2025 Judges
Gemma joined All Seas Capital in 2020, initially as a Managing Director, and is now a Partner and Head of Investor Relations.
Before joining All Seas, Gemma spent nearly a decade at MML Capital Partners, where she initially served as a member of the investment team before taking on responsibility for fundraising and investor relations. She began her career at BDO and later moved to PwC in corporate finance. Gemma is a graduate of the University of Leicester.
Claire Burden leads Consulting practice and specialises in corporate growth and performance improvement, strategy advisory, working capital and cash flow, value creation and cost reduction.
Experience
Claire built upon Big Four audit, restructuring and advisory experience with ten years in industry, successfully leading transformation programmes and supporting both high growth and working capital constrained businesses. With a breadth of Board level and hands-on experience and a proven track record for operational and strategic delivery, Claire works intelligently and creatively to drive both short term performance improvement and real change over the medium to long-term.
This industry experience provides Claire with commercial acumen and a deep understanding of the challenges businesses face, and importantly, how to alleviate them. Claire has worked across business sizes and sectors with specialisms in energy and renewables, professional services, manufacturing, technology and not-for-profits.
David is a Senior Investment Director with over 20 years’ experience in venture, seed and scale-up investing.
David has a demonstrable track record of investing in a range of sectors including software, media and consumer technologies, marketplaces, SaaS and business services. David has extensive Board experience helping the founders he has backed to achieve their goals. David was previously Investor Director at Edge Investments and ElderstreetInvestments.
Prior to working in venture capital, David worked for ten years in corporate finance and strategy consulting at Deloitte and KPMG.
Previously, Ms. Kong was an independent advisor to private equity firms and large corporates. Ms. Kong was formerly the Managing Partner at Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s advisory and consulting services. Prior to that, Ms. Kong was an Associate Director at EY’s transaction advisory services and an Executive Advisor at KPMG’s deal advisory team. Ms. Kong is a trustee of the Rosetrees Trust, a charitable foundation that has supported cutting-edge medical research for over 30 years. She also serves on the Risk & Audit Committee of The Biochemical Society, a global community founded in 1911, representing the breadth of the molecular biosciences. Ms. Kong earned her B.Sc. in Business Information Technology and M.Com. in International Business from the University of New South Wales. She is also a qualified accountant (ACCA).
Lizzie partners with LDC portfolio company management teams to deliver operational improvement, integration and carve out projects.
Lizzie has over twenty years’ experience supporting a wide range of companies deliver their strategic priorities with a focus on synergies, integration and carve outs. She has extensive experience in delivering complex change programmes, managing risks and enhancing value whilst working collaboratively with management teams to focus not just on the financial and delivery aspects of any change programme but also the softer skills side including employee engagement and culture.
Lizzie joined LDC from Cortus Advisory, where she established a mid-market integration and separation advisory practice. Prior to this, Lizzie was at KPMG where she was a Partner in their Deal Execution Strategy team.
Lizzie holds a BA in Modern Languages from Durham University and an MBA from the Alliance Manchester Business School.
Over 8 years of experience spanning investment management, focusing on FMCG and private equity funds, before pivoting into early-stage and Series A consumer startups. I combine a Finance degree from the University of Nottingham, an MSc in Digital Marketing from Loughborough University, and an MBA from Imperial College London to bridge strategy, growth and operations in fast-scaling ventures.
Chris joined Phoenix in 2017 and has over 15 years of private equity experience. He sits on the Investment Committee and focuses his investment activity on all things data, digital and technology.
Alec is Managing Partner at Primary Capital and has nearly 20 years of private equity experience. He sits on the Investment Committee and leads investment activity and value creation across the portfolio.”
International scale-up and growth leader with a passion for creating safe spaces and developing future leaders. Currently pursuing an MBA at Warwick Business School on a scholarship from the 30% Club for inspiring women in business. Kate has experience in leading M&A across industries, in particular in start up and growth stage businesses, building high performance leadership teams. She has won over 30 awards, including HR most influential and Mogul top 100 CHRO's.
In her spare time, she provides consulting services through the Agile HR community and has supported high profile businesses including Netflix, GSK, BMW and more.
Lennys is responsible for overseeing a wide range of internal operations at NVOY, including HR, Health and Safety, Finance, Procurement, and Company Secretarial functions. She brings extensive experience from similar roles across diverse industries, spanning Tech, Finance, and Healthcare. Now, she is dedicated to supporting NVOY and its clients in achieving growth and success. Outside of work, Lennys enjoys traveling and has a strong passion for the arts.
Prash works across LDC’s national portfolio partnering with management teams to deliver data strategies and analytics use-cases that generate insights, commercial value, and operational efficiencies.
He joined LDC from Condor Flugdienst, a private equity backed airline, where he was interim Data Director. Prior to this he worked in data focused leadership roles across privately owned and private equity backed businesses, after a consulting career at Newton Europe. He has experience defining and delivering value creation plans across sectors including Business Services, Industrials, Technology, Healthcare & Retail.
Prash has a Masters degree in Physics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Nuclear Waste Disposal from the University of Cambridge.
Outside of work he can be found enjoying the Welsh coastline, subjecting his wife to his cooking, and wheezing at the gym.
Terry leads the Entrepreneur Sector for S&W and his passion centres around working with privately owned entrepreneurial and family businesses.
Terry specialises in working with owners and senior stakeholders of privately run businesses, helping them to structure their businesses and/or personal wealth, protect their assets, undertake next generation planning, incentivise their staff and work alongside them in all aspect of their business and personal growth journey.
Terrys experience centres around providing holistic support to private clients and their business interests. Terry has over 20 years' experience supporting business owners and key stakeholders through all stages of their business's life cycle, whether it be starting up, scaling, retention and recruitment of talent via the use of tax efficient employee incentives, through to strategic acquisitions and subsequent exits events.
Rachel Stockey is Head of Entrepreneurial Skills at the Entrepreneurship Institute at King’s College London where she’s responsible for helping staff, students, and alumni to develop entrepreneurial skills and mindsets. Rachel also oversees the support for early-stage ventures to help new founders go from idea to first customers. Outside of King’s Rachel is the Founder of The Disruptive Realm, a training and coaching company focused on supporting the humans behind startups and upskilling the start up ecosystem around Founder Wellbeing and Mental Health.
Toby Tallon provides tax advice to around 40 families in respect of their personal affairs, trusts and businesses. His focus is helping business-owning families with success and succession and heads S&W’s private tax entrepreneurs and private business team. This includes entrepreneurs seeking to grow and successfully sell their businesses, often to reinvest into the next venture, and families planning to improve and pass on the family business to the next generation. Toby is a chartered tax adviser and chartered accountant with over 20 years’ experience.
For nearly 30 years, I worked in high-level corporate roles, often being the only woman, the youngest voice, or the one pushing for change in rooms that resisted it. I succeeded. And yet, I also silenced myself more times than I care to admit. Then life cracked me open. Redundancy. Burnout. Grief. And from that collapse… something extraordinary was born.
Now, I run two powerful ventures
Metamorforsuccess – Inspiring Leadership Endeavour
Thrive Beyond Boundaries Academy
Where I help women (and some brilliant men too) reclaim their power, speak up with purpose, and lead in ways that honour who they truly are.
I’m also the author of:
From Burnout to Bliss: The Ultimate 90 Day Guide to Emotional & Mental Abundance
Speak With Impact: Transforming Presentation Fear into Charismatic Leadership
My mission is to inspire people to own their story, find their voice, and live the life they were born for, fully, unapologetically, and joyfully
