Speakers

Sonita Alleyne became the Master of Jesus College in October 2019. In 2020, Sonita was elected an Honorary Fellow of Fitzwilliam College and received an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies. She is a Fellow of The Royal Society of the Arts and the Radio Academy, and in 2003, was awarded an OBE for services to broadcasting. Sonita won the Carlton Multicultural Achievement Award for TV and Radio in 2002.

Sonita has worked extensively as a non-executive Director in both the private and public sectors. Board roles have included Artsline, a disability arts access charity; the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; the National Employment Panel; the London Skills and Employment Board and the BBC Trust. She was also a member of the Court of Governors at the University of the Arts London where she was an instrumental anchor tenant for development around Kings Cross Station; at London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), she chaired the Regeneration and Community Committee and participated in the LLDC’s development of the new East Bank area of Stratford. She is currently also on the Board of Wickes PLC.

Dr Michael Anstey is a Partner specialising in life sciences investments.

Before joining CIC he was a Principal in the Healthcare Practice Area at The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Toronto office. Michael has experience in advising multinational businesses across North America, Europe, India, and Japan.

Michael was also co-founder of an early stage biotechnology company focused on developing small molecule drugs that target protein-protein interactions implicated in disease. Prior to BCG, Michael was an Investment Analyst at Oxford Capital Partners.

Michael earned his DPhil in Zoology in the field of neurobiology from the University of Oxford.

Michael manages CIC's investments in Bicycle Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BCYC), Congenica, Storm Therapeutics, Immutrin, PredictImmune, Sense Bio, Start Codon, and Epitopea. He is also on the board of Cambridge&, an organisation dedicated to attracting the highest quality individuals and organisations from around the globe into the Cambridge ecosystem.

Allan, a professor in the Dept. of Medicine at Cambridge University, is a world-renowned researcher and entrepreneur.  He is known for his pioneering role in the development of ES cell technology, acknowledged by the 2007 Nobel Prize awarded to his thesis advisor Martin Evans.  His laboratory has published numerous highly cited primary research articles, he has mentored many leading academics and he is an elected fellow of both the Royal Society and Academy of Medical Sciences.  Serving as the second Director of the Sanger Institute after Sir John Sulston, he was responsible for transitioning a highly focused genome-sequencing facility into a highly productive academic institute while stimulating a culture that enabled translation, including two spinouts that emerged from his own laboratory at Sanger, Kymab and PetMedix. 

Allan is a serial entrepreneur.  He has co-founded six companies two in the USA and four in the UK including two unicorns, Lexicon’s $1bn debut on the NASDAQ was achieved 5 years after it was founded while Kymab was sold to Sanofi for $1.45bn in 2021.  PetMedix, the animal health company he co-founded in 2018 was recently acquired by the leading animal health company, Zoetis.  Allan currently serves as the CEO of T-Therapeutics the most recent spinout from his laboratory.    

Dr Sue Broster is the Executive Director for Innovation, Digital and Improvement at CUH and a Consultant Neonatologist.

CUH is one of the largest and most digitally advanced Hospital Trusts in the country, with unique and unparalleled opportunities to collaborate with the University of Cambridge and a vibrant life sciences ecosystem.

Sue has a strong track record in leading Innovation, Digital and Improvement in large and complex environments. This includes the development of the digital health environment at CUH encompassing: the Virtual wards programme; implementation of the whole Trust improvement programme in partnership with the Institute of Healthcare Improvement; transformational change at scale including the recent development of a new paediatric/neonatal retrieval service in the East of England; and has led the setup of the East of England specialist services provider collaborative - a group of 10 hospitals within the East of England working together to achieve the best outcomes for the population of the East region by delivering integrated, preventative, high-quality specialised care closer to home. Sue has a wealth of experience working with academic, industry and other NHS partners.

Laurie is Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Science of Engineering and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He is a visiting Professor at Tohoku University in Japan and at the University of Reading, UK.

Professor Butler joined Anglia Ruskin University in April 2019 from the University of Reading, where he was Head of the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences for over six years. His research interests include nutrition and cognition, ageing, memory and choice, as well as behaviour change.

Lou began her career working for WPP before founding Manchester-based digital design studio, magneticNorth (mN). In 2021, mN merged with Fluxx, to create the UK’s leading design and innovation consultancy, Magnetic, where Lou continues to be involved as Chief Creative Officer.  

