Muhannad AlAzzawi has over 26 years of experience in business and investments. His extensive experience includes dealing in international financial markets, contracting and lobbying.

During his long exposure to financial markets, he has gained an invaluable wealth of experience in Treasury, Investments, Infrastructure Projects, Trading and Saudi Government advisory.

Muhannad is the Vice chairman of the National Contractors committee at the council of Saudi Chambers, the Vice chairman of the Contractors committee at Riyadh Chamber of commerce and Industry, and a member of several committees at the Bureau of Experts at the Council of Ministers Member of the Board of Directors, Member of The investment committee, Remuneration and Nomination committee TAIBA Holding a Saudi Joint Stock Company.

Member of the Board of Directors Saudi Golf Federation (SGF) Muhannad has a Bachelors Degree in Computer Engineering.

Myles Allen is Head of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics in the Department of Physics, University of Oxford, and Professor of Geosystem Science in the School of Geography and the Environment. His research focuses on how human and natural influences on climate contribute to climate change and risks of extreme weather. In 2005, Allen introduced the notion of a finite carbon budget, implying net zero emissions of carbon dioxide are necessary to halt global warming. He has been working on the implications ever since, most recently on the case for Geological Net Zero, or a balance between ongoing production of carbon dioxide from geological sources with carbon dioxide capture and geological storage. He has served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, most recently as a Coordinating Lead Author on the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C. He was awarded the Appleton Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics “for his important contributions to the detection and attribution of human influence on climate and quantifying uncertainty in climate predictions”, featured on the BBC’s “Life Scientific” as “the physicist behind net zero”, was awarded a CBE “for services to climate change attribution, prediction and net zero” and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Dr. Shane Arnott, Ph.D, is Senior Vice President of Programs & Engineering at Anduril Industries. Dr. Arnott oversees the Maritime Division and its family of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles; Maneuver Dominance, a strategic pursuit of massed mission autonomy in the ground and surface domains; as well as Engineering development programs in Australia and United Kingdom that support multiple business lines.

Before joining Anduril, Dr. Arnott spent 23 years at The Boeing Company as one of the their top-ranking engineers as a Boeing Senior Technical Fellow. He was the founding leader of the global Phantom Works division, where he worked multiple classified programs in the aerospace domain. His last role was leading the MQ-28 Ghost Bat (“loyal wingman”) program, where he brought the autonomous fighter from sketch to flight within 3 years. Most recently at Anduril, he lead the inception of the Ghost Shark Extra Large Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (XL-AUV) program, a co-development with the Royal Australian Navy including a range of mission payloads, intended to go from clean sheet to combat ready in 3 years. Dr. Arnott was recognized as Innovator of the Year in 2019 and his team received a prestigious Aviation Week Laureate award for outstanding innovation in aerospace in 2021.

Dr. Arnott is a GoFly Master mentor, a Techstars industry mentor, advisory board member of the Stanford University Common Mission Project (in the U.S. and Australia), an Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology and a contributing author to the NATO Allied Capability Transformation Program. He received his Bachelor of Computer Systems Engineering from La Trobe University and his Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Queensland.

Ana Paula Assis is a senior vice president of IBM. She leads IBM’s business operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), driving revenue growth, client satisfaction and employee engagement in a region with more than 100 countries. Ana Paula Assis also has overall responsibility for market development for the company’s growth markets, including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Mexico, UAE, and India.

In addition, as Chair for IBM EMEA, she guides IBM’s relationship with the European Union and other institutions across the region, advancing topics that matter to our business and society.

Previously, she was General Manager for IBM Latin America, where she drove sustained growth and increased market share. She also held multiple positions in the US and China.

An executive with more than 25 years of international experience in the Information Technology market, she has led high-performance sales teams and engaged with clients in their digital transformation journeys.

She is a sought-after speaker who participates regularly in events such as the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, VivaTech, and Mobile World Congress. She speaks about topics spanning the impact of AI in the workforce, quantum computing, and the role of technology as enabler of sustainability agendas.

Ana Paula Assis serves as non-executive director on the board of Trane Technologies, is a member of the advisory board of IESE Business School, and was previously a member of the board of Junior Achievement Americas.

She graduated in Computer Science and holds MBAs by Fundação Getulio Vargas and Fundação Dom Cabral.

She is passionate about cycling and currently resides in Madrid.

Ganesh Bell joined Insight Partners as a Managing Director to invest in and help entrepreneurs build great software & data companies that will define modern enterprise and digital business. He is a profound student of the enterprise software market and industries reimagined by data.

Ganesh has over 25+ years of rare experience as a builder and operating executive across startups, high-growth scaleups, global conglomerates, unicorns, successful exits, IPO, and M&A.

Before joining Insight Partners, he ran Uptake, an AI/ML platform & applications company, was Corporate Officer at General Electric, and CEO of its largest IoT & Analytics software business. Previously he held senior leadership roles at market-defining enterprise software companies including SAP, PeopleSoft, and J.D.Edwards. He started as a developer and has led corporate strategy, engineering, product management, marketing, and sales teams over his career.

He has keynoted large conferences, been featured in business books, leading media, and recognized for his work, including being named #11 in Fast Company’s list of 100 Most Cre-ative People in Business World.

Ganesh Bell holds a B.S in Mathematics from the University of Madras, India, and an M.S in Computer Science from North Dakota State University. He lives in San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and their Australian Cobberdog Moto, named after his passion for motorcycling.

Sir John Bell is President of the Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford.

Professor Sir John Bell CH, GBE, FRS is Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University.  President of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2006 to 2011); Chair, Office for the Strategic Coordination of Health Research until 2017; Chair, Rhodes Trust; UK Life Sciences Champion since 2011.  Appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in 2015 and Companion of Honour (CH) in 2023 for services to medicine, medical research and the life science industry. Co-developed and wrote both the 2017 UK Life Sciences Industrial Strategy and 2021 Life Sciences Vision, providing recommendations to HM Government on ensuring the long-term success of the life sciences sector.  Led the development of the Old Road Campus in Oxford and contributed extensively to the UK response to Covid.

