Mentors All

Dan Crow has been CTO of London music startup Songkick for the last three years. Before that he spent five years at Google in New York and London, where he led engineering teams working on search, ads and Android. Before moving to NYC he spent a decade in Silicon Valley. He was a tech lead at Apple for four years in the late 1990s then did a series of startups, including co-founding Blurb, which lets you publish your own books. Dan holds a BSc in Computer Science and a PhD in Machine Learning. He is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Leeds University.

David is a business leader specialising in growing businesses - with experience both in large corporates and start-ups. He has extensive experience in identifying market opportunities, building teams, launching products and services.

Neil spent 10 years with KPMG and worked at Firth Rixson the IAEG, in 1994 he was appointed F.D. During Firth Rixson's IPO Neil oversaw a period mass expansion, including the acquisition of Aurora. He led the "public to private" transaction in 2003 and secured a successful exit for the private equity owner, Carlyle.

Joe is an experienced UX designer, focused on interaction design in applications and services. In his current role at WANdisco Joe contributes design suggestions and usability improvements to the Apache Bloodhound project and is also responsible for making WANdisco’s software offers easier to understand, more efficient to use, more discoverable and more relevant.

John Webb is Marketing Director for Startups & Developers at Rackspace – The Open Cloud Company, having previously led Marketing at Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, Red Dead Redemption), Yahoo! and Heinz, amongst others.

As VP of Business Development for Processor Division at ARM, Michael is responsible for identifying investment and acquisition opportunities that complement the ARM processor technology roadmap, our existing business model and that have the potential to open up new revenue streams in the future.

As co-founder of Seven Hills, Nick has helped create the UK's fastest-growing PR consultancy (PR Week, 2012). In 2013 he was appointed StartmeupHK Ambassador for Invest Hong Kong working with the Hong Kong government to promote entrepreneurial links between London and Hong Kong. Nick leads campaigns for some of the highest profile entrepreneurs in the UK, including Julie Meyer, chief executive of Ariadne Capital; David Richards of WANdisco and Paul Lindley, the multi-award winning founder of Ella's Kitchen.

James is Twilio’s Director of European Marketing, and brings over 20 years experience of working at the intersection of telecommunications and the web; covering marketing, product development, product management and sales.

Andy has more than 20 years commercial and corporate development experience. He has co-founded and served as a main Board Director and Vice President of both private and publicly listed companies in the UK and USA. His work covers entertainment media and information technology in mobile, games, internet and media sectors – a combination that is ever more relevant as the technology and media industries become increasingly interdependent.

Dan has over 11 years of entrepreneurial experience in the creative and digital industries. His first business – DKPM – became a 20 strong brand design business based in Sheffield & London. Clients included BAFTA, Sony PlayStation and Hasbro. He sold his shares in that business to his founder partner in 2009. In 2004 Dan set up Sonic ID – the world’s first transatlantic sound design business – which is now part of The Illustrious Company. Client work included Dolby, First Direct and BP. He is now CEO of Techdept – a web technology business which employs 15 full time in Sheffield & London. Clients include Activision, American Express, and British Gas.

Zack is Co-founder & CEO of Cherry Bird, an online student letting platform which brings transparency to property search, rental & management. Prior to founding Cherry Bird, Zack has consulted for Groupon, MyVoucherCodes, Channel 4 & many others. Zack loves to travel and is an active member of the international JCI community.

I work for Microsoft as a Senior Software Development Engineer on Skype for Xbox One (recently move from the Skype for Windows Phone team). I’ve written several Windows Phone apps both personally and for clients while I worked at digital creative agency: Pixel Lab. I’ve also co-written training courses on client technologies such as WPF and Silverlight for Microsoft product groups and Microsoft Learning.

Tim has a background in systems administration and server management. Tim knows about marketing (specifically around communities), sales and startup challenges in customer development. Tim's specialisms are in Sysadmin, marketing, hosting, scaling, customer development and community. Interests in hiking, climbing and general mountaineering, a bad photography habit and a chronic case of digital rights activism.

George is founder of IncuBusLDN, the worlds first entrepreneur incubator on a London Bus. After exiting an Edtech company in the US, George worked as an engineer for Huddle, a VC funded start-up in Old Street and co-hosts the popular Flagons Den meet up group.