Judges

Stephen is a founder, was CEO and is currently Deputy Chairman of the World of Books Group, which is a circular economy, for profit business that protects the planet and supports charities by enabling more goods to be re-used. Based in West Sussex and including World of Books, Ziffit and Shopiago brands, in thirteen years this tech enabled business has grown from a start-up into one of the largest online sellers of used books in the world. In 2019 the Group was awarded certified B Corporation status and is committed to using its business as a force for good.

Nohman Ahmed is one of the three brothers who founded the group Undercover Brothers which specialises in the lifestyle fashion industry, one of the brands under their ownership is Crep Protect which has revolutionised the shoe care industry. Crep Protect was ranked the 2nd fastest growing independent company in the UK (Ref Sunday Times 2019) and the 7th fastest in Europe (Ref Financial Times 2019).

The group also owns one of Europe’s largest sneakef marketplaces - KLEKT and operates multiple luxury sneaker boutiques internationally under the brand “Presented By”.

Sam is the Operations and People Director at Goat. With over ten years of marketing operations experience, he works closely with senior leaders at Goat to drive forward the expansion of the business. Since joining Goat in 2019, Sam has led several successful growth projects with a focus on improving employee experience, training, and development within the agency.

Family Business United (‘FBU’) is an unparalleled rallying point and voice for the family business sector that champions family firms across the UK. FBU affords family businesses the opportunity to network, explore ways of dealing with specific issues that are unique to family firms and provides access to the best articles and insights from around the world. Innovative events, a bespoke magazine and an award-winning website plus an incredible presence on social media enhances their offering. Family firms are at the very heart of FBU, an organisation that really does put family business on the map.

After 15 years working in Private Wealth Management, Paul co-founded the business with Stephen Moore launching their first Flight Club in October 2015 in Shoreditch. In 2018 the first international Flight Club was opened in Chicago followed a year later by the launch of both the businesses TopCo, Red Engine, and a second concept, Electric shuffle in Canary Wharf. By the end of 2021, the business will have 10 sites nationally and 5 sites internationally in the USA and Australia.

Kyle leads origination efforts for the firm’s Growth Business and Long-term Capital investment strategies. He is responsible for generating new opportunities by sourcing mission-driven businesses with ambitions to address social and environmental challenges at scale.

Kyle works closely with the teams to develop and explore attractive investment themes and business models. He leads on managing advisory relationships and seeks to build the Bridges brand across the business community.

A passionate supporter of all things start-ups and marketing, Lorna is dedicated to helping small business owners turn their ideas into successful realities.

She does this via her role as head of marketing, where Lorna ensures that entrepreneurs are aware of the support they need to make their ventures flourish.

Prior to Enterprise Nation, Lorna worked in events and marketing for national enterprise campaign StartUp Britain, where she ran high-profile initiatives that aimed to accelerate start-up rates in the UK.

Rachel is the Editor of Growing Business Intelligence. She is the former Enterprise Editor of The Sunday Times and author of eight books about entrepreneurs, business and personal development, including How to Start a Business without any Money, How to Make a Million before Lunch and How to Work for Yourself.

Gemma has over 20 years’ experience from both the commercial and third sector, working in community and corporate fundraising and sales and marketing roles at Marie Curie, the University of Nottingham and as a Trustee for mental health charity, Derbyshire Mind.

Since joining Forest Holidays in 2016, Gemma has spearheaded a number of strategic projects including the development of corporate and strategic partnerships, which have increased income and formed vital collaborative projects. She’s been instrumental in establishing and leading the company’s ESG ambitions.

Gemma now leads Forest Holidays Brand Purpose agenda and has most recently redefined and built the company’s purpose driven brand strategy.

Mark worked in Private Equity prior to co-founding West Cornwall Pasty Co in 1998. The business twice featured in The Sunday Times Fastrack 100, winning The Sunday Times Emerging Brand award and was sold in 2007 for £30m.

Mark is co-founder of ONE FEEDS TWO, a feeding charity that has provided over 10 million school meals to children in poverty, and has worked with entrepreneurs at The Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in Johannesburg as well as appearing as a panelist in the Sky TV series “Cooks to Market”.
Mark now runs JOOI, a modern sexual lifestyle and wellness site.

