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Nick Jenkins read Russian at Birmingham University before moving to Moscow in 1990. After spending a year setting up a sales operation for Linde has was asked to join Marc Rich, the global commodity trading company which later became Glencore. He spent eight years in Russia before heading back to the UK in 1998.

Having decided that he wanted to setup his own business, Nick joined the full time MBA programme at Cranfield (98-99) while he developed a number of possible business plans. The business plan for Moonpig was submitted as part of his course work on the Entrepreneurship course.

Within a week of leaving Cranfield, Nick had created a company, rented an office and started work. Moonpig.com launched to the public in April 2000. After five difficult rounds of investments and moments of teetering on the brink, the business finally made a profit by 2005, and by the time it sold in 2011, Moonpig had five million customers. The company floated in 2021 and now sells over 35 million personalised cards a year.

Since 2008 Nick has invested in 28 start-ups, 8 of which as a panellist on Dragons’ Den in 2015-16. He is currently the Chairman and largest shareholder of an enterprise SaaS software business which provides drop shipping software to large retailers. He is also the largest shareholder in which provides home energy management services and devices to several million homes through utility company. His focus is now on sustainable energy, though in 2024 he opened the South Wilts Ski Club, an indoor infinity ski slope.

Nick has been involved in the charity sector since 2010 as CEO and then trustee of  (2010-14) which is now one of the largest multi-academy trusts in the UK. From 2015-21 he was a trustee of the  which runs nine state academies in South London.

Nick has been a Trustee of since 2015. The charity provide surgery to women who have untreated obstetric fistulae, mainly in sub–Saharan Africa.

Martin Rigby, ET Capital

Martin Rigby has been a venture capital fund manager for over 30 years. He is founder and managing director of ET Capital Limited, an early-stage venture investment firm based in Cambridge.  Prior to founding ET Capital, he was an investment manager at 3i plc.

He is chairman of FSE Group, which manages a series of equity and debt funds across the UK with £350M AUM.  He is also a non-executive director of VPC Specialty Lending PLC a quoted UK investment trust (LSE: VSL) providing asset-backed lending to businesses and consumers globally.

Previously, he was chairman of MJog, the medtech messaging business, and a non-executive director of Bango plc (AIM: BGO) the mobile payments platform.  He was also founder and CEO of Psonar, a streaming music platform.  He is an advisory board member of The Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship at 果酱视频官网.  He read history for his first degree at New College, Oxford, has an MBA from Cranfield and a degree in IT and Computing from The Open University.

John E Milad, ERS Genomics

John brings over 25 years’ experience as an executive leader, board member, venture capital investor and investment banker focussed on the life sciences and medical technology sectors. He is currently the CEO of ERS Genomics, a global leader in licensing the Nobel Prize-winning CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology.

Previously, he was co-founder and CEO of Quanta Dialysis Technologies, leading the development and commercial launch of an award-winning portable hemodialysis system designed to transform the delivery of kidney care to patients. He drove market entry into the UK and US, while raising a record-breaking $245 million private funding round and clinching the prestigious MacRobert Award for engineering excellence. Prior to this, he served as CFO of Nitec Pharma, transitioning the company from development to commercial stage.

John is also an experienced venture investor, with previous roles as Partner and co-Head of Healthcare Ventures at Downing LLP and Investment Director at NBGI Ventures. Before that, he worked at Atlas Venture and Kirkland Investors. Successful exited investments include Symetis, ACT/Epix, BoneSupport and WebMD.

He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and previously served on the i4i selection panel for translational research at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

John currently serves on as a Trustee on the Board of Kidney Research UK and is a business mentor at the Royal Academy of Engineering’s accelerator program. John is recognized by the Sunday Times Maserati List as one of the UK’s "Top 100 Game Changing Innovators and Entrepreneurs” and recipient of the MacRobert Award for outstanding engineering innovation.

Charles Winward, YFM Equity Partners

With 20 years’ investing experience, Charlie began his career as a technologist at JP Morgan, working in a variety of roles in London, New York and Brussels. He then completed an MBA at the University of California before joining IP Group plc in 2007. Charlie’s work there included supporting the rapid growth of several companies and, latterly, he was the Board Director responsible for IP Group’s venture capital fund management. From 2016, he co-led the VCT team at NVM, including re-launching the firm’s growth investment strategy, which included successfully building out a team of investors and growing the portfolio to over 40 investments.

Charlie subsequently helped to deliver the sale of the NVM VCT business to Mercia and integrate the teams in 2019/20. Since 2022, he has been responsible for portfolio management for YFM Private Equity across the South of England. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with his family, keeping fit playing tennis and football. He is a novice gardener and long-time season ticket holder of a prominent northern team, both of which investments have struggled to bear recent fruits. He participated in the US West Coast VCIC competition in 2000!

Alison Cooper, Alicia J Diamonds

As an entrepreneur and natural innovator, Alison Cooper finds creative solutions to gaps in the market. She has successfully built and scaled several businesses.

Alison sold En Route International, her award-winning multi-million-pound global on-board service business, to dnata (Emirates Group) in 2017, and went on to create Alicia J Diamonds, a specialist bespoke jewellery service. She has also been involved in holiday properties in the south of England and is also a co-director of interior design company Design’d Living, which operates in the UK and Dubai.

Steve Lyons, Innovate UK

I love being around people who are positive, determined and ambitious. Being given the chance to help entrepreneurs realise their business aspirations is a privilege that I find both challenging and rewarding.

Over the last 15 years I’ve supported businesses doing everything from artificial intelligence in advertising, drone logistics in medicine, electric motorbikes for first responders and those developing revolutionary fertility treatments.

I’m an experienced access to finance professional who has raised £18.5 Million in equity investment and £9.8 million in grant funding over the last 4 years. Mostly for businesses at seed and pre-seed stage.