The Nesta Innovation Edge

Speaker Profiles

Profile

Jonathan was appointed Chief Executive of NESTA in November 2005, moving from Apax Partners where he was the Chief of Staff to Sir Ronald Cohen, its Founder and Chairman.  Together with Sir Ronald, he was instrumental in building The Portland Trust which developed a $500 million fund for small and medium sized businesses in the Middle East.  Jonathan started his career building a large family commodity trading business which was a ring dealing member of the London Metal Exchange.  The company was successfully sold in a management buy-out.  He then moved to public service, becoming Chief Executive of the Office of the Chief Rabbi, Professor Jonathan Sacks.  Together, they worked on a number of prize winning publications, including the 1990 BBC Reith Lectures, The Persistence of Faith.  Jonathan is a Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the UK's Technology Strategy Board and the Design Council, a tutor at the Cass Business School and a graduate of the Cabinet Office Top Management Programme.  Until recently he was Non-Executive Chairman of Quest, a large financial services business, and an adviser to BAE Systems.

Profile

Sir David King stepped down as the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Office of Science and Innovation last December, having been appointed to the role in 2000. After an early career at the University of Witwatersrand, Imperial College and the University of East Anglia, he became the Brunner Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Liverpool in 1974. In 1988, he was appointed Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and subsequently became Master of Downing College (1995-2000), and Head of the University Chemistry Department (1993-2000). He retains his position as Director of Research in the Department of Chemistry at Cambridge University. Sir David is the Director of the newly formed Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University, where he leads multidisciplinary research on private sector solutions to environmental problems. He is also a NESTA Visiting Fellow.

Profile

John is the founder director of Venturesome, an initiative of the Charities Aid Foundation. He joined 3i Group plc after an MBA at Manchester Business School, moving to Save the Children UK in 1990 as Director of Fundraising/Marketing, before joining CAF in 2001. John was chair of the Institute of Fundraising (2000-2003) and is currently Chair of the Social Investment Market Group. He is also a trustee of a small charity and of a grantmaking foundation. Venturesome has supported over 100 charities since its launch in 2002, providing underwriting, unsecured loans, quasi-equity and equity. CAF and twelve other investors have provided £6.5m to its Investment Fund.

Profile

Saul joined Index Ventures in 2007 where he works closely with existing portfolio companies.  His areas of investment focus include internet, online advertising and the ecommerce space.  Before joining Index, he served as the global vice president of marketing and e-commerce for Skype (recently purchased by eBay), and he continues to advise the company on strategic projects.  Saul co-founded and served as CEO for Video Island, an Index-funded venture that recently merged with LoveFilm to become Europe's leading online DVD rental and movie download service.  He was also a founding partner of The Accelerator Group, where he was an active seed investor in both US and European start-ups including Moo.com, SpotRunner, Edgeio, Stardoll and Last.fm.  Saul held management positions at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond; as the senior vice president for Firefly Network (acquired by Microsoft), and was director of digital communication at WPP's Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide.  He is a founding patron of Imperial Entrepreneurs, which is helping student entrepreneurs at Imperial College reach out to London's established start-up and venture community.