Rosemary’s focus is on the commercialisation of Deep Tech: AI, Quantum, Robotics and Cryptography as an Investor, Advisor and NED following a career in PE. Rosemary serves as  a Non Executive Director of Proton AG and Intermediate Capital Group plc where she  Chairs of the Risk Committee, Senior Advisor in AI research to both the Ellison Institute of Technology Oxford and SanbdoxAQ a spin out of Google chaired by Eric Schmidt. She is a founding LP/ GP at US based Fintech PE fund Motive Partners/Ventures and a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center. She previously was a co-founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, Trustee of the National Gallery, where she Chaired the Digital Advisory Board, and served on the boards of HSBC (UK) and YouGov plc.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. As co-founder/CTO of Inrupt he has developed the Solid Protocol, pioneering open-source technology to provide data sovereignty for citizens, governments and companies. He is the founder of the World Wide Consortium (W3C), and co-founder of the Open Data Institute and World Wide Web Foundation. Sir Tim is an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at Oxford University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and has been the recipient of several honorary degrees and awards, including the Seoul Peace Prize and the Turing Prize.

James Brocklebank co-chairs the global Executive Committee of Advent, a leading international private equity investment firm with ~$90 billion in assets under management and 16 offices in 13 countries.  James heads the European business of Advent and is a member of the Investment Committee in Europe and North America in which capacity he shares responsibility for selecting the investments that Advent makes across all five sectors.  During his career at Advent, James has focused on Business & Financial Services investments, with a particular interest in payments companies.  James joined Advent in 1997 and is based in London.

James is chairman of the Private Equity Taskforce, and a non-executive director, of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), the leading global CEO-level private sector sustainability initiative founded by His Majesty King Charles the Third; sits on the Advisory Council of Level20, an organisation founded with the aim of improving gender diversity in the private equity industry; is a member of the Global Board of Advisors of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an American think tank specializing in US foreign policy and international relations; and a member of the Trilateral Commission, a global gathering of private citizens.

Prior to Advent, James worked on international mergers and acquisitions in the London office of investment bank Baring Brothers and its affiliate Dillon, Read & Co. in New York.  James attended Eton College followed by Cambridge University (Magdalene College). He was a keen oarsman, and represented England in the Under 16 category in 1986.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a New Foundation Fellow of Eton College and a Companion of the Guild of Cambridge University Benefactors.

Sébastien Bubeck is former Vice President, GenAI Research at Microsoft. He won multiple awards for his machine learning results around robustness and optimization. Most recently, he has been interested in understanding how intelligence emerges in large language models. With collaborators at MSR, he wrote the Sparks of AGI paper studying the emergent abilities of GPT-4. This work was covered in The New York Times, Wired, This American Life, and more.

Kimberly S. Budil sets the strategic vision for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and exercises broad delegated powers to ensure successful execution of programs and operations to enhance national security through application of cutting edge science and technology and to maintain an outstanding and diverse workforce. She leads the development and implementation of the Laboratory’s scientific vision, goals and objectives and serves as the Laboratory’s highest-level liaison with the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, the LLNS Board of Governors, the University of California and other government, public and private organizations.

Budil leads a workforce of more than 8,700 employees and manages an annual operating budget of approximately $3 billion. Along with the directors of Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories, she shares the responsibility of providing the United States government with an annual institutional assessment of the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and enterprise. She is the 13th director of the Laboratory and serves as president of Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC.

Budil has held roles of increasing management responsibility at the Laboratory, most recently serving as principal associate director for Strategic Deterrence. Budil served as a detailee twice in Washington, D.C and was Vice President for National Labs at the University of California Office of the President. She currently serves on several boards and participates in numerous professional and community outreach activities.

Budil holds a Ph.D. in engineering and applied science from the University of California, Davis, where she was a Hertz Fellow, and a B.S. in physics from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Ethan is a partner at Khosla Ventures, where he leads the firm’s growth-stage investing. Prior to Khosla, Ethan was a partner at Accel.

Ethan focuses on AI, cyber security, data infrastructure, healthcare, and fintech infrastructure. His current investments and board involvement include OpenAI, ClickHouse, Glean, Cyberhaven, Ramp, Abridge, R1 RCM, Sword Health, Even Healthcare, Anrok, Outsmart College, and others.

Previous investments and board involvement include Canva, 1Password, Klaviyo (NYSE: KVYO), Lynda.com (acquired by LinkedIn), Pismo (acquired by Visa), PicMonkey (acquired by Shutterstock), Lucid Software, Nuvemshop, Headspace, commercetools, Narvar, Invoca, Pluang, and others.

Ethan was originally born in South Korea and immigrated to Australia at an early age. After beginning his studies of Information Systems and Economics at the University of Sydney and serving a two-year mission for his church, he completed his studies at Brigham Young University, earning a degree in accounting.

Kyle Clark is an aerospace engineer, pilot, and the founder and CEO of BETA Technologies, a Vermont-based company working to electrify aviation. Kyle and his team are focused on building solutions that move goods and people more safely, efficiently, and with minimal environmental impact to help shift the transportation paradigm and turn the corner on climate change. To do this, BETA is building innovative electric propulsion systems, electric; net-zero aircraft; and a cross-country, multi-modal charging infrastructure that powers electric transportation more broadly.Prior to founding BETA, Kyle co-founded Venture.co and was Director of Engineering at Dynapower, where he and his team of programmers, engineers, and technicians developed a full line of inverters, pulse modulators, and control systems, and served as a founding partner and Vice President of Engineering at iTherm Technologies. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Kyle played right wing in the NHL’s Washington Capitals organization. He is a Certified Flight Instructor as well as a licensed commercial airplane and helicopter pilot. Kyle holds a degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Harvard University, where he studied flight dynamics and control algorithms.

