Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top London based CEO’ operating in the Events space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Julio Bruno
CEO of Time Out Group plc
Julio Bruno is a global leader with a track record in starting, scaling, and improving the profitability, performance, and value of companies. Julio currently serves Time Out Group plc as CEO.
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About Time Out Group plc: Time Out is a leading global media and entertainment business
Callum Negus-Fancey
CEO & Founder of Pollen
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About Pollen: Pollen builds, curates, and delivers the best travel experiences.
Daniel Seal
Founder & CEO of Unbound Global
Daniel Seal is the Founder & CEO of unbound (formerly called AcreWhite). unbound is a platform connecting corporates and brands with start ups & disruptive technology to fuel innovation & growth. Together with Yossi Vardi, he is the co-host of Island Innovators and co-creator of unbound. Daniel was previously CEO of UK Israel Business, which under his leadership turned it from a dormancy into one the largest business networking organisations in Europe. Prior to joining UK Israel Business he was Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of Bedside Manner, a healthcare software company, which provided crowd feedback to medical professionals. From 2010 – 2015, he was a Councillor representing Garden Suburb Ward in the London Borough of Barnet and sat on the investment committee of the Barnet Pension Fund, a £980 million fund investing in equities, bonds and alternate assets. Daniel was listed number 24 in ’40 Under 40 Future Leaders’ which featured in the UK national press. He has a BSc (Hons.) in Biochemistry and an MSc Business Management from the University of London. He is a mentor for the Plug & Play, SPH and H Farm Acceleration Programmes. In his spare time, he is a keen skier and golfer.
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About Unbound Global: Unbound connects founders, entrepreneurs, and start-ups through a global series of tech festivals.
Johnny Boufarhat
Founder and CEO of Hopin
Johnny Boufarhat is the Founder and CEO at Hopin.
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About Hopin: Hopin is an event platform provider that connects communities through virtual, hybrid, and in-person events.
Tim Groot
CEO and Co-Founder of Grip
Tim is an entrepreneur at heart, having started his first company at the of age 17. He graduated with a BBA in International Management from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His passion for the app development space eventually lead him to co-found Grip in 2014. Tim is also a member of Founders of the Future.
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About Grip: Grip is a market engagement platform used by event organizers to create virtual and live event experiences.
Paul Zwillenberg
CEO of Daily Mail and General Trust
Paul Zwillenberg has over 25 years’ experience as an operator and advisor across the media, technology and telco sectors. He has a breadth of experience across the B2B and media sectors of DMGT’s portfolio and a broad knowledge of the Group, having set up the digital division of dmg media (formerly Associated Newspapers digital) in 1996. Prior to joining DMGT, Paul was the Global Leader Media Sector at The Boston Consulting Group and before that founded an early interactive media company and launched a European technology services firm.
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About Daily Mail and General Trust: DMGT provides businesses and consumers with compelling information, analysis, insight, events, news, and entertainment.
Sam Browne
CEO & Co-Founder of Let’s Do This
Sam Browne mainly work on hiring and developing relationships with distributors. If you’re a Javascript engineer I will definitely buy you dinner! I love races in the wild from ultras to adventure races and I used to be a race director at an expedition race series.
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About Let’s Do This: Let’s Do This is an online marketplace that features almost every endurance event on the planet.
Ignacio Bachiller
CEO of Fever
Ignacio studied Mechanical Engineering at MIT, with a minor in Energy, and a year abroad at Cambridge University. After graduating, Ignacio worked at McKinsey for a year, where he was involved in insurance, banking and energy projects. Soon after, he joined Fever as Head of Expansion, and after spending some time in NYC and then launching London, took on the responsibility of COO, and finally CEO.