Lou is Director of ID Manchester, leading the team in the creation of Europe’s most ambitious Innovation District project. She is also on the Greater Manchester Business Board. 

Alongside the day job, she is an active angel investor, with a particular focus on female tech founders.

Lou was awarded an OBE in the 2018 New Year’s Honours for services to the creative and digital economy.

Mike was first elected as the Councillor for Petersfield in the City Council elections in May. 2019. After 2 years as the Executive Councillor for Finance he became Leader of the Council in May 2023. Mike has lived in Cambridge for the last thirteen years with his wife and daughter.

Prior to becoming a Councillor Mike worked for the County Council. A Director at the Authority, he worked primarily with Children and Young People.

Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith CBE FRS FMedSci is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and International Partnerships at the University of Cambridge. She is the Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics, President of the Genetics Society and a member of the UKRI BBSRC Council. She is a Fellow of Darwin College.

Professor Ferguson-Smith is a mammalian developmental geneticist and epigeneticist. Her team studies the epigenetic control of genome function with particular emphasis on epigenetic inheritance and she is an expert on genomic imprinting.

She was elected to EMBO in 2006, to the UK Academy of Medical Sciences and the Society of Biology in 2012, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2017. She has received several awards; most recently in 2021 she was recipient of the Royal Society's Buchanan Medal and the Society for Reproduction and Fertility's Anne McLaren Distinguished Scientist Award. In 2022 she was awarded the Mabel FitzGerald Prize Medal. Professor Ferguson-Smith was recently awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), as part of the 2023 Kings Birthday Honours List.

Caroline joined Urban&Civic in 2018 and has over 20 years’ experience in development. She has led a diverse range of schemes, most recently the strategic settlement of 6,500 homes at Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire. Prior to joining Urban&Civic, Caroline led the Lincoln Square development for Lodha Group UK and held a number of development and commercial roles with Lend Lease. Following the acquisition of Urban&Civic by the Wellcome Trust Caroline now leads the expansion of the Wellcome Genome Campus comprising 1.6m sqft of research space, 1,500 homes and amenities.

George Freeman was appointed Minister of State in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on 7 February 2023.

George was previously Minister of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 26 October 2022 to 7 February 2023, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 17 September 2021 to 7 July 2022, a Minister of State at the Department for Transport from 26 July 2019 to 13 February 2020, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Life Sciences at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department of Health from July 2014 until July 2016. He also served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Climate Change from 2010 to 2011.

He was appointed government adviser on Life Sciences in July 2011, co-ordinating the government’s Life Science and Innovation, Health and Wealth Strategies (2011), and the Agri-Tech Industrial Strategy (2013). He was appointed the Prime Minister’s UK Trade Envoy in 2013.

Political career
He was elected Conservative MP for Mid Norfolk in 2010.

George served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Climate Change from 2010 to 2011. He was appointed government adviser on Life Sciences in July 2011, working closely with the Department of Health and coordinating the Government’s Life Science and Innovation, Health and Wealth Strategies (2011), and the Agri-Tech Industrial Strategy (2013). He was then appointed to the post of Prime Minister’s UK Trade Envoy in 2013.

Career outside politics
Before being elected to Parliament, George had a 15 year career across the life sciences sector. In particular, he worked with hospitals, clinical researchers, patient groups, biomedical research companies - to pioneer novel healthcare innovations.

After qualifying as a lawyer, Peter formed the Argent Group of property companies with his brother in 1981. Argent is particularly known for major mixed-use projects like Brindleyplace in Birmingham, and King’s Cross and Brent Cross Town in London. Peter has also been a non-executive director on several other property companies and a trustee of a number of charities connected with education, combating intolerance, and public performance art. He was shortlisted for the Wolfson Economic Prize on delivering garden cities in 2014 and was until October 2020 Chair of Mayfield Market Towns Ltd. Peter was the principal author of the 2020 Housing Sprint Report and became Chair of Homes England in October 2020.

Tabitha is the co founder of CogX, a festival and online platform. Alongside CogX, Tabitha is the chair of the UK government's AI Council and a member of the DCMS Digitial Economy Council and on the TechUK board. A serial entrepreneur, Tabitha was the co-founder of video distribution company Rightster (IPO 2011.)

