Doug Richard
Chairman - Library House

Having appeared in the second series of Dragons' Den, Doug is the founder and Chairman of Library House, Founder and Vice-Chairman of the Cambridge Angels, Co-Founder and Chairman of trutap and Chairman of the Conservative Party Small Business Task Force.

Doug is a successful entrepreneur with 20 years' experience in the development and leadership of technology and software ventures, both in the US and in the UK. Between 1996 and 2000 he was President and CEO of Micrografx, a US publicly quoted software company which he sold to Corel Corp. in 2000. Prior to that he also founded and subsequently sold two other companies: Visual Software and ITAL Computers.

Doug holds a BA in Psychology from University of California at Berkeley and a Juris Doctor at the school of Law, University of California at Los Angeles. In 2006 Doug was an Honorary Recipient of The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion.

Ian Leslie
Pro Vice Chancellor, University of Cambridge

Professor Ian Leslie was born in Canada and gained his first degree in Engineering Science and his Masters in Electrical Engineering at the university of Toronto. He came to the University of Cambridge for his PhD and stayed on at the Computer Laboratory after completing it in 1983.

He was founder of Nemesys Research Ltd, which exploited the results of research work done in the department and co-founded Cplane Inc. Professor Leslie is currently Head of the Computer Laboratory at Cambridge and serves on the University Council and a number of its committees. His special responsibilities will cover research issues.

Bill Janeway
Warburg Pincus

Bill Janeway's experience encompasses over 30 years of practical finance in investment banking and venture capital. Since joining Warburg Pincus in 1988, he has focused the firm to develop its investment activities in Information Technology on distributed computing, now radically extended by the commercialization of the Internet. Under his leadership, Warburg Pincus has funded leading providers of eBusiness infrastructure, including BEA Systems and VERITAS Software.

Bill is a Senior Advisor at Warburg Pincus. From 1988 to 2000, he was managing director and head of the High Tech Team. Prior to Warburg Pincus, he was with F. Eberstadt & Co. Inc., which he joined as a corporate finance associate in 1971. He served as Eberstadt's vice president and director of corporate finance from 1979 to 1988.

Bill is a member of the board of directors of BEA Systems Inc., Fortent (formerly SearchSpace), O'Reilly Media Inc., Nuance Inc., NYFIX Inc., and Wall Street Systems Inc.

Bill was a Marshall Scholar in 1965 through 1968, and in 1965 was valedictorian of Princeton University. He holds a BA from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School and a Ph.D. in Economics from Cambridge University. He is chairman of the board of trustees of Cambridge in America, University of Cambridge; founding manager of the Cambridge Endowment for Research in Finance, University of Cambridge; Honorary Fellow, Pembroke College, University of Cambridge; and director of the Social Science Research Council.

Arnoud de Meyer
Judge Business School

Director of Judge Business School
Professor of Management Studies
Fellow of Jesus College

Before joining Judge Business School, Professor De Meyer was associated for 23 years with INSEAD as a professor and as Dean for the MBA programme, Executive Education and the Euro Asia Centre. He was also the founding Dean of INSEAD's Asia Campus in Singapore. Professor De Meyer has been a part-time professor at the University of Antwerp and Ghent in Belgium, and was a visiting professor at the University of Kiel, Waseda University in Tokyo, Keio University in Tokyo, and the Birla Institute of Technology in India.

Non-Executive Board Member of the Management Board of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (from 2007), member of the Board of Dassault Systemes, Paris (from 2005) and Option International, N.V., Belgium (from 1997). Previously, Professor De Meyer has been a member of the Singapore Economic Review Committee (2002) and the Advisory Board of the Waseda Asia-Pacific Institute (1997-2000), and a board member of Infocomm Development Authority, Singapore (2000-2003), Sentosa Island Corporation, Singapore (2001-2002), Ancorabel, N.V., Belgium (1998-2003), the Euro-Asia Centre, Fontainebleau (1988-1992), Video Management, Belgium (1988-2000), and Terbeke International N.V., Netherlands (1986-1989). He has also worked as an instrumentation engineer with Essochem at their Belgium plastics plant and was a research fellow at the Centre for Productivity Study and Research, University of Ghent. His military service involved a detachment to the Belgian Prime Minister's Office, as part of the Programmation of Science Policy.

Joel Dreyfuss
Editor-in-Chief - Red Herring

Joel Dreyfuss joined Red Herring from Bloomberg Markets in New York City, where he spent three years as a senior writer covering technology. He served two stints at Fortune magazine, most recently as a senior editor and author of a widely read column on personal technology.

Before joining Bloomberg, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Urban Box Office, a dot-com startup that developed Web sites aimed at young, urban audiences worldwide. He has also served as Editor-in-Chief of Information Week, editor of PC Magazine, New York bureau chief of USA Today, and executive editor of Black Enterprise magazine.

Joel is a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists, and a former Urban Journalism Fellow at the University of Chicago. He has served as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes and for the National Magazine Awards, and as a board member of the American Society of Magazine Editors.

