Over the course of her career, Karen has held roles in leadership development and organizational health in the public sector including the NHS as well as the private sector.

Karen now works in the board room and the shop floor to align corporate culture and leadership climate. She helps her clients to turn what is often ambiguous and intangible, into something energising and productive.

She specialises in high impact development programmes and one to one coaching that operate at the deeper level of attitudes and habits and lead to powerful management and leadership styles that drive compassionate accountability.

Carolyn Pearson has had an illustrious career in the tech and digital space for over 30 years, having led-tech teams for well known brands such as ITV, BBC, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and easyJet. Today she enjoys a portfolio career combining a number of exciting roles and voluntary positions. These include being founder/CEO of maiden-voyage.com an organisation that leads the way on inclusive travel safety and security for business travellers and their employers; Managing Director of Innovent Digital, providing digital transformation strategy and helping organisations to set up their Digital Centres of Excellence and a member of Endava’s Technical Advisory Community providing due-diligence expertise to private equity clients.

Carolyn has a degree in business and IT an MBA and completed the Advance Leadership Programme at Cranfield School of Management. Carolyn’s supports various charities across the animal welfare and domestic abuse sectors and is a well-known speaker across the business travel security sector.

Beena Sharma is the CEO of Bio Technical, a leading force in the capture of CO2 and solving the issue of food waste.

The core products of the systems they have developed are organic, food grade micro-algae that are used extensively throughout the world.

Beena’s other impressive roles and accolades include Managing Director of Imperium Experts, a business consultancy specialising in leadership, net zero challenges and growth.

She is also a fully qualified trainer in behavioural change, has a PgCert in Psychology and a B.A. in Applied Social Science.

A business professional with over 10 years of global experience in small business management, technology, startups and sales.

In her current role, as the CEO at ivy tech, she puts all her focus on business growth, strategy and finding better ways for ivy tech's clients to work well with their remote software teams. Ivy tech is a services company that provides high growth tech companies with remote IT teams to enable faster growth.

Her passion for the Startup and Tech industry formed over the past 6 years as she ran a boutique co-working space company for small businesses, worked in an accelerator and then in 2018 joined an exciting payments Startup.

She has seen it all when it comes to growing an idea into a viable business. The highs, the lows, the risks, the opportunities and she is passionate about supporting founders and entrepreneurs on their journey.

She is first and foremost driven by my values which are authenticity, integrity and reliability. Her professional goals are to build world class teams when it comes to culture and skill and increase business revenue.

With 30+ years in the Tech industry, Joanne Thurlow has extensive knowledge of today's IT industry and innovations enabling digital transformation on a global level. Joanne’s primary focus is on digital business transformation through tech-enabled sustainable solutions.

Joanne is an active Partner and Senior Advisor with www.strategy-transformation.com , an integrated management and technology consulting group with a total of over 500 employees at locations worldwide.

Originating from Canada, Joanne has lived and worked internationally for/with organizations of all sizes on a global level. For the past decade, she has worked for Siemens Energy Solutions as Global Head of IT driving large scale transformation projects across a global organization.

Joanne further volunteers her time at local and global community levels as a Digital Isle of Man (DIOM) Executive Board Director; a committee member of LOVE TECH (IOM) charity promoting STEM careers for girls & young women; and as a global speaker at on Women in Tech, STEM, or how IoT & digitalization contribute to sustainability and SDGs/ESGs.

Passionate about the North, I work with software entrepreneurs grow and scale businesses that will have a global impact. Sure Valley Ventures is an entrepreneur led venture capital fund focused on helping software entrepreneurs grow and scale businesses. Sure Valley Ventures is a seed stage fund that helps exceptional founders of early-stage software companies to achieve rapid scale up. We focus on areas of large growth and work closely with companies to provide them with funding, focus and insight to help them achieve their ambitions. This approach has led Sure Valley Ventures to deliver a strong and consistent performance. We are an early-stage investor focusing on seed rounds. We go the extra mile to support growth, recognising that the provision of capital is not the only way we can support exceptional founders. Therefore, we also provide advice, operational expertise, access to far-reaching networks and insight through our Platform. We specialise in investing, growing, and scaling breakthrough companies with ambitious founders in the following key technology sectors: Artificial Intelligence (AI/ML) Immersive Technologies, Gaming, eSports Internet of Things (IoT) Cybersecurity and Infosec.

With almost 30 years of growing businesses under her belt, Patrycja is now supporting the growth of other businesses.

Awarded 'Quality of the Year 2008' for management and innovative training, gained numerous industry accreditations for her clients and supported the launch of companies and products from training, through FMCG to fintech platforms.

Blue-chip companies include Lego, BMW, Scania, as well as the armed forces, and government agencies. Her expertise lies in leveraging technology to enable growth. She has worked with several renowned tech incubators and accelerators mentoring tech founders.

She founded Open Solutions Global (opensolutions-london.co.uk), a boutique consulting firm, to assist growth-oriented companies and innovative start-ups with their tech launch and market expansion. Founder of London Business Academy and Chapter Director for Startup Grind, supporting tech ecosystems in Leeds and the North East of England.

Patrycja has always believed that empathy, listening, and a full understanding of clients' needs are crucial to building successful partnerships; something that leads to trust. With her youthful energy and industry-veteran experience, her company has enjoyed supporting and scaling up businesses in the UK, in the US and in Europe.