Tabitha is the author of How To Talk To Robots - A Girlsguide to a World Dominated by AI. She's also an advisor to Tortoise Media, The Stack, TeensInAI, Raspberry Pi, CarbonRe, Monumo, Cambridge Innovation Capital and The Alan Turing Institute.

Shaun Grady is Senior Vice-President Business Development Operations, leading AstraZeneca’s Global transaction execution, due diligence and Alliance and Integration Management function. This includes early and late-stage Clinical programmes as well as on-market licensing and partnering, M&A, and divestments. His career background includes roles at ICI, Zeneca, and AstraZeneca in Corporate, Pharmaceuticals and US Legal departments, HR and Business Development.

Shaun has worked on major projects including the AstraZeneca merger, creation of Avecia and Syngenta, acquisition of Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT), MedImmune and Amylin, and the spin out of Albireo and more recently AstraZeneca’s Antibody Drug Conjugate collaborations with Daichi Sankyo.

Shaun is an Honorary Fellow of the Judge Business School, a Fellow Commoner of Lucy Cavendish College, a Board Member at Healx, Prostate Cancer Research and Cambridge Arts Theatre and Chairman of the Board at Cambridge United Football Club.

Poppy is the Chief Executive Officer of Darktrace plc. Under her leadership, the company has experienced significant growth and global expansion, and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2021. She was named CEO of the Year at the 2021 Digital Masters Awards and Tech CEO of the Year at the UK Tech Awards 2021. Together with Darktrace CTO Jack Stockdale, Poppy was awarded an OBE for services to cyber security in 2019. She is a qualified chartered accountant and holds a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Sheffield, where she was also awarded an honorary degree in Doctor of Science in recognition of “outstanding achievements in the field of Cyber Security” in 2022.

Theodora Harold was appointed CEO of Crescendo Biologics in 2019.

She joined the Company in 2016 and was promoted to CEO, having previously held both CFO and CBO roles. She has over 20 years’ experience with both private and listed biotech SMEs and has originated and executed multiple business development and licensing transactions. Theo has also been instrumental in raising significant equity for the sector during her career. She was on the founding teams of both MISSION Therapeutics and PsiOxus Therapeutics where she was CFO, as well as having held executive roles with companies such as Cytomyx Holdings Plc and Orthomimetics. Theo qualified as Chartered Accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers and read Classics at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Matthew is Head of Human Genetics and Senior Group Leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. He is a Co-Founder of Congenica and is the Scientific Director of the Deciphering Developmental Disorders program, and was a major contributor to the UK 10K projects. He has pioneered the analysis of whole exomes in clinically relevant disorders that previously failed diagnostic methods and has led an initiative to characterise structural variation in the human genome. 

Matthew has been awarded the Balfour Lecture by the Genetics Society and the Crick Lecture prize for accomplishments in genetics and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Appointed as Director of Cambridge Science Park in August 2022, Jane Hutchins brings a wealth of experience of the science park sector and the innovative companies and people it serves. Working in partnership with Trinity College Cambridge and managing agents Bidwells, Jane is responsible for delivering the College’s future vision for the Park. This includes an ambitious new cycle of investment focused on sustainability, amenity enhancement and the creation of diverse and inclusive employment opportunities for the wider Cambridge community. Jane also plays a key role in supporting and raising the profile of existing and new members of the Park, which is at the heart of one of the best-known science, technology and innovation ecosystems in the world – Cambridge.

From 2011-2021 Duncan was the Head of Caledonia Private Capital, the private capital arm of Caledonia Investments plc, a FTSE 250 listed investment trust. Prior to leading Caledonia Private Capital, Duncan was a founding partner at RJD Partners having started his investment career at Royal Bank Development Capital. He initially trained as a chartered accountant with the insolvency arm of PwC. Duncan is also a non-executive director of Northern Trust (Guernsey) Limited, the Channel Islands banking subsidiary of the Northern Trust Corporation.

Elected Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in 2021, Dr Nik Johnson was born in 1969 and has been active in local politics for many years, including serving as a district councillor, and standing as a parliamentary candidate for Huntingdon in 2015.