Sir Nick Clegg is the former UK Deputy Prime Minister (2010-2015) and former President, Global Affairs at Meta (2018-2025). Prior to being elected to the UK Parliament in 2005, he worked in the European Commission and served for five years as a member of the European Parliament. He became leader of the Liberal Democrat party in 2007 and served as Deputy Prime Minister in the UK’s first coalition government since the war, from 2010 to 2015. He joined Meta, then called Facebook, in 2018 and became the company’s chief policy decision-maker and its principal interlocutor with world leaders, governments and policymakers around the globe. He has written two best-selling books, Politics: Between the Extremes and How To Stop Brexit (And Make Britain Great Again).

Dr. Benedict Cross is the Chief Technology Officer and Head of Platform at PhoreMost Ltd, a pre-clinical drug discovery company based in Cambridge, UK. He is a geneticist & biotechnologist and has pioneered the use of computationally engineered mini-proteins to enable new medicine development and degrader-based drugs. Ben has research expertise in proteostasis, functional genomics and chemical genetic screening and in 2014 founded the UKs first CRISPR-based screening platform.

He has authored over 30 peer-reviewed studies and patents working at the intersection of biology, drug discovery and data science. As a serial biotech platform builder, Ben has a particular proclivity for collaboration and for engineering business alliances across the life sciences sector.

Dr. Herbert Diess is a prominent leader in the automotive and technology sectors, currently serving as the Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Infineon Technologies since 2023, a position he has held after being a board member from 2015 to 2020. He most recently was the CEO of Volkswagen AG from 2018 to 2022. Dr. Diess has also held various influential roles at BMW AG from 1996 to 2014, including Member of the Management Board for Development and Purchasing and Supplier Network, and significant leadership positions at Robert Bosch GmbH between 1989 and 1996.

Dr. Diess holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich, where he also earned his Dipl.-Ing. degree.

Tony Fadell is an active investor and entrepreneur with a 30+ year history of founding companies and designing products that profoundly improve people’s lives. He is the Principal at Build Collective, an investment and advisory firm coaching deep tech startups. Currently, Build Collective is coaching over 200+ startups innovating game-changing technologies. He is the founder and former CEO of Nest, the company that pioneered the “Internet of Things.” Tony was the SVP of Apple’s iPod Division and led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Throughout his career Tony has authored more than 300 patents. In May 2016, TIME named the Nest Learning Thermostat, the iPod and the iPhone as three of the “50 Most Influential Gadgets of All Time.” He is a NYT best selling author of BUILD: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making (Harper Business; May 3, 2022).

Mark Gorenberg has three decades of venture capital experience, funding and serving on the boards of numerous successful start-ups. Mark is currently the Founder and a Managing Director of Zetta Venture Partners, the first and leading early-stage fund focused only on AI for enterprise. Prior to his career in venture capital Mark served as a software executive, entrepreneur and a member of the first SparcStation team at Sun Microsystems.

Mark is currently the Chair of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Corporation (Board of Trustees). In 2011, Mark was appointed by President Barack Obama to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a 21-person advisory group of the nation’s leading scientists and engineers.

He graduated from MIT and received Masters Degrees from the University of Minnesota and Stanford University.

Adam is Chairman & Managing Partner at UP.Partners, an early-stage venture strategy transforming the moving world. Previously, he was Group Head of Silver Lake Kraftwerk for 11 years, where he led successful private equity investments across the energy, automation, mobility, and data communications sectors including in Tesla (TSLA), Solar City (SCTY), Hyla Mobile (Assurant), Quorum (Thoma Bravo), Eka Software (STG), and Aras (GI Partners).

Before Silver Lake, Adam was a General Partner at Foundation Capital for 10 years after serving as President of Excite@Home. Prior to his role at Excite@Home, Adam served as cofounder, President, and CEO of Catapult Entertainment through its IPO. Earlier in his career, Adam held leadership positions with technology innovators Apple Computer, Lucasfilm, and Sony.

Adam serves on the board of LineVision, Range, Teleo, UnitX, Beyond Math and the advisory board of Beta Technologies, and until recently served as a Senior Advisor to the Canadian Pension Plan Advisory Board (CPPIB). Previously, he has served on the board of First Reserve’s energy platform, Aeva (AEVA), Calix (CALX), Carbon, EnerNoc (ENOC), Conviva, Control4 (CTRL), Sentient Energy (Koch), SiBEAM (SIMG), Silver Spring Networks (SSNI), Transmedics (TMDX), Arroyo (CSCO), Alteon (NT), Peakstream (GOOG), Peribit Networks (JNPR), and Traverse Networks (AV).

Adam builds boats and planes, bikes avidly if slowly, and kitesurfs at every opportunity. He is an ATP rated pilot and is active in the restoration, preservation, and flying of jet warbirds. Infused with a love of technology and art, Adam holds BA, MS and MBA degrees from Stanford University, is a lecturer at Stanford University, and contributes to National Public Radio’s Marketplace. He is a Senior Fellow at the American Leadership Forum, and in 2020 was awarded an Edmund Hillary Fellowship from New Zealand. He has been named to Forbes Midas List 4 times.

Dr. Brian Gu is the Vice Chairman and President of XPENG (NYSE: XPEV; HKEX: 9868), a leading AI-defined vehicle company in China. His responsibilities encompass corporate strategy, finance, legal affairs, and investments. He also leads XPENG’s international market development, with a commitment to creating a smarter, better, and more sustainable mobility experience for XPENG’s global customers.

Under his leadership, XPENG has achieved significant milestones, including raising over $10 billion in capital, debuting on both the NYSE and HKEX, forming strategic partnerships with Alibaba, Volkswagen Group, and Didi, and receiving the highest ESG rating (AAA in 2023; AA from 2020-2022) among global automobile companies for four consecutive years from MSCI ESG research.

Before joining XPENG, Dr. Gu was a Managing Director, Chairman of Asia Pacific Investment Banking, and a member of the Global Strategic Advisory Council at J.P. Morgan. He holds an MBA from Yale University, a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Washington School of Medicine, and a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Oregon.

Hermann co-founded Amadeus Capital Partners in 1997 with Anne Glover. He has founded and invested in many technology companies including Acorn, ARM, Solexa which was bout by Ilumina, CSR, Graphcore and Photonic.

Hermann holds an MA in Physics from Vienna University and a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded an honorary KBE in 2015.