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About Fever: Fever is a global live-entertainment discovery platform, helping people discover experiences in their cities
Kevin Brown
CEO & Founder of FanCircles
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About Brandaisy, FanCircles: Reach followers and fans through your own fan club platform built for music artists, YouTubers, television shows and celebrities
Blaise Bellville
Founder & CEO of Boiler Room
Boiler Room founder Blaise Bellville created a new underground music network quite literally from a utility room. Blaise left school at 18 and founded many businesses before starting the worldwide phenomenon that is Boiler Room, which reaches over 72 million music fans every month worldwide. Beginning as a club promoter and DJ, Blaise’s first business to gain national recognition was All Age Concerts. Founded when he was 25, it kicked off an under-age gig movement across the country, even creating a festival for 10,000 in Victoria Park at the movement’s peak in 2010. In the same era, he created online magazine Read Platform, which was written by and run for teenagers. It was while running his, surrounded by other London music obsessives that Boiler Room was born. Bellville enlisted Thristian Richards, who worked for Soul Jazz and Gilles Peterson and Femi Adeyemi, founder of online radio station NTS and organised a weekly hang out/ session – broadcast from a webcam and Ustream to the world from the utility room in the warehouse it was run out of. The session run by the electronic music scene, for the electronic scene quickly drew big name guests. Jamie XX, SBKRT and Hudson Mohawke all turned up for early session to DJ and hang out. Though Read Platform was drawing 300,000 unique users, Boiler Room soon mushroomed passed it in popularity. Since 2010 it has gone global, with a growing and significant fan base in Latin America, partnership with Japan’s biggest streaming provider, key broadcast hubs in Berlin, New York and Los Angeles and the dedication of the most hard core, committed music fans on the planet.
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About Boiler Room: Boiler Room is an online platform that enables its users to live stream and archive musical shows.
Elizabeth Varley
Founder & CEO of TechHub
Elizabeth is a serial entrepreneur and founded TechHub, the community for high-growth tech companies. TechHub has worked with thousands of companies to help them scale. TechHub member companies have been acquired by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Oracle and Microsoft among others, and have raised over $1billion in funding. TechHub also helps corporates like Google and BT access innovation culture and to work with startups to solve business challenges or develop new products. Previously Elizabeth ran an editorial and content agency, and built communities. She’s been selected for Computer Weekly’s UKtech50 top influencers, the Debrett’s 500, and Vogue UK’s Generation Tech among others. Elizabeth also sits on the board of the Digital City Exchange smart cities programme at Imperial College, the Open Data Institute’s Data Pitch technology innovation board, and the Silicon Valley Bank early-stage advisory board. @evarley @TechHub
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About TechHub: TechHub is the home of technology entrepreneurs and startup teams
Phil Hutcheon
Founder & CEO of DICE
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About DICE: DICE is a curated platform that connects fans to live shows.
Tim Cobbold
CEO & Executive Director of UBM Plc
Tim is the CEO & Executive Director of UBM, an event services platform.
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About UBM Plc: UBM is a global events-led marketing and communications services business.
Rebecca Kelly
Founder & CEO of VenueScanner
Combined experience across economics (1st class MA Edinburgh), investment management (CFA level 1), digital marketing (M&S, Naked Wines, Majestic Wines). Passionate about using data and analytics to drive business growth, obsessed with customer insight, understanding big problems and trying to solve them. Launched VenueScanner in 2016 after experiencing so many problems in trying to book event spaces for team offsites, parties, meetings etc at M&S. Now relentlessly trying to address the problem of matching under-utilised supply to demand in the venue and events industry. In the spare time that I used to have before I launched a company I loved travelling adventures (Richshaw Run…), micro-finance projects (Grameen Bank) and outdoor sports (mainly extreme or including at least a mild risk of life!)
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About VenueScanner: VenueScanner is a self-serve marketplace platform for event organisers to discover and book venues online.
Jonathon Whiteley
CEO of Incisive Media
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About Incisive Media, Investment Week, V3 co uk: Tweeting Career Opportunities at Incisive Media! Media Sales, Events, Marketing and Editorial / Journalism Jobs. Find us on facebook.
Noor Alkhadra
Founder & CEO of WeGeek
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About WeGeek: We are passionate geeks who take great pleasure in bringing gamers together by creating AWESOME gaming events.