Originally from the North-East of England, Dr Johnson qualified as a doctor in 1993 and has worked as an NHS paediatrician at Hinchingbrooke Hospital since 2007. Passionate about improving public health and wellbeing, he sees the work of the Combined Authority as a catalyst of beneficial change - collaborative work delivering local solutions for inclusivity, for more equal access to opportunity and resources, for ‘good green growth’, and for affordable, public transport that serves communities and respects the environment.

Now two years into his Mayoral term, the Combined Authority that Dr Johnson leads has been highly rated for its active travel plans, has championed local bus services in the face of cuts, been a powerful support for business during the pandemic and into the high street recovery. It has also revamped its transport and connectivity strategy to prioritise left-behind communities, address digital exclusion, and link more people to education, training, work, and leisure opportunity.

Dr Johnson lives near the Cambridgeshire market town of St Neots, with his wife, who is a fellow doctor, and their three children, revelling in a “weekend life based around the participation and enjoyment of sport, dance and acting activities.”

The Mayor is the Patron of Eddie’s – a charity supporting people with learning disabilities in Cambridgeshire.

CEO-level background in health care, innovation, government, and private equity. Diverse experience and shaping board structures and aligning governance and culture with the company’s mission. Broad board experience, with a consistent record of rising to Board chairmanships and committee chairmanships.

Operating experience: As CEO, COO, and Cabinet Secretary (revenues ranging from $100 million to $2 billion). CEO of Private equity firm. President of a Harvard research hospital. Practice group lead at BCG.

Consulting and investing experience: Ran a private-equity firm. 16 years at BCG, lead partner on firm’s second-largest client worldwide ($15 mil annual billings), served on three continents.

Board leadership experience: Chairman of four boards; Vice-Chairman of one (revenue ranges from $43 million to $600 million). Chaired multiple Finance, Audit, Governance, and Executive Committees. First outside Director at one growth company. Served on multiple Nominating Committees. Governance experience includes work as group of independent directors that led a company through a recapitalization and rationalization of shareholder structure; and work rebuilding committee structures and governance processes at two boards as Chairman and as Governance chair.

Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser DBE FRS is the Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge. UKRI brings together the UK’s research councils, Innovate UK and Research England, operating with a combined budget of more than £8 billion each year.

Prior to this Ottoline Leyser was Director of the Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, an interdisciplinary research institute combining computational modelling with molecular genetics and cell biology to elucidate the dynamical systems underpinning the control of plant growth and development. She has made important contributions to understanding the role of plant hormones in developmental plasticity, using the control of shoot branching in Arabidopsis as a model system.’

Dr Giorgia Longobardi is the co-founder and CEO of CGD since 2016. She is an experienced engineer with international practice working on GaN power devices. As the inventor of high impact patents in the field of GaN power devices, Giorgia has the unique blend of academic and business know-how as one of her biggest strengths.

During her PhD in power devices at Cambridge University, Giorgia worked on international projects with top semiconductor companies, through which she learned about different cultures operating in this field. She has so far raised more than $30m and has secured a multimillion pipeline of opportunities. She currently leads a team of 50 employees located in five different countries across 3 continents with the aim to deliver to market the most energy efficient power device technology.

Jason is a scientist entrepreneur passionate about translating innovative technologies into more effective therapies and better patient outcomes. He co-founded Start Codon to identify and recruit high-potential and disruptive healthcare startups worldwide, seed fund them, and leverage the exceptional resources of the Cambridge (UK) Cluster with an aim to minimise risk and drive their success.

Previously, Jason was CEO of Cambridge Epigenetix which has developed a proprietary epigenetic biomarker discovery platform for the development of new diagnostic assays and the identification of novel drug targets. While at Cambridge Epigenetix, he led two successful fundraises (Series B and C) for a total of $49.8m.

Jason was awarded a Marshall Scholarship to obtain his PhD in Medicine from the University of Cambridge and has a BSc (Summa Cum Laude) in Molecular Biology and Chemistry from Tulane University.

Professor Andy Neely, OBE, is Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. His previous appointments include Head of the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge, the Royal Academy of Engineering Professor of Complex Services at the University of Cambridge, the Deputy Director of the Advanced Institute of Management Research, a UK national research programme and the Director of the Centre for Business Performance at Cranfield University.

During his career, Andy has founded several major research centres and groups, including the Cambridge Service Alliance and the Centre for Digital Built Britain, both at the University of Cambridge and the Centre for Business Performance at Cranfield University. He is co-founder of Anmut, the data valuation specialists, a Non-Executive Director at the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and a member of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Sharjah.

