governments on technology, and he is currently the Chief Innovations Officer for London-based Venture Capital firm Brightstation Ventures.

Having known she wanted to go into the media industry before her degree even started, Hermione got involved in a plethora of related activities while studying. These ranged from working as a runner for various TV shows and at local newspapers to a broadcasting internship at CNBC Europe.

Jonathan Pfahl

Jonathan Pfahl is the owner and Managing Director of the Rockstar Group of Companies.

Originally from Sydney Australia, Jonathan has spent his entire business career in setting up companies and investing in both shares and property. After completing a triple major degree of Applied Economics at the University of Sydney, specialising in finance, he moved straight into his career as a professional investor.

His investment career began at Goldman Sachs Australia where he worked there as an investment advisor for four years. Jonathan moved to London in January 2005 and began work on his newest company group, Rockstar.

The Rockstar Group offers affordable mentoring for entrepreneurs looking to start or grow their business through a combination of one to one mentoring, promotion of your products and services to key customers.

 

Jan Sramek

Jan is the Founder & CEO of Nicube.com, Co-Founder & President of CrewDates and Partner at AlphaParties. Having left behind a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge where he read Mathematics, he has recently transferred to the London School of Economics to further pursue his passion for financial markets and entrepreneurship. He recently graduated studying Mathematics & Economics.

Aside from the gastronomic pleasures of life, Jan enjoys 'racing against himself'. He is currently working for a hedge fund, training for a marathon and running three start-ups and a charity. Previously, he scored 10 As and 3 Distinctions at A-level/S-level, was selected as an 'Olympic Hope' in handball, was awarded scholarships by academia and the City of almost £100,000 and worked for Goldman Sachs, AKO Capital, Marshall Wace, UBS and Barclays Capital.

 

He is joining Goldman Sachs as an Emerging Markets trader in July 2009. More recently Jan wrote  Racing Towards Excellence with Wall street veteran Muzzafar Khan.

Tazeeb Rajwani

Tazeeb is a Fellow at Cranfield School of Management and a Director at BraveNewTalent.com which flips the whole recruitment model - rather than employers going out to the market the platform, it brings the market to the employer by utilising the power of social networks. With the current global economic slowdown, the platform offers employers the ability to slash recruitment costs, while increasing the quality of their talent. This model has already received the support of the UK Government as a ‘Technology Company of Exceptional Potential'.

Prior to these roles he held a management position at KPMG Corporate Finance, where he was an Innovation Champion and member of the Thought Leadership group at KMPG Europe. His unique role at KPMG also included managing large complex projects globally with a particular focus on Corporate Finance. He is an active member of UK India Business Council, Strategic Management Society and Academy of Management

Tazeeb has a PhD from Imperial College London and has written about strategies for low-cost airlines and national airlines, including a chapter on transformational strategies at Aer Lingus in a book called Irish Cases in Entrepreneurship (2005) and a paper on embracing and exploiting industry turbulence, published in the European Management Journal (2005).

Hugh Penfold

Hugh Penfold has over twenty years' experience in the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries. He has held international business development positions in large and small companies (Medeva, Amersham, Celltech, Avidex), and in the public sector (British Technology Group).

Prior to joining Imperial Innovations in June 2005, Hugh was Business Development Director for a non-profit organisation, MIHR, improving access to healthcare in the developing world through innovative management of intellectual property. His experience in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology licensing and intellectual property includes small molecule drugs, biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, devices and drug delivery technologies. He has also established several profitable international collaborative ventures with the former Eastern bloc.

Hugh's training included undergraduate and postgraduate studies in genetics, and a postdoctoral fellowship studying mammalian cell genetics.

His presentation is available in our resources section.

David Langer

David Langer is the CEO and co-founder of GroupSpaces.com, an Internet company revolutionising the way clubs and societies manage mailing lists, membership databases, file sharing, websites and events.

Having graduated from Oxford University with a Mathematics degree in 2007, David was awarded 2nd place in the UK Graduate of the Year competition for his achievements throughout his student career. In addition to setting up GroupSpaces, these included receiving the Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award, an Explorer Award for conservation work from the John Muir Trust and being selected as one of FreshMinds' Ones to WatchTM for the future.

Prior to catching the entrepreneurial bug, David worked in Investment Management at Lehman Brothers, Exotic Derivatives Trading at JPMorgan and did the Discover course at McKinsey.

In addition to spending much of his time organising the world's groups with GroupSpaces, David is currently a member of the Advisory Board at Oxford Entrepreneurs society, an Ambassador for the Make Your Mark scheme and the Entrepreneurship Columnist for national student newspaper The Gateway.

Anand Aiyer

Serial entrepreneur Anand Aiyer, currently pursuing a Msc Finance at Imperial, has been the co-founder of many companies and has designed, created and implemented the technologies behind them.

One of his earliest and most successful creation is MusicIndiaOnline.com, which is the largest Indian entertainment site on the Internet.

He also established ArtINeed, which creates next generation digital illustrations. Recently he has single-handedly finished his solo project Rhydhun, which is a highly secure music platform designed to stream better than CD-quality music to users. He is also working on creating theGreetings.com, which aims to bring the greetings card industry into Web 2.0