The Game Changers: Make It or Break It
Cross Chapter Event featuring Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Luxembourg and Rishon Lezion, Israel
In the midst of the pandemic-generated panic, the switched-on start-ups saw an opportunity to pivot and apply their experience to ease suffering and provide solutions to help us become accustomed to this “new normal”.
From pet geneticists to gamifying environmentalists and global tech advocates, meet the game changers whose great pivot secured their future.
Our four founders hail from the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Luxembourg and Rishon Lezion, Israel, and typify the type of business owner whose drive for success, moral judgement and speed of delivery found them at the centre of Covid relief efforts.
Learn what it takes to pivot and diversify your business, protect your business against a recession, rewards that motivate and inspire start-up teams to achieve and how to hustle when the world is against you.
Taxa Genomics Ltd
Managing Director
Coco World
Founding Director
CEO
Soapy Care
Howsam Ltd & Staysure
Founder, Chairman & CEO
Rachel Glover is an experienced molecular and computational biologist with expertise in molecular ecology, biosurveillance, bioinformatics and genomics.
Rachel is the founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Taxa Genomics, an environmental and veterinary genomics company and was instrumental in the setting up and running of the Isle of Man COVID19 test facility.
Caroline Assaf, is the founder of CoCo World. She is a Harvard graduate in Sustainable development and social entrepreneur with passion for youth and communities. Her focus is on youth and communities with a Global and multi-sectorial management experience in corporate, non-profit and public sectors.
Caroline has more than 20 years experience working globally with corporate, government and non-profit in North America, Europe and Dubai. Coco World won a government competition with 322 entries and 15 finalists in Luxembourg. Their solution is responding to address a problem due to COVID but can extend beyond, the product is about to be launched and with a lot of interest from schools and the education ecosystem overall .
Max Simonovsky is the Founder and CEO of Soapy. Coming from a medical science background, Max is the inventor of Soapy. He is a B2B expert with strong technological knowledge in the health, water and chemistry industries. Highly oriented to building global companies with an impact DNA business.
Ryan Howsam started his career selling double glazing at 17, and went on to build an enterprise worth hundreds of millions without external investment, now employing over 1000 people across his portfolio of companies.
He is the founder and chairman of the market leading insurance company Staysure, which is regulated in Gibraltar, and over the past few years his group have acquired Avanti and Paying Too Much, bolstering his market share. Ryan invests in a number of tech, financial services, startups and luxury brands including Garcon Wines who are an innovative packaging company, Lymited - a luxury blockchain powered investment and retail platform for limited edition collectibles, and Tabl, a food tourism marketplace, to name a few. During the 2020 Covid pandemic Ryan opened up his calendar to help other entrepreneurs with mentoring , and is currently seeking startups and businesses who need investment to apply via his website for an initial zoom pitch.
In September of this year Ryan acquired the majority stake in the European senior tour and renamed it The Legends Tour, bringing about a new era in senior golf. The tour offers fantastic sponsorship opportunities and new formats where amateurs can get involved and play alongside pros. Celebrity golfer ambassadors include former Ryder Cup Captains and major players.
From his own learnings as an entrepreneur, Ryan has created a unique business system which he uses in all the companies he works with and invests in. Structuring his own goals into 90 day cycles, Ryan is developing his own proprietary technology to help start ups and established companies to employ his method and see huge results. To get involved and try the system you can visit his Facebook page or website for more details.
Ryan believes business is simple if you know how to play the game and indeed, unlike many companies who have crumbled during Covid, he’s managed to think differently and keep Staysure afloat even in these difficult times. Being in arguably one of the hardest hit industries there is, travel, this is quite an achievement.
Continent8
Managing Director EMEA
David Black has 20 years’ experience within the online gaming and technology sectors in various roles from software licensing to data centre. As the first employee of Continent 8 Technologies PLC in 2005 David led the Isle of Man data centre build project whilst developing the business throughout Europe and Asia until 2010. He returned to Continent 8 as an advisory executive in 2018, primarily focused on EMEA and strategy. In the interim years David engaged in consultancy/interim executive roles for Tech Co’s alongside involvement in various disruptive start-up technology businesses. Executive and entrepreneurial experience is supported by a BA (Hons) European Politics and an MBA from a Russell Group University.
Continent 8 won the Hosting Service of the Year 2019 Award at Malta Gaming Awards organised by SIGMA and are also sponsors of Startup Grind Isle of Man which launched last November
Startup Grind Luxembourg
Director
See Bio
Founded
Co-Founder
founded
Co-Founder
ONE MEDIA AND EVENTS
Founder
See Bio
Startup Grind Rishon Lezion
Director
See Bio
Steve Glange launched the FirstTuesday network in the Greater Region and became board member of the global network. He is also a founding board member of Luxembourg Business Angels Network where he served as board member of EBAN. He was ambassador for XING in Luxembourg. He assisted launching and developing emerging companies and holds various advisory board seats. He is also a UN conference speaker and lecturer at Georgia Tech Institute. He uses his analytical and innovative skills around a good robusto cigar. Steve is an experienced networked solution broker.
Born and brought up in Gibraltar her entrepreneurial journey started at the age of 22 launching the first company in PR and promotional work ‘DM Promotions’, since the early days her passion for running and creating her own business models was clear with a fiercely entrepreneurial family background.
Also involved in a landmark case at a young age for Gibraltar when she was denied the right to vote in the first European elections the case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights and was successful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthews_v_United_Kingdom
After taking time out to start a family and living abroad she returned to her hometown in 2017 and soon set up a new business One Media and Events. The application to become City Chapter Director for Gibraltar for the organisation Startup Grind powered by Google for Entrepreneurs was successful and the first event which sold out with over 100 attendees was launched in March 2017. In February 2018 Denise was given the “Rookie of the Year” Award in San Francisco during the director’s retreat organised at the SuG Global Conference for being the best new chapter in a city with a population of only thirty thousand.
During this time Gibraltar Government announced the regulatory framework for Distributed Ledger Technology also known as Blockchain. Because of her work in supporting startups, tech and creating a network they became actively involved by sponsoring her events. The platform that SuG together with this development locally has opened up multiple opportunities in this new tech industry and in the past 4 months she has been appointed to represent two globally well known blockchain related groups the GSX Group’s Blockchain Innovation Centre and Coinsilium.
Startup Grind Luxembourg
Luxembourg Director
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