Junaid founded and chairs Auctor, an evergreen holding company that builds and backs businesses leveraging emerging technologies ​to reshape industries.

Through Auctor, he co-founded Cambridge Aerospace to develop next-generation air defence capabilities for Europe and its allies — alongside other ventures including KAIKAKU (restaurant robotics) and Iconic (AI game development), where he currently serves as CEO.

Previously, he was a Partner at Kingsway Capital, a ~$5B crossover investment firm. Junaid holds a degree in Philosophy and Modern Languages from the University of Cambridge.

Zia Huque is a General Partner of Prime Movers Lab where he focuses on growth-stage investing. Zia brings a wealth of experience in later-stage financing, having been in the business of risk investment and risk management across credit, rates, equities, and derivatives asset classes for the vast majority of his career. Zia also brings his operational expertise to Prime Movers Lab, having had vast executive, strategic and operational responsibilities across multiple businesses and regions of a top-five global investment bank managing tens of billions of dollars and thousands of employees. He serves on the boards of multiple Prime Movers Lab portfolio companies.

Zia served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Bank Securities Inc, the US Broker Dealer of Deutsche Bank, from early 2018 until his departure from Wall Street in 2019. At Deutsche Bank, Zia was also Head of Equities, Fixed Income & Currencies for the Americas from 2016 to 2018 and Global Co-Chief Operating Officer of Corporate Banking and Securities from 2012 until 2016. During Zia’s 30-year finance career on Wall Street, he held multiple executive positions in the United States, Europe and Asia while leading investment banking, sales and trading functions spanning many industries, products, and clients.

Zia received his BA in Economics and in Political Science from Williams College. He resides in Wyoming with his wife and two daughters and is active in the local community.

Stuart Jackson is the Chief Financial Officer and co-founder of Octopus Energy. At Octopus he has responsibility for finance, procurement & market risk management, customer acquisition and data science.

Before Octopus he ran a business with Octopus’ founder and CEO that helped retail financial services businesses re-invent product offers online. Prior to that Stuart spent 6 years with Barclays Bank, including a stint running a £5bn credit card business and 10 years as a strategy consultant. Stuart has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University.

Madhu Kannan is currently Vice President & Global Head of Corporate Development at Uber Technologies. In this role he has responsibilities of global M&A, Integration, Treasury, Capital Markets and minority investments, Madhu rejoined Uber in Dec 2023 after a stint at Bank of America Securities where has an Executive Vice Chair of Global Corporate & Investment Banking. His first stint at Uber had included being the Chief Business Officer for Asia Pacific. Madhu also has been a Group Head of Business Development at Tata Sons and Chief Executive Officer of the Bombay Stock Exchange. Other roles he has had included Managing Director in the Corporate Strategy Group of Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and a Senior Vice-President at NYSE Euronext in the listings and Business development functions. He earned his BEng degree (Hons) in electrical engineering and electronics, an MSc (Hons) in economics from BITS, Pilani, India, and an MBA in finance from Vanderbilt University, USA.

Ilyas founded Cambridge Quantum in 2014 and was the founding CEO of Quantinuum, the company created as a result of the merger of Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum. As well as being Vice-Chairman of the board of directors, he is also the Chief Product Officer of Quantinuum and part of the executive leadership team of the company.

He is the Leader in Residence at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School where he was instrumental in establishing the highly regarded Accelerate Cambridge program of investment in early-stage Cambridge-based deep-science technology sector companies.

Ilyas was the inaugural Chairman of The Stephen Hawking Foundation, holding the post until 2019. He is also the founding Chairman (non-executive) of the Topos Institute. He is also a fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. Ilyas is recognised as one of the founders and leading voices in the quantum computing industry globally.

Dr. Heung-Soo Kim is the Executive Vice President and Head of Global Strategy Office (GSO) at Hyundai Motor Group. He spearheads key strategic initiatives on future mobility technologies and drives strategic partnership with players across various industries.

Dr. Kim has played a pivotal role in shaping Hyundai Motor Group’s strategic direction and advancing its technological competitiveness in areas such as software-defined vehicle, autonomous driving, robotics, artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

Previously, Dr. Kim drove the development and implementation of big data and cloud strategy,and as the Head of Product Division, he also optimized Hyundai’s line-up of vehicles while contributing to the development of EV ecosystem globally.

Dr. Kim holds a PhD in Applied Mechanics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an MBA from INSEAD.

Mark RN Kotter is a doctor, scientist, and serial entrepreneur. As a neurosurgeon, he treats patients with spinal cord injury. Mark is best known for discovering the importance of macrophages for brain regeneration, which led to the first regenerative medicine trial for degenerative cervical myelopathy, and for developing opti-ox, a gene targeting approach that enables faithful execution of genetic information in cells. Applied to cellular reprogramming, opti-ox demonstrated that robust activation of a new cell type program (encoded in transcription factors) is necessary and sufficient to deterministically induce a new cellular identity. These findings challenge the theory that cell reprogramming depends on stochastically determined permissive states and enable the production of any human cell within days at purities approaching 100%. He is the founder of bit.bio, the company coding human cells for novel cures, co-founder of cultured meat startup Meatable, scientific founder of clock.bio and co-founder and trustee of Myelopathy.org, the first charity dedicated to a common yet often overseen condition causing a ‘slow motion spinal cord injury’.

Michael Li is Advisor to the Minister of Investment, Saudi Arabia. In this role he leads on strategy and ecosystem development in emerging technologies and life sciences, and the bilateral investment relationship with the United Kingdom.

He was part of the organising team for the recent Saudi-US Investment Forum, leading the Healthcare track, and has delivered major events including the Chinese Premier and UK Prime Minister’s visits to KSA, and the Arab-China Business Conference.

He is a Non-Executive Director of Vernalis Research and Dania Therapeutics. Michael read chemistry at the University of Oxford, and was a visiting researcher at Stanford University.