Andy Richards
Biotechnology entrepreneur

Andy Richards is an established serial Biotechnology entrepreneur and business angel. He is non executive Chairman of Geneservice, a non executive director of Vectura plc, Biowisdom, Daniolabs, Theradeas, Cancer Research Technology Ltd (commercial arm of CR-UK) and Babraham Bioscience Technology Ltd.

He was a founder of Chiroscience in 1992 and an executive director through to the merger with Celltech in August 1999. Since that time he has been founding and investing in new biotechnology companies including several of those listed above as well as Arakis, Cambridge Biotechnology Ltd, Amedis Pharmaceuticals and Sirus Pharmaceuticals all of which have been sold.

Prior to founding Chiroscience he was at ICI (now AstraZeneca) and PA Consulting. He is a Cambridge graduate with a PhD in Enzyme Chemistry. He is a founder member of the Cambridge Angels, a founder investor in Library House, a member of the Council of UEA and a director of the Bioindustry Association (BIA). In 2006 he was voted both Cambridge Evening News Businessman of the Year as well as one of the Top 100 Living Contributors to Biotechnology.

Richard Ellis
Chairman - EEDA

Richard Ellis was reappointed as Chair of the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) for a further three years in December 2006.

Richard was Chief Executive of Kettle Foods until 2000 and is Managing Director of Norfolk Country Cottages. Richard is a chartered management accountant, a trustee of Norwich Theatre Royal, a member of the Regional Council of the Prince's Trust, a Director of The Forum Trust and a Director of Rothamstead Research.

Richard is the lead Chair for the nine English Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) on rural and sustainable development issues. In this role he represents RDAs and rural partners in work with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Richard is Chair of the EEDA's Strategy committee and EEDA's Remuneration and Selection committee.

Alex van Someren

Alex van Someren grew up near Cambridge, became involved with local firm Acorn Computer as a young teenager and left school at 17 to join the company, where he worked on the BBC Microcomputer, and its successor the Acorn Electron.

With his brother, Dr. Nicko van Someren, he established a business selling computer hardware products within their father's company, Aleph One, in 1986. They went on to set up their first independent business ANT Limited, now ANT plc, in 1990 to produce networking products, including Web Browser software which they licensed to the US database firm Oracle Corporation.

In 1996 he and Nicko founded nCipher, with venture capital backing, to develop internet security products using cryptography. nCipher plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2000 and counts major banking, finance and government among its customers around the world. ANT plc was listed on the London AIM market in 2005 and is now positioned in the embedded software market for IPTV.

Alex has authored several books on computer applications and microprocessors, including the first published book on the ARM RISC chips, which was also translated into Japanese.

He still lives in Cambridge with his wife and three children, where he is an active member of the local entrepreneurial community.

Charles Cotton
NED - Library House

Charles is Non-Executive Director of Library House and has extensive experience running global private and public technology companies based in the US and Europe. In addition, he has delivered high-level consulting assignments in Europe and Asia. In addition to his Library House involvement, he is a Director of Solarflare Communications; a Supervisory Board Member of Tele Atlas, the Euronext Amsterdam listed supplier of digital maps; an investor in and adviser to venture capital firms; and a business angel. Previously, he was Executive Chairman of GlobespanVirata Inc. the NASDAQ listed, New Jersey based, semiconductor company. Prior to the merger with GlobeSpan, he was CEO of Santa Clara based Virata Corp. He took Virata public on NASDAQ, in 1999, raised $674 million across six financing rounds, executed five acquisitions and established and ran a venture fund.

Previously, he was a Partner at Schofield Maguire, the business consulting firm. Before that he was CEO of Shandwick Europe; President of Boston Mass. based Thermal Scientific Inc, and a Director of London Stock Exchange listed Thermal Scientific Ltd. Prior to that he was Sales and Marketing Director at Sinclair Research Ltd. and held senior Operations, Finance, Marketing and Product Planning positions at British Leyland and Ford. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and has a BA Hons. in Physics from Oxford University.

Adrian Critchlow
AlertMe.com

Adrian is Co-Founder and Director of AlertMe. In his role, Adrian is responsible for overseeing the commercial development of the company, helping to communicate and establish the brand and build business partnerships.

A serial entrepreneur, Adrian has founded several extremely successful companies in his beloved city, Cambridge, including ActiveHotels.com, Europe's No.1 online hotel reservation system and Iota Software Ltd. In 1989, having graduated with a degree in General Science and Mechanical Engineering, Adrian began his career in a marketing role at Acorn Computer Group, at the time of the ARM spin out. Adrian quickly developed a taste for business and it was in 1991 that he launched Iota Software, which developed and marketed software used in over 5,000 schools across the UK.

In 1999, Adrian co-founded and was Director of ActiveHotels.com. Hugely successful, it went on to become the fastest growing company in the UK, in 2003, before being sold a year later for £90 million and delivering a 16 fold return to investors.Most recently, Adrian founded Sawston Hall, Luxury Eco-Hotel, a beautiful 16th century hotel outside Cambridge, which is being converted into Europe's first carbon neutral hotel.