He has written over 100 books and articles, including “Measuring Business Performance", published by the Economist and "The Performance Prism", published by the Financial Times. In 2020 he was awarded an OBE for services to research and university-industry collaboration.

Diarmuid is the Chief Executive of Cambridge Enterprise; the organisation responsible for commercialising research from the University of Cambridge; with a mission to support the translation of leading-edge, world-changing ideas into major societal and economic benefit.

Cambridge Enterprise is responsible for patenting the ground-breaking research from the University of Cambridge, licensing innovative technology to global businesses, connecting our exceptional faculty with the challenges of international business through consultancy and cultivating the formation of the next disruptive technology businesses through our seed fund.

Diarmuid has twenty years’ experience connecting academic based research with the enterprise community. Previously he was the Chief Innovation & Enterprise Officer at Trinity College Dublin, where he had overall responsibility for the development and enhancement of the college’s innovation and enterprise strategy.

Prior to this, Diarmuid was Director of Trinity Research and Innovation with responsibility for both the Research Development Office and the Office of Corporate Partnership and Knowledge Exchange. In that role he led the establishment of the University Bridge venture fund, which is ranked in the world’s top five collaborative university funds, according to Global University Venturing.

Diarmuid was also the Executive Director of CRANN, an internationally recognised centre of excellence for nanotechnology and materials science research. He has held senior management roles in several university-founded start-up companies, including NTera, Xoliox, and Deerac Fluidics.

Diarmuid was a Research Fellow at Princeton University. He has a PhD in Physics from the University of Sheffield and a degree in Materials Science from Trinity College Dublin.

Diarmuid joined Cambridge Enterprise in August 2021.

Robert joined Cambridge City Council in April 2021. Prior to that he held leadership roles at the United Nations in New York, in the civil service with HM Treasury, and in the third sector at Social Finance. Robert has supported a variety of charities and social enterprises as a non-executive director. He is currently a board member of New Local – an independent think-tank with a mission to transform public services and unlock community power.’

Professor Deborah Prentice became the University of Cambridge’s 347th Vice-Chancellor on 1 July 2023.

An eminent psychologist, Professor Prentice carried out her academic and administrative career at Princeton University, which she first joined in 1988. She rose through the academic ranks and took on administrative responsibilities of increasing scope, chairing the Department of Psychology for 12 years, serving as Dean of Faculty for three years, and then serving six years as Provost, with primary responsibility for all academic, budgetary, and long-term planning issues.

Her academic expertise is in the study of social norms that govern human behaviour – particularly the impact and development of unwritten rules and conventions, and how people respond to breaches of those rules. She has edited three academic volumes and published more than 50 articles and chapters, and she has specialised in the study of domestic violence, alcohol abuse and gender stereotypes.

The University Council nominated Professor Prentice for appointment as Vice-Chancellor in September 2022. Her appointment was subsequently approved by the Regent House.

Antony is a senior adviser at Bridges Fund Management, a UK-based private markets investor, and leader in impact investing. He founded the company’s work on Social Outcomes Contracts and established Bridges Evergreen Holdings, which invests in businesses that are helping to tackle pressing social and environmental challenges. He chairs two investment committees at Bridges and is also a trustee for the Bridges Impact Foundation.

Outside of his work for Bridges, Antony is on the board of Medaccess, a social enterprise improving health in low and middle income countries, and he lectures on social enterprise and impact investment at the London Business School and Judge Business School. He spent his early career at 3i, heading up the company’s Newcastle and Cambridge offices before leading the company’s healthcare team across Europe. He studied Mechanical Engineering at Bristol University, has an MBA from London Business School and was awarded an OBE for services to social enterprise and social investment in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Ant is Vice President Cloud Systems Future and a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft Research. He leads a team creating future technologies for the cloud from components to systems across storage, networking and compute. He has a DPhil and MEng from University of York and prior to working for Microsoft was a member of the Computer Lab and the Engineering Department at Cambridge University. Ant was awarded the 2016 ACM SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award and the 2021 ACM EuroSys Lifetime Achievement Award. In May 2010, he was elected as a Fellow of the British Computer Society, and in Sept 2020, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Dr Kristin-Anne Rutter joined Cambridge University Health Partners as the organisation’s Executive Director in March 2021, with a remit to lead the vision for life sciences in Cambridge, harnessing the talent, expertise and potential of the city’s cluster to deliver breakthrough scientific discoveries and rapidly prove and scale these to improve healthcare outcomes for all. 