Mark trained in Physiological Sciences including specialization in neurosciences at Oxford, researched developmental biology, and studied Clinical Medicine at Cambridge before pursuing a career in finance. For more than two decades he worked at Goldman Sachs in Europe and Asia where he was a Partner and among other roles was Vice Chair and the Head of Investment Banking for Asia Pacific. He then joined CPPIB first as Head of International and then served as President and CEO for five years. Under his leadership, CPPIB grew its exposure to technology investing by launching a Venture and Growth Equity strategy, opening an office in San Francisco, and creating partnerships with leading venture firms and incubators, like the Creative Destruction Lab.

While at CPPIB, Mark chaired its investment committees and oversaw more than $500B of investment in many companies and investment funds. In addition, Mark led the creation of several internal initiatives that leveraged ML/AI to enhance coordination among CPPIB’s nearly 2,000 employees across nine global offices and support its investment processes. Under his leadership, CPPIB was one of the best-performing global pension funds.

Before founding Intrepid Growth Partners, Mark co-founded and was the founding CEO of Opto Investments, a software platform that raised a $145M series A and is using software to create a new market for investment advisors to access alternative investments. Mark served on the boards of Sequoia Heritage, Serendipity Capital, and currently serves on GIC’s International Advisory Board and is an independent non-executive director of CVC Capital. He is an advisor and mentor to a number of technology and early-stage companies in North America and Europe.

Mark earned a Bachelor of Arts in Physiological Sciences from Oxford University and a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from Cambridge University.

Charlie manages Never Lift, investing across resilience themes in Europe and America. Previously, Charlie has held roles at Thrive and 8VC. He was MD of Strategy for Afiniti, an AI company in London, prior to starting Never Lift. He also sits on the board of his family business, Goodwood. He holds an MBA from Columbia and a BA from the University of Oxford.

Robin joined Bain Capital in 2009 where he is Co-Head of Global Private Equity. Prior to joining Bain Capital, Robin was a Partner at 3i, the founding partner of 3i’s US Private Equity business and prior to that was a Managing Director of 3i’s UK business. Previously, he was with McKinsey & Company and Procter & Gamble. Robin serves the U.K. Ministry of Defence as the Lead Non-Executive Director for the Defence Board and the Nuclear Defence Board. Robin received his Master’s Degree from the University of Glasgow. He was also a post-graduate Thouron Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

Strive Masiyiwa is a telecommunications and technology entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. In nearly four decades as an entrepreneur, he has started and invested in businesses throughout the world including Africa, the European Union, India, Latin America, the Middle East, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA. He currently serves as a NED on the board of Netflix Inc., and as a trustee on the not-for-profit boards of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and National Geographic Society. Strive sits on several Global Advisory councils including Bank of America, Bloomberg New Economy Forum, and Stanford University. For 15 years, he served as a trustee of The Rockefeller Foundation, amongst many other pan-African and international initiatives in which he’s played co-founding, advisory, or leadership roles. An International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Strive graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and has received several honorary doctorates from universities globally. He and his wife Tsitsi are Giving Pledge signatories and have six adult children. https://www.econetafrica.com/strive-masiyiwa 

Miron Mironiuk, a Polish tech entrepreneur, moved to Asia 10 years ago to found Cosmose AI. Cosmose AI’s personalization model is integrated with 33% of global smartphone shipments and ensures the highest level of privacy protection by running AI computation on the edge. As one of only few Europeans he has managed to establish himself in the East Asian market, with Cosmose largest markets being Indonesia and China.

His leadership in AI was recognized by the newly appointed Polish government, and since Jan’24 Miron has been chairing a new government advisory committee, PL/AI Artificial Intelligence for Poland. The objective of the team is to propel Poland to become one of the 10 wealthiest countries in the world by 2050, thanks to the superiority of Polish engineers who are second only to China, a country 40 times more populous, in the International Olympiad in Informatics over the last 35 years.

Beyond his business ventures, Miron is a philanthropist promoting equal opportunities by championing programming education worldwide. In October, Miron launched ‘Code with Pope’ at the Vatican alongside Pope Francis, the global expansion of Cosmose AI’s ‘Programming = Our Second Language’ initiative.

Antoine Moyroud is a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners and sits on their European investment team since 2022. Specializing in Machine Learning and Data topics, his work on the emerging AI space has brought Lightspeed Venture Partners to partner with Mistral.ai, leading their inaugural round in 2023.

Raised in the Netherlands and proficient in 4 languages, Antoine started his career in the data ecosystem with operational roles at FlixBus and Dataiku, spanning Germany, France and the UK. He holds dual degrees in Business Administration and Languages from the University of Lyon III, along with a master’s in Data Science from IE Business School in Madrid.

Gerald is responsible for spearheading OQC’s investment raising and has led OQC’s commercial growth through strategic partnerships with the world’s largest private and public sector organisations.

Gerald has spent two decades delivering technology solutions for customers across life sciences, financial services, energy and defence at leading companies including Accenture and PwC.

He was also a Director at the UK Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet Office, responsible for leading and scaling an innovative government-to-government business across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas.

Prof. Jeremy O’Brien is co-founder and CEO of PsiQuantum, a quantum computing company soon to deliver the world’s first commercially useful quantum computers. These systems will be used to tackle some of the greatest challenges we face, and to create profound new opportunities. PsiQuantum is partnering with customers and governments globally to bring about transformation across healthcare, climate, finance, transportation, security and beyond.  Prof. O’Brien has dedicated 25 years to this mission, having identified quantum computing as the most profoundly world-changing technology, due to its potential to unlock critical solutions to otherwise impossible problems. PsiQuantum has invented a ‘fusion-based’ photonic architecture to enable utility-scale quantum computers to be manufactured in a conventional silicon chip foundry, and leverage the full semiconductor, packaging and computer systems supply chain, and to achieve compatibility with conventional control electronics, optical fibre networking and existing large-scale cryogenic infrastructure. Prof. O’Brien has published 150 papers with 40,000 citations (h-index 88); he demonstrated the first photonic 2-qubit logic gate, invented the field of Integrated Quantum Photonics, co-invented the Variational Quantum Eigen Solver (VQE), and implemented VQE on a photonic chip. Prior to founding PsiQuantum, he was Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at Stanford and Bristol Universities, and Founding Director of the Centre for Quantum Photonics/QET Labs. He has held visiting professorships at NTT, Osaka University, Hokkaido University and the University of Tokyo, totaling two years. He received a Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales and is an undergraduate and postdoc alumnus of the Universities of Western Australia and Queensland, respectively. He holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Emerging Technologies, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics.