Oliver leads The Supper Club team to deliver amazing peer learning experiences to founders of growth SME’s.
Online and in-person connections and experiences allow the members to get the peer support they need at the right time on the journey of personal, business and better growth.
At the heart of The Supper Club is an ethos of Give and Get. Our members support each other by openly sharing their experiences and learnings. They help each other to grow and to avoid often costly mistakes.
Previously Oliver led MindTools.com a global learning business that was sold to Emerald Publishing in 2019.

James is passionate about growing businesses and especially enjoys supporting and mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs.

The majority of his Executive career was spent as a private equity backed CFO. His successes include the sale of uSwitch to Zoopla for £190m and the two management buy-outs of Sporting Index for £53m and £76m respectively.
He is a Partner at Positive Momentum and an adviser to BGF where he provides deal support for their potential investments.
He is a Non-Executive Director of his 142 year old family-owned UK manufacturing business – Centurion Safety Products.

Simon Duffy MBE is the founder of leading international skincare brand Bulldog, and the innovative new oral care disruptor, Waken, an innovative new oral care brand. Bulldog launched in 2007 and was acquired by Edgewell Personal Care in 2016. Waken launched in 2019 in the UK and is currently expanding internationally.

CEO of LOVESPACE, a scale-up technology business in the self-storage industry. Our mission is simple—we help people store stuff. Prior to LOVESPACE, held roles at Google and Bain.

Scott is an entrepreneur, investor and speaker in the entrepreneur media industry for the last 20 years. Has founded and co-founded national media companies, offline and online digital publishing and national conferences, awards and exhibitions. Has trained 1,000’s executives in multiple industries and provides regular business consultancy for fast-track start-ups. Currently Brand Director at CEMG the combined publishing and events brand behind Elite Business, Elite Business Live and Elite Franchise, expanding it’s purview includes a range of content for supporting SME fast-track growth companies and digital marketing solutions He’s an experienced host and speaker and known face in entrepreneurial circles.

Environmental Entrepreneur with a 20 years track record of building world class teams in B2B and retail. Specialist skills include, sales, building lean profitable business models, high yield growth, equity/debt finance and risk management. Passionate about building 21st century companies that have purpose over profit but are still commercially viable entities.

Sue Gee is the Business Development Director at Prosper² Media, publisher of Real Business, and has 20 years of running her own training, learning and coaching business under her belt. Accomplished businesswoman and energetic ‘people person’, Sue lives and breathes the contents of her published guide to leadership and management, ‘Who’s driving the bus?’

Simon is a business leader with expertise in the financial and coaching realms. Currently Finance Director of Kingfisher Beer Europe Ltd and with 15 years of FMCG experience and 27 year in all fields Simon loves to focus on the team and individual development and brings to this process a multifaceted approach. Simon encourages all participants to reach out to him as he’s always looking to find innovative ways to help high performers keep growing.

Qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Robson Rhodes in London in 1997. Joined KPMG Corporate Finance in 1998 and advised on over 30 M&A transactions over 15 years. Transaction experience included buy-side and sell-side mandates involving trade and private equity investors, debt fund raising, strategic reviews and business planning. Joined Go Ape in October 2013 becoming first Finance Director and then Managing Director. Non-Executive Director of Go Ape’s USA business.

Darren created Santander’s Growth Capital business nearly 10 years ago following a banking and private equity career supporting high growth SME’s in the UK and Europe. The team facilitates growth projects from strategic acquisitions to R&D and international expansion. Santander Growth Capital is active across a very wide range of sectors and supports entrepreneur founder owner managers as well as institutional equity backed businesses. It is an innovative and flexible form of debt finance designed to help UK businesses grow, without giving away control or significant equity.

Charlie is the cofounder of Newlands Capital. With a combined experience of over 30 years, Fiona McMahon and Charlie founded Newlands to invest in growing, technology enabled UK based businesses. Focusing on making investments of up to £20m, in businesses making profits of £1m to £5m, that have the ability to grow repeat or recurring revenues.

Charlie has been investing in growth companies for over 20 years personally and institutionally having invested in over 70 companies.

His current portfolio of 20 investments includes Capsule-the-smart-simple-online-CRM, Arrival Education, Core Collective, Avora, Gravity Data, Sourcebreaker, Paycasso, Farewill, Triptease, DueDil and Handprint.