Previously as a Partner in McKinsey & Company’s London Office, her focus was on improvement and innovation in healthcare delivery. She led thinking on how digital and data can create value for patients and healthcare systems and how the barriers to successful adoption and uptake can be overcome. Kristin-Anne was the founder of the McKinsey Health Tech network in 2013, bringing together the most advanced and innovative tech and digital solution providers to healthcare and supporting them to deploy in health systems. She supported the UK government to identify opportunities to strengthen the UK Lifescience industry and the deployment of innovation in the NHS.  

Prior to joining McKinsey, Kristin-Anne worked as a doctor in Iceland, had experience with Eli Lilly in manufacturing quality assurance and was a product manager for Neuromonics, a start-up company in Australia bringing a treatment for Tinnitus to market. She is currently a Trustee and Board member of Marie Stopes International. While at McKinsey Kristin-Anne spent a secondment with NHS Digital supporting their executive team accelerate programmes to support NHS priorities.  

Kristin-Anne has a first class MA from Cambridge UK in Neuroscience, a MB BChir in medicine with distinction from Cambridge UK and an MBA from Harvard USA with high distinction. 

Professor Emily Shuckburgh is the Director of Cambridge Zero, the University of Cambridge's major climate change initiative. She is also Professor of Environmental Data Science at the Department of Computer Science and Technology. She is a mathematician and climate scientist and a Fellow of Darwin College, a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy, a Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey and a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.

The Rt Hon. Lord Willetts FRS is the President of the Resolution Foundation. He served as the Member of Parliament for Havant (1992-2015), as Minister for Universities and Science (2010-2014) and previously worked at HM Treasury and the No. 10 Policy Unit.

Lord Willetts is a visiting Professor at King’s College London and an Honorary Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. He was Chair of the British Science Association He serves on the Board of UKRI and is Chair of the UK Space Agency. He co-chairs SynBioVen. He has written widely on economic and social policy. His book ‘A University Education’ was published by OUP in 2017 and a second edition of ‘The Pinch’ on intergenerational equity, was published in 2019. He is also a Trustee of the Booker Foundation.

After 30 years in the biopharmaceutical industry, Andy recently established his own consultancy business advising clients in the areas of strategy, policy development and engagement.

Andy is Chair of the OxCam Supercluster Board (SCB), comprised of globally recognised scientific enterprises, investors and world-leading universities alongside the local enterprise partnerships for the region. The board has been actively engaging with central government in support of the business case for East West Rail and policy to support growth across the region and the wider UK economy.

In his previous role at AstraZeneca, Andy oversaw the move and integration of the organization into the Cambridge area ahead of their move onto the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, reporting directly into the senior executive team. As part of that role, he was an active contributor to evolving Cambridge’s thinking in areas like transport, skill development, community amenity, housing and digital.

Andy remains active in the local Cambridge business community, sitting on the boards of Cambridge Ahead and Cambridge Network and is the Business Board representative on the Greater Cambridge Partnership Executive Board.

Andy has a first degree in Biochemistry from Kings College London, a PhD in Molecular Genetics from QMW College London and post-doctoral experience gained at the University of British Columbia.

Andrew Williamson is the Managing Partner of CIC and focuses on technology investments.

Andrew’s background combines R&D, start-up formation and technology investing. Before joining CIC he spent ten years in venture investing at Physic Ventures in San Francisco and True North Venture Partners in Chicago. Before moving into Venture Capital, Andrew led a research group applying High Performance Computing to materials science at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Andrew has an MA and PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Daniel was appointed Shadow Minister for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in January 2020. He was previously Shadow Transport Minister (2015-17) and a member of the Petitions Committee, Transport Committee, and Science and Technology Committee. He was elected Labour MP for Cambridge in May 2015. 

Daniel is a life-long environmentalist, with an enduring interest in agriculture and food issues. In 2021, Daniel led for the Labour Party in Parliament on the Agricultural Bill and was a member of the committee scrutinising the Environment Bill. He has recently spoken for Labour in many debates on food security and wider environmental issues, including challenging the Government’s targets on air and water quality.