Mr. O’Leary is CEO of JetZero overseeing the development of the company’s transformational blended wing body aircraft. He is responsible for all facets of the company, including fundraising, partner relationships and business development. He was the former COO of prominent eVTOL startup BETA Technologies, where he collaborated with Mark Page on the design of the BETA Alia eVTOL. He was an early senior executive (Director of Sales and Marketing)at Tesla, putting in place much of the innovative market facing infrastructure for that pioneering mobility company. He is well versed in taking startup technologies and companies from their early stages to maturity. His entire career has been in mobility, starting at Autoweb.com, working at eBay Motors and with other innovators.

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA

M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea

B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Division:EE)

Career

Morgan Stanley, New York, NY

Equity Trading Algo and Tech, Vice President

Nov 2018 – Jul 2020

SpaceX, Irvine, CA

ASIC Development, Satellite Department, Design Lead

Feb 2018 – Nov 2018

Samsung Research America, Richardson, TX

Mobile Processor Innovation Laboratory, Staff Engineer

Mar 2016 – Feb 2018

Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, OR

ADR, Intel Labs, Senior Research Scientist

Jun 2014 – Mar 2016

MIT, Cambridge, MA

Sep 2009 – Aug 2014

CSAIL, M.S./Ph.D. Research Assistant

Lord Petitgas spent 30 years at Morgan Stanley where he ran global investment banking, then headed Morgan Stanley International and was a member of the Firm’s Operating Committee. He retired from the Firm in early 2023 and was appointed  by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as his chief business adviser. He took his seat in the House of Lords in March 2024.  He sits on the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords.

Lord Petitgas is Deputy Chairman of the Courtauld Institute of Art and chairs its Governance, Nominations & Remuneration Committee. He is a Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur of France and the President of its U. K. Chapter. He is a Trustee of the Goodwood Art Foundation. He is a former Deputy Chairman of the Tate Museum, and former Trustee of Glyndebourne.

Peter Rawlinson is Chief Executive Officer, Chief Technology Officer, and a member of the board of directors at Lucid (LCID), a California-based technology company focused on creating the most advanced EVs in the world. Peter is responsible for the company’s strategy and execution, as well as the creation and delivery of all Lucid products.

Before Lucid, Peter was Vice President of Vehicle Engineering at Tesla and Chief Engineer of the Model S, where he led the engineering of Tesla’s flagship vehicle from a clean sheet to production readiness while building the engineering team. Before joining Tesla in February 2009, he led vehicle engineering at Corus Automotive, an advanced technology consulting firm. He was also Chief Engineer of Advanced Engineering at Lotus.

Peter spent nearly a decade at Jaguar, ascending to the position of principal engineer, working on advanced body structure design, layout and packaging, including crashworthiness. He was one of the first to apply computer-aided design to automotive engineering and was an integral part of the Jaguar team that advanced the integration of computer-aided-design with computer-aided analytical tools within a simultaneous engineering environment, a methodology he applied and refined at Lotus and with other global automakers. He has a mechanical engineering degree from Imperial College.

Growing up in South Wales near Cardiff, UK, Peter designed and constructed his own sports car in his spare time – featuring an innovative and efficient structure that influenced a generation of production cars. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he enjoys better weather and Silicon Valley’s relentless innovation.

Riccardo Sabatini is a world–renowned scientist and entrepreneur specializing in numerical modeling of complex system, ranging from material science, financial markets, computational genomics and drug design.

Active supporter of high impact projects, he’s co-founder of the Refugees Action HUB center at MIT, educational effort of MIT targeting displaced population around the world; member of the advisory board at ENI Next, deep-tech venture fund based in Boston; expert member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, OECD multistakeholder initiative to guide the responsible development and use of AI; co-founder and board directory of of LioFactory, alternative investment platform with the goal to scale breakthrough companies in deeptech and fintech.

In the past he’s been chairman of the I7/G7 for artificial intelligence; founding member of Aiida and Quantum ESPRESSO, the largest open source suite for quantum modeling of materials; board member of the Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei; lead research scientist for Human Longevity, Silicon Valley unicorn working at the intersection of genomics and artificial intelligence.

Speaker at international events and conferences, including TED and WEF. Author in top ranking scientific journals, consultant for Fortune500 companies, inventor of several patents in biotech and IT, angel investor and board member for some groundbreaking startups in the field of artificial intelligence.

Today he’s working on breakthrough approaches to programmable biology with a stellar team of likeminded scientists at Orionis Biosciences.

David Schwimmer is CEO of LSEG and a member of the Board of LSEG plc. Since joining the Group in 2018, David has overseen the transformation of LSEG from a European regional exchange group to a diversified, global leader in financial markets infrastructure and data services. Prior to his role at LSEG, David spent 20 years at Goldman Sachs in a number of senior roles, most recently as Global Head of Market Structure and Global Head of Metals & Mining. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he practiced law at Davis Polk & Wardwell. David holds a B.A. from Yale University, and postgraduate degrees in law (JD) and international affairs (MALD) from Harvard University and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, respectively. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and the American Ditchley Foundation and is a Senior Adviser to Chatham House and a member of the Principals Group for the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ).

Danny Shapiro has spent over 15 years at NVIDIA, most recently as vice president of Automotive, focusing on AI solutions that enable faster and better design and manufacturing of automobiles, as well as in-vehicle solutions for everything from autonomous driving and ADAS to infotainment. He’s a 30-year veteran of the computer graphics, semiconductor and AI industries. Prior to NVIDIA, Danny served in marketing, business development, and engineering roles at ATI, 3Dlabs, Silicon Graphics, and Digital Equipment. He holds a BSE in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Imran has recently joined Nscale, which is building out AI infrastructure across a growing footprint. He leads UK strategy, alongside supporting global growth.