Jeremy Basset
CEO of CO:CUBED
Jeremy has built his career by helping large corporates define and build their future organisation. Through CO:CUBED, he works with some of the worlds largest businesses to re-think their organisational approach to innovation and helping them build and execute their collaborative innovation capabilieis. Prior to launching CO:CUBED, Jeremy spent 13 years at Unilever where he was responsible for launching and then leading the Unilever Foundry, Unilever’s platform to engage with startups and innovative companies who can help Unilever pioneer the future. Through the Foundry, over 1500 of Unilever marketers have worked with over 150 startups, brining innovative technology and an entrepreneurial culture to Unilever. Originally Australian, Jeremy’s career has taken him from Australia to New Zealand, Singapore he now resides in the UK. Jeremy has a marketing and commercial background, with a degree in Accounting & Marketing, he’s CPA qualified and has an MBA from London Business School.
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About CO:CUBED: CO:CUBED helps FTSE100 companies to embrace the startup revolution, by defining and executing their collaborative innovation capabilities.
Andrew Needham
CEO & Founder of HeadBox
n the last 20 years Andrew Needham has successfully set up and managed companies across the fields of publishing, consumer research and social technology working as both an entrepreneur and a corporate leader within blue chip business environments. He is currently the CEO and Founder of HeadBox (www.headbox.com), the UK’s first on-line marketplace for inspiring, creative and off-site spaces allowing guests to search, book and pay for amazing spaces, all in one place. With over 1,500 venues on the platform already, HeadBox has one of the largest collection of venues in London, unlocking value from their under-utilised space as well as providing many spaces with an extra revenue stream. His mission is “to bring people and spaces together to make brilliant things happen” not just in the UK but all over the world and to do for under-utilised business space what Airbnb and Uber have done to other parts of the collaborative and sharing economy. In December 2015 HeadBox was one of Startups.co.uk’s 12 new businesses to watch in 2016.
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About HeadBox: HeadBox is an online marketplace for inspiring meeting, offsite and event spaces.
Jigar Patel
CEO & Co-Founder of The Ticket Fairy
COO & Founder at The Ticket Fairy. CEO & Founder at Desinex Group International.
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About Desinex Group International, The Ticket Fairy: Full-stack event marketing, ticketing, analytics and advertising platform
Sam Jones
Chief Executive Officer of OverTier of Bruin Sports Capital
Sam Jones is the CEO of Overtier, a venture formed by Bruin Sports Capital to build and operate next-generation multiplatform streaming services globally.
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About Bruin Sports Capital: Bruin Sports Capital seeks to invest in companies that operates in the media, sports, marketing, and branded lifestyle sectors.
Michael Truong
Co-founder and CEO of Memento
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About Memento: Virtual Reality Event Reconstruction
Amit Pate
Founder & CEO of Snaptivity
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About Snaptivity: Snaptivity is a stadium tech that drives fan engagement by capturing key moments of events using AI, IoT sensors, and robotic cams.
Alexandra Hussenot
Founder & CEO of Immersionn
Alexandra is the founder of Immersionn, the world’s first VR Discovery Engine and she is also the UK lead for ‘Women in Immersive Technologies’, a community of 1000 members that aims to empower European women working in XR. She is also 1 in 10 members of the UK5G Creative Industries working group reporting the department in charge of Digital, Medias, Culture and Sport (DCMS). Prior to this, Alexandra pursued an international business career at insurance firm, Allianz, managing an £80M global business. She has also worked all over Europe during her 11 years at Sony Ericsson (now Sony Mobile) and has solid experience designing and launching software and service products, particularly covering user experience design and continuous improvements. She also lead large scale operations for mobile phone repairs and remanufacturing.
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About Immersionn: Immersionn is a content discovery company. We allow people to discover VR content they would never find
Kiran Patel
CEO of Pogoseat
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About : Pogoseat is an enterprise solution for sports teams & concert venues that lets fans upgrade seats & purchase VIP upgrades during events
Simon Foster
CEO of Comexposium
Simon Foster is a 25 year veteran of the exhibitions and media industry. He joins Comexposium from UBM plc, a leading global B2B events organization, where he previously was CEO of UBM EMEA. Simon has a deep knowledge of the global events Industry, international business development, and leadership in Europe, the United States, and Asia. He notably was CEO of both UBM Americas and of UBM EMEA during his time at UBM plc. Some highlights of his time with UBM include launching and building businesses in Brazil, Turkey and Mexico, many successful acquisitions and integrations, most notably the $1bn Advanstar deal. Simon will lead the Comexposium Group strategic development and implementation across the Globe, managing existing products and teams, optimizing products’ performance, as well as overseeing new business launches and acquisitions integration. All Division Managing Directors in France and Regional CEOs in the US and in APAC will report to him. Simon will also manage HR, Business Solutions, Operations and Strategy & Integration teams.
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About Comexposium: Comexposium is an event organizer.
Ryan Farquharson
CEO & Co-Founder of ExpoCart
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About ExpoCart: ExpoCart is home to the biggest range of products and services for events.
Len Dunne
Chief Executive Officer of The Fitzwilliam Museum
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About Elivar, The Fitzwilliam Museum: The Fitzwilliam Museum operates a place to store and exhibit various artworks and artefacts.
Lu Li
Founder, CEO of Blooming Founders
Lu Li is the founder of Blooming Founders, a business incubation platform designed for early stage female entrepreneurs and diverse teams. Blooming Founders runs popular events and an award-winning co-working space in Shoreditch that give our members a competitive edge in building and growing their businesses. We offer fundraising support for selected startups. We also offer event and marketing services to corporates and government entities who want to leverage our diverse network. Lu has also published the book Dear Female Founder which contains 66 personal letters of advice written by female entrepreneurs from 20 countries. It is globally available on Amazon and Kindle. In her previous corporate career, Lu has launched FMCG products for Procter & Gamble across Western Europe and has worked on several consulting projects for McKinsey, BMW and T-Mobile.
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About Blooming Founders: Blooming Founders is a business incubation platform designed for early stage female entrepreneurs and diverse teams.
Anna Frankowska
CEO & Co-Founder of Nightset
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About Nightset: Nightset is a nightlife marketplace that connects people, venues, and brands on one platform globally.
Michaela Jeffery-Morrison
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Maddox Events
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About Maddox Events: Maddox Events is the world’s only B2B company exclusively dedicated to creating large-scale conferences.
Nic Cooper
CEO @Sledge of EventsTag
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About : We are EventsTag, pioneers of experiential technology.
Maximillion Cooper
Founder & CEO of Gumball 3000
Maximillion Cooper is a Founder & CEO at Gumball 3000.
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About Gumball 3000: The Gumball 3000 is an annual British 3,000-mile international motor rally which takes place on public roads.
Adam Goodyer
Founder & CEO of Realife Tech
Adam Goodyer is the Founder and CEO of Realife Tech.
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About Realife Tech: Realife Tech is an experience automation platform that provides customized communication channels for event guests.
Chris O’Donoghue
Chief Executive Officer of Mongoose Sports & Entertainment
Chris has spent the last 15 years living the mongoose way – running and finding deals within sports marketing and sponsorship. He has driven key client sponsorships with the likes of Rolex, Heineken, Sony, Aberdeen Asset Management and Thomson Reuters through a variety of different disciplines including Sailing, Golf, Cycling, Triathlon and Expeditions. Chris’ main passion is tennis and while his backhand needs a fair amount of work, he has secured and managed some of the sport’s biggest sponsorship programmes, including being responsible for the sponsorship assets for the WTA globally, the Masters Tennis at the Royal Albert Hall and The Hurlingham Classic. Since moving from Waterford, Ireland to the UK 13 years ago, Chris’ Irish accent has progressively diluted. His sea legs continue to be terrible but his time to run 5k is improving.
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About Mongoose Sports & Entertainment: Mongoose Sports & Entertainment is a specialist agency in sports and entertainment.
Brad Nobbs
CEO and Co-Founder of Licklist
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About Licklist: Licklist is a social marketplace for nightlife & music festivals.
Jesse Hopps
Founder & CEO of Demand Metric
Jesse worked for 5 years at IT analyst firm Info-Tech Research Group before founding Demand Metric. His primary responsibilities are building the team and partner ecosystem. When not working on the business Jesse likes to spend time with his family in Canada & Colombia.
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About Demand Metric: Agile project management software built for Marketers powered by 1,000+ practical tools & resources.
Reid Jackson
Founder & CEO of Calfix
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About Calfix, OpenOcean, Teenage Republicans, Verdict: Calfix is a mobile application that allows users to compare their calendars.
Paul van Zyl
Founder & CEO of Maiyet
Kristy Caylor is a Co-Founder and the President and Creative