A world-class pool of security and commercial leaders

Anthony Finkelstein is President of City, University of London. Prior to this he was Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security to HM Government, a senior strategic and operational role that involves leadership of science, research and innovation across the UK's national security community.

Anthony is a Professor of Software Systems Engineering and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is a Distinguished Fellow of RUSI. He was granted the title of Knight Bachelor in 2022 for public service. He was previously appointed a CBE for services to computer science and engineering. He has successfully exited two tech companies in data and AI.

Tom served as the most senior Homeland Security Advisor to the last four British Home Secretaries. He led cross-government work countering state threats, cyber crime and security, disinformation, money laundering, online harms, child sexual exploitation and terrorism. He also oversaw the domestic operations of the intelligence agencies, CT Police and the National Crime Agency.

During his thirty years working on national security, Tom has played a leading role on international as well as domestic security issues, especially within the Five Eyes community. Tom was also a member of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee, the UK's most senior analytical body on national security issues. As a result of his experience in mastering science and technology to achieve better operational outcomes, Tom was asked in mid-2020 to set up from scratch, and at pace, the UK’s Joint Biosecurity Centre, a data-led organisation that brought data science and public health expertise together in one place to spot earlier and more accurately outbreaks of COVID-19. He was appointed OBE by Her Majesty the Queen in 2011 and CB in 2020 for his services to national security.

Our technical due diligence and optimisation effort is led by a distinguished ex-HMG leader with 20 years’ experience in cyber related operations and technology. He has deep experience in due diligence and acquisition reviews in support of investment activity.

Chris is a serial tech entrepreneur. In 2014 he founded Divido (www.divido.com) and ran it as the CEO until his exit in 2021. Divido is the world’s largest white-label SaaS platform for buy-now-pay-later, with clients like Mastercard, HSBC and BMW. He scaled the business to ten countries across Europe and South America and raised over $50m USD from investors such as American Express, Seedcamp (Revolut, Wise, etc), and Dawn Capital (iZettle, Tink, etc.). Prior to Divido, he was the first employee outside the US for Glassdoor.com, launching it across EMEA; the business was later acquired for $1.2bn.

Simon has 18 years CEO experience building and successfully selling three PE/VC backed, technology-based companies. He grew revenues at image.net and Peach 10 times developing each from a UK base to global, platform businesses with clients and operations in every continent. As well as driving organic growth, he has extensive M&A experience, including initiating, closing and integrating over a dozen acquisitions for Peach in territories including China, India, Singapore, Chile, Spain, Ireland and the UK.

Simon was previously COO of Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, a FTSE 250 company, and Group Finance Director of Zenith Productions.

Phil is a serial open source technology entrepreneur having led the international business efforts of some of the world’s most transformative (now leading) software firms covering the entire technology stack (silicon chips, embedded/IoT, operating systems, middleware, virtualisation, mobile/cloud computing, big data and blockchain). An open source veteran, he helped many Fortune 1000 companies to embrace new disruptive technologies, often displacing entrenched solutions from competitors like IBM and Microsoft. Phil led the European, USA and Asian businesses for Red Hat, VMware, Santander and Deutsche Telekom - where as corporate cloud entrepreneur he created their global Telekom Public Cloud business unit.

• Vipul brings a track record of over 20 years scaling B2B Data and SaaS businesses in the UK and USA. With hands-on operating experience as a senior executive, he has organised major product initiatives that have created commercial value and supported successful exits.

  As an investor and advisor with an entrepreneurial mindset, Vipul now helps startups create enterprise value through their product strategies. Amongst other roles, Vipul is a Mentor with the Silicon Valley headquartered Plug and Play Tech Centre.

  Vipul was formerly the Chief Product Officer at OAG and previously Head of Product at Ascend Worldwide. He has also worked with recognised global brands such as Standard & Poor’s and Dun & Bradstreet during his career.