He was previously the Director of AI Opportunities for the UK Government, leading the team working with Matt Clifford to produce and implement the AI Action Plan. As the Prime Minister’s Representative to the AI Seoul Summit, he brokered agreements with all major frontier AI labs. He was Private Secretary to the Prime Minister for three years, and formerly at McKinsey & Company and HM Treasury. He started his career as an adviser to Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

He was awarded an OBE for public service in 2022. He holds an undergraduate degree from Oxford University in Philosophy, Politics & Economics, and a masters degree from Cambridge University in International Relations.

Andrew Sibbald is a Managing Director, Head of Europe, and a member of the Executive Management Group. He is based in London and joined Warburg Pincus in 2023. Andrew was previously Chairman and before that, CEO of Evercore’s European Investment Banking business. Prior to this, he was the Founder and Senior Partner of Lexicon Partners, which was acquired by Evercore in 2011. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics and Accounting from the University of Bristol. Andrew is a Vice President of Save the Children (UK) and an honorary visiting Professor in Bayes Business School.

Robert F. Smith is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, a leading global investment firm focused exclusively on enterprise software. Vista invests through private equity and private credit strategies and currently has over $100 billion in assets under management. Vista’s diversified portfolio of technology companies provides mission-critical solutions to millions of customers around the world and collectively employs over 100,000 people.

Smith directs Vista’s investment strategy and capital formation efforts and oversees the governance of the firm. He sits on the Investment Committees for Vista’s Flagship, Foundation, Endeavor, Perennial and VistaOne Funds and serves as a member of Vista’s Executive Committee and Private Equity Management Committee. Since founding Vista, Smith has supervised more than 600 completed transactions, representing over $320 billion in aggregate value.

In recognition of Smith’s innovative approach to investing in software businesses and his leadership in the asset management industry, Forbes named him one of the “100 Greatest Living Business Minds” in 2017. He was also recognized as one of TIME100’s “Most Influential People” in 2020 and “Most Influential People in Philanthropy” in 2025. He received the Committee for Economic Development’s Distinguished Leadership Award in 2024.

In addition to his work at Vista, Smith is a Founding Member of the World Economic Forum’s EDISON Alliance and the International Monetary Fund’s Advisory Council on Entrepreneurship and Growth. He is the Chairman of Carnegie Hall, Chairman of the Student Freedom Initiative, Founding Director and President of Fund II Foundation, and he co-leads the Southern Communities Initiative. He also serves on the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School and is a member of the Cornell Engineering College Council.

Smith holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Ramez Sousou is Chairman of Daycrest Holdings, a private family office investing in purpose-driven and entrepreneur-led growth companies. He was Founder of TowerBrook Capital partners, where he was co-CEO and then co-Chair until his retirement in 2024. Under his leadership, TowerBrook grew over 25 years from a start-up into a global investment firm managing funds across three investment platforms: Private Equity, Structured Opportunities and Impact Investments. Before founding TowerBrook, Ramez was co-CEO of Soros Private Equity Partners and a member of the Management Committee at Soros Fund Management. He was previously a senior member of the Principal Investments group at Goldman Sachs.

Ramez serves on the board of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Global Advisory Council of Harvard University, and the US/Middle East Project. He is also the Chair of the Steering Committees of the Gaza Health Alliance and Teach for Palestine.

Fred Swaniker is the Founder and CEO of Sand Technologies, a global technology company that builds enterprise-grade artificial intelligence applications for companies and governments worldwide.

Fred began his career at McKinsey & Company and earned an MBA from Stanford University, where he was named an Arjay Miller Scholar, a distinction awarded to the top 10% of each graduating class. He has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a TED Fellow, and an Aspen Institute Fellow. He also serves on the board of the Rhodes Trust, which administers the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University, and is a member of the International Advisory Board of Waterloo University in Canada.

Fred was named one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2019 and received a Time 100 Impact Award in 2023. In 2024, he was honored with Stanford University’s President’s Award for the Advancement of the Common Good.

Michael Tchao has spent 25 years at Apple, including 10 years as Vice President of Product Marketing, launching game-changing products like the iPad and AirPods.

He now heads up outreach for the Pro Workflow team, helping define and optimize new workflows for industries ranging from aviation to media and entertainment.

Jonathan is a Partner at Brandon Capital, having joined in 2021. He serves on the boards of Pheon, Myricx Pharma, NRG Therapeutics, AstronautX, Salvina and Catalym. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Arix Bioscience, where he built the team and portfolio, sitting on boards including Artios Pharma and VelosBio (acquired by Merck for $2.75bn). Before Arix, Jonathan was a Principal at Touchstone Innovations, helping build biotech spin-outs like Inivata (acquired for $415m). He also worked at LifeArc in drug discovery.

Jonathan holds a first-class Biology degree from Oxford, a PhD in Molecular Medicine from UCL, and an MBA from Imperial College London. He conducted postdoctoral research on cancer cell signalling at Cancer Research UK, publishing in Nature Genetics and NEJM. He is a trustee of the Autism Centre for Excellence and advises KHAN drug discovery fund.

Professor Irene Tracey CBE, FRS, FMedSci., is Vice-Chancellor at the University of Oxford and Professor of Anaesthetic Neuroscience in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, a department she led for several years whilst holding a Nuffield Chair. Irene did her undergraduate and graduate studies at Oxford University, Merton College. She was a founding member of the world-leading Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, formerly FMRIB, and was its Director for ten years. Irene has served on many national and international committees, such as the Council of the Medical Research Council, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and the Lundbeck Brain Prize Committee. Until recently she was President of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies.