Rachel created the Totseat chair harness (for babies who lunch) a journey which encompassed 40 countries, copies and counterfeits. Thanks to its robust intellectual property, the Totseat (somewhat astonishingly!) survived, and from this experience SnapDragon was born.

SnapDragon helps SMEs fight fakes online, with affordable, efficient software which monitors the web for copycats, counterfeits and illicit domains. Protecting revenues, reputations and, importantly, the end consumer, SnapDragon now works with brands around the world.
In 2020, Rachel was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the China Britain Business Council and SnapDragon was awarded the Queen’s Award for Innovation.

Anthony is founder of bOnline, UK’s leading VoIP provider to over 25k micro businesses.

He was previous co-founder/CEO of XLN and co-founder of online stationer Euroffice, exiting both in 2010 for over £100M.

20 years’ experience in professional services consulting with PwC, IBM and Deloitte. Stint as a Ministerial advisor on employment and skills policy. Set up major joint ventures in the employment and education sector.

2016 co-founded Corndel one of the UK’s fastest growing education businesses, providing data analytics and management training to over 4,000 learners a year, working with over 30% of the FTSE 100, 350 employees and growing at c25% per annum.

Passionate about employment, education and skills.

Julia has built three multi-million pound companies and now works with entrepreneurs to help them grow their businesses. She founded Retail Profile Europe, which pioneered the use of pop up kiosks for start-up retailers in shopping centres.

She successfully exited the business and founded Bold Clarity to focus on providing facilitation and training for entrepreneurs and their leadership teams.
Julia combines her business and leadership experience, facilitating workshops and retreats for peer groups - including the Young Presidents Organisation, the Entrepreneurs Organisation and Vistage.
She has worked with thousands of business owners in 20 countries worldwide.

Specialist Private Equity Investor helping SME’ s grow and create value under challenging and complex situations including stressed businesses. Works closely with Investee Management teams and partners to deliver a commercial and practical approach in getting things done and dealing with the challenges in delivering financial and operational business improvements.

Sector generalist with 20+ years’ experience as an Investor, advisor and banker and with particular expertise in cash management, process/profit improvements and risk management, all of which support value creation strategies.

Sean Longsdale joined Santander in June 2012 to help build out the Structured Finance business in the Corporate & Commercial Bank. The team now incorporates a Financial Sponsors team, who manage Private Equity backed transactions; a Growth Capital team who support high growth SME’s to realise their aspirations with debt capital solutions; a Strategic Debt Solutions team who support businesses with complex and/ or leveraged funding needs such as mergers and acquisitions and a Specialised and Project Finance team, who focus on the renewable energy sector and other niche financing requirements.

Dr Graeme Malcolm is CEO and founder of M Squared, a multi-award-winning photonics and quantum technology company. It’s one of the UK’s most innovative and disruptive technology businesses, well-known for creating the world’s purest light. Graeme is deeply committed to finding technological and entrepreneurial solutions to society’s pressing problems, including improving healthcare, halting climate change and ushering in a new generation of quantum solutions. He’s a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Institute of Physics. In 2015, he was awarded an OBE for his services to Science and Innovation.

My background is in design and print. I started my own consultancy in September 1991 handling print and advertising for city firms and recruitment consultancies. In 2001 I joined my partner Clare Harris in her newly established business Talking Tables. We design, manufacture, import and export stylish party accessories, paper tableware, gifts, and games. We now employ 50 people with turnover over £20m, with a US based subsidiary. My main activities include finance, IT and supply chain. Every day we are entrepreneurial, solving challenges, making process improvements, and growing the business. This year we have applied for B Corp certification.

Chris launched the emporia brand into the British and Irish markets in January 2020 shortly after he joined the business. He is a well-respected industry leader with over 25yrs of experience spanning technology, telecommunications, and mobile. Chris has been quoted extensively in the quality press and market-leading analyst reports on the mobile market and specifically the niche senior segment. He is passionate about enabling seniors to use technology through various means including its simplification in order to add real and measurable benefit to the daily life of the user.

Katy began managing the business after her late father and founder of Trent passed away in 2011. The importance of maintaining the family business that he had worked most of his years in building is what motivates her.