Jay Marshall
Managing Director - AlixPartners

Jay is a Managing Director at AlixPartners, a member of the Firm’s leadership team, and responsible for the Firm’s marketing and selling functions in addition to his client work for private equity sponsors.

Jay is an experienced engagement manager, specializing in large corporate transformations that run the gamut from strategy to near term profit improvement to organizational development.  He has significant functional experience in corporate and business unit strategy, process design, change management, leadership, and post merger integration.

He has spent twenty years in management consulting, applying these skills across a variety of industries.  Most prominently, Jay has led a number of assignments in oil and gas, both upstream and downstream, utilities, chemicals, and medical devices.  He has also developed expertise in using technology and process engineering in improving back office performance.

Prior to joining AlixPartners, he was the Managing Partner of the Dallas office of Booz Allen Hamilton, and a partner in their Energy, Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Practice.  While there, he also led their interest group on transformation and won the firm’s Professional Excellence Award.  He holds a BSE in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and an MBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Sord Scholar and received the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence.

Jay lives in Dallas, where he is President of the Board of The Dallas Opera and on the Board of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts.  He is also one of the inaugural Henry Crown Fellows, a program through the Aspen Institute that recognizes young leaders and involves them in intensive study of values-based leadership. He was the first Crown Fellow to serve on the Oversight Board for the Fellowship as well.

Jay is also on the board of XS, Inc., a successful Internet startup in the agricultural chemicals space.

Alexis d'Amecourt
Head of New Media - 19 Entertainment

Alexis is head of New Media at 19 Entertainment where he Enables their artists and brands to expand their interactive presence by taking advantage of media relationships and experience and counts among his clients David Beckham and Victoria, Honda's Formula One Team and The English National Football team.

Prior to 19 he helped start the New Media area at UTA. Represented tech firms and identified emerging companies in a variety of New Media areas. Assisted Brad Turell at Turner Broadcast System/ CNN and shortly thereafter became a publicist in breaking news for CNN. Assisted Robert Newman, head of the Motion Picture Group at International Creative Management.

Peter Thornton
Director External Relations - Arts Council England, East

Peter's background is in education and training and although his preference is for working in the cultural sector, his experience extends far beyond. His current position at Arts Council East is a varied role that includes his instrumental involvement in the development of the Royal Opera House Production Park in Thurrock, a £60 million capital project that will see the Royal Opera House relocate their production operations to the region alongside the headquarters of the new National Skills Academy for the Creative and Cultural Sector and a range of related creative industries. Peter has also been highly influential in brokering the shared investment strategy between Arts Council East and EEDA, a unique partnership that has delivered over £50 million of investment to the arts in the East of England over the last 3 years.

Prior to joining the Arts Council, Peter was as a successful consultant working with private and public sector companies across Europe and the UK helping them tackle issues around change management, building effective teams and establishing strong leadership. Peter also worked for 8 years as a lecturer and in this time helped devise and deliver specialist courses, including the MA in Arts Management at Anglia Ruskin University. As National Director of Artswork, a youth arts charity working with 14-19 year olds outside formal education, Peter was responsible for developing a range of creative projects across the UK.

A graduate of Cambridge University, Peter lives in Cambridgeshire with his wife and two daughters.

Jeremy Knight
Managing Director - FutureFest

Jeremy is responsible for the overall management and development of FutureFest. FutureFest is a division of the Data, Research and Events company, Library House.

Prior to joining Library House he spent 18 years in the publishing and events industry including seven years at Caspian Publishing where he became Group Publishing Director.

He has worked closely with the private equity and venture capital community primarily developing brands and titles - most notably Real Deals, which he launched in 1999. He established the UK Private Equity Awards with the British Venture Capital Association and the European Private Equity Summit & Awards with the European Private Equity & Venture Capital Association and has developed a suite of titles, conferences and online information tools across both financial and technology industries. 

Before life in publishing and events Jeremy spent 10 years in France in the music business.

Vinay Gupta
Co Founder Global Swadeshi Movement

Vinay Gupta is a long term international policy strategist focussing on the transformative power of free and open source appropriate technology systems. He is a close student of Buckminster Fuller and Mahatma Gandhi, and seeks to help people transform their lives at an economic and political level through greater individual self-sufficiency. The crux of this work is bringing integrated appropriate technology solutions to the poorest through designing systems they can use, understand, and afford.

Vinay is best known for the Hexayurt Project, a simple free shelter design which is suitable for mass production after disasters. He has also worked on energy policy and in a variety of roles in the computer industry. A Scot of Indian extraction, Vinay sees his role as being to help cherry pick the best solutions to long term global problems and push them into broad adoption.

He is one of the founders of the Global Swadeshi Movement, a group working to update and modernize Gandhian ideas about long term progress.