Her multidisciplinary research team has contributed to a better understanding of pain perception, pain relief and nociceptive processing within the human central nervous system during acute and chronic pain using advanced neuroimaging techniques and novel paradigm designs. They also investigate the neural basis of anaesthesia and have developed a biomarker for depth of anaesthesia that they hope to commercialise. She has trained over 35 PhD students. She has been awarded many honours, such as: triennial Patrick Wall Medal (2008) and FRCA (2009) from Royal College of Anaesthetists; Fellow Academy of Medical Sciences (2015); Feldberg Foundation Prize (2017); British Neuroscience Association’s Outstanding Contribution to Neuroscience (2018); Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to Medical Research (2022); Honorary Fellow Physiological Society (2022); Honorary Membership British Pain Society (2023); Fellow of the Royal Society (2023); Honorary Fellow Royal Society of Medicine (2024).

Don Vieira is a Partner and the incoming Chair of the Technology Policy and Investigations practice at Skadden Arps. Don was previously a Partner at Sequoia Capital, where, among other duties, he founded its global legal and policy functions and served as Global Chief Policy Officer and Global Chief Legal Officer. While at Sequoia, Don played a pivotal role as an architect of the firm’s global separation, a leader of its successful defense of a high profile congressional investigation, and a participant in development and implementation of the business’s evergreen Sequoia Capital Fund. Prior to Sequoia, Don was a pioneer in advising clients on matters related to the intersection of law, technology, geopolitics, and regulatory policy as a partner at Wilson Sonsini and a previous stint at Skadden. Don is also a former high ranking U. S. government official and received numerous awards serving in senior national security positions in the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government.

Don serves on a variety of private sector and trade association boards including the National Venture Capital Association, Hakluyt & Co. and Genuity Science. Don is also a Trustee of the American Academy in Berlin. In 2022, 2023, and 2024, the Washingtonian named Don as a Tech Titan and one of Washington’s Most Influential People.

Alexander Walsh is a Senior Managing Director in the Private Equity Group in London, where he focuses on the Consumer, Media and Leisure sectors. In addition, Mr. Walsh is involved in Blackstone’s investment activities in the UK.

Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Walsh was a Managing Director at TowerBrook where he was involved in leading and executing investments in various sectors. Prior to that, Mr. Walsh was a Principal at CapVest.

Mr. Walsh received an MA in Economics and History at the University of St Andrews. He serves as a Director of Bourne Leisure and the National Exhibition Centre. He is also a trustee of the Terrence Higgins Trust.

Bobby Yerramilli-Rao is CSO & CVP, Corporate Strategy at Microsoft. In this role he is responsible for helping the Senior Leadership Team identify and execute on the most important strategic priorities for the company. His mandate spans both existing business areas and new potential areas for Microsoft.

Bobby serves on the board of Global Foundries. He is Chair at Genome Therapeutics and is a board observer at Biomodal, both companies he co-founded.

Bobby was previously a venture capitalist investing in growth stage technology companies, a partner at McKinsey and a post-doctoral research engineer in robotics.

He is based in Redmond, Washington.

Maria Zuber is the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and presidential advisor for science and technology policy at MIT, tracking trends and seizing opportunities to inform and advance enlightened state and federal policy. She also provides strategic direction to campus labs, centers, and initiatives connected to defense or national security and represents MIT with external stakeholders.

Zuber served as vice president for research from 2013 to 2024, and was responsible for research administration and policy, research relationships with the federal government, and oversight of MIT Lincoln Laboratory and more than a dozen interdisciplinary research laboratories and centers. In that role, she led the team that developed and provided oversight for MIT’s Climate Action Plan.

Zuber’s research bridges planetary geophysics and the technology of space‐based laser and radio systems. Since 1990, she has held leadership roles associated with scientific experiments or instrumentation on ten NASA missions, most notably serving as principal investigator of the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission. Zuber currently serves as Chair of the Standing Review Board of NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission.

Zuber holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an Sc.M. and Ph.D. from Brown. She has won numerous awards, including the MIT James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, the highest honor the MIT faculty bestows to one of its own. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geological Society, and the American Geophysical Union. In 2019, she was awarded the Gerard P. Kuiper Prize by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society. Zuber is the first woman to lead a science department at MIT and the first to lead a NASA planetary mission.

In 2013, President Obama appointed her to the National Science Board, and in 2018 she was reappointed by President Trump. She served as Board Chair from 2016-2018. In 2021, President Biden named her as co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

James Harding is Editor-in-Chief of The Observer and founder of Tortoise Media. He previously served as Director of News and Current Affairs at the BBC from 2012 to 2018. He was Editor of The Times from 2007 to 2012, winning Newspaper of the Year in two of the five years he edited the paper. Prior to that he was The Times’s Business Editor, having joined from The Financial Times where he worked as Washington Bureau Chief, Media Editor, and China Correspondent – opening the paper’s bureau in Shanghai in 1996, the first European newspaper to do so since the 1949 revolution.

Harding is the author of Alpha Dogs – How Political Spin Became a Global Business and co-presented On Background on the BBC World Service.

Hermann co-founded Amadeus Capital Partners in 1997 with Anne Glover. He has founded and invested in many technology companies including Acorn, ARM, Solexa which was bout by Ilumina, CSR, Graphcore and Photonic.

Hermann holds an MA in Physics from Vienna University and a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded an honorary KBE in 2015.

Ronald J. Epstein is a managing director in Americas Equity Research covering Aerospace/Defense and Multi-Industrials with large aerospace components. He is based in New York and covers companies listed in the United States, Canada and Brazil. He joined Merrill Lynch in 2001.

In the Institutional Investor All-America Research poll, he was ranked as a top-three analyst in Aerospace & Defense Electronics for the last 15 years and led the #1 team for the last eight years. He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Technology Advisor to United Airlines Ventures, on the Board of Regents of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, an Affiliate Professor at the University of North Carolina and is a mentor for the Techstars Space Accelerator.  He is frequently cited as an industry authority by trade and news publications and has appeared on numerous television programs.  Previously, he worked as a research scientist in applied aerodynamics technology at Boeing Phantom Works.  He was also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, teaching fluid dynamics and control systems.

Dr. Epstein has a BA with highest honors from Skidmore College, an MBA with honors from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in mechanical engineering from Duke University.

Ron, his wife Catherine and their three children, Henry, Catherine and Oliver, reside in Chatham, NJ.

For more information about any awards cited, visit https://go.bofa.com/awards