Having a background in business management, finance and customer relationships helped Katy endure a steep learning curve and navigate difficult times. She believes that Service and Quality should be of the highest standard in everything we do and continues to strive for this.

As MD of O’Donovan Waste, Jacqueline is one of the waste and construction sectors’ most passionate pioneers of employee-training, industry best-practice and road-safety. Jacqueline is recognised as an innovator and a leading-force in the industry and is a keen advocate of sustainable-operations as well as encouraging diversity and inclusion. She has received numerous accolades for her work and holds several respected fellowships/affiliations with professional organisations/bodies in the sector. She is a recipient of the Growing Business ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ title as well as the Women’s Economic Forum naming her as their Woman of the Decade in Enterprise and Leadership.

I have been a civil servant for 22 years. My most recent role at the Department of International Trade (DIT) is London Export Champion Manger. The main purpose of this role is to manage an ambassadorial/ focus group of high exporting SME’s in London. This group is known as the London Export Champions. The main purpose of this group is to Encourage low and potential exporters to export through our marketing campaign and DIT led events. We also used the group for insight into business challenges and barriers that helps shape future policy including Free Trade Agreements.

Deputy Managing Director to Micro-Scooters UK, a highly successful brand in the UK and internationally with a strong presence in the children and adult scooter market. I oversee our sales function across our owned E-Commerce platform, our marketplace partners and our retail accounts. Prior to joining Micro-Scooters I spent a decade at Mattel, the global toy business. During this time I worked in a number of marketing and sales roles, latterly heading up the Mattel digital sales channels for the Uk and Ireland.

David has received many business awards including:-

An honorary doctorate from the University of Roehampton, London in 2015, having chaired the RU Business School’s Advisory Board from 2010 until 2016.

The Institute of Directors’ Entrepreneurial Director Award, 2003.The Lloyds TSB Award for Outstanding Management, 2005 Parcelforce Small Business of the Year, 2004.

Since launching Bambino Mio in 1997, Guy has been on a mission to not only develop and grow Bambino Mio but the entire reusable nappy industry via his work as Chair of the Nappy Alliance.

Guy is dedicated to educating parents about the financial, environmental and health benefits of reusable nappies and has helped to create an industry and product category which continues to grow in relevance and popularity all over the world.
Over 21 years later, an MBE, 100+ awards and distributing to over 50 countries; Bambino Mio is the most accessible reusable nappy brand in the world.

Bradley Scheffer has spent over 35 years selling at the highest level. He was the number one salesperson at Yellow Pages, Canon and Pitney Bowes, he achieved sales of over a million pounds a year in each company. He has run his own sales business for over 27 years, training graduates to experienced salespeople.

Currently Head of Finance & HR at Matthews & Goodman LLP as well as board member since 2013 looking after the day to day running of the business, overseeing the finance, IT, business support, HR and marketing functions. Owner/Director of the Seaside Boarding House in Dorset. Trustee of a housing benefits charity in SELondon.

Previously spent 20 years in film post-production growing businesses from owner led start-ups to international creative hubs, including 3 years based in Chicago.

Member of the start-up teams of the Met Film School, then at Ealing Studios and One Alfred Place, an early adopter of the business club model.

Charlotte Thomason is the Associate Director of SMEs at the Confederation of British Industry. Charlotte works closely with small businesses to ensure their voice is championed to government and political stakeholders; and is passionate about the power of small business to drive innovation.

Amber is Events Director at Real Deals Media and Director of Growing Business Intelligence.Prior to joining Real Deals Media, Amber spent nine years at Argus Media, developing and building up an events portfolio, spanning the energy industry across Europe and Africa. During this time, she launched the European Biomass Conference, and specialised the launch of events in developing countries including Tanzania, Ghana and South Africa. Since joining Real Deals Media three years ago, Amber has grown the events portfolio across the private equity sphere in Europe, as well as leading and driving the growing business audience via both events and content.

Having spent eight years working as a comms planner in London media agencies, Paddy made the move client side two years ago to take up a role as Global Head of Media for MPB, the world’s largest online platform for used photography and videography equipment. Spending time both agency and client side has enabled a unique perspective into “both sides of the fence” in terms of the benefits and drawbacks of in-housing and outsourcing marketing agencies, as well as the key marketing levers that help brands grow. Paddy lives in West Sussex with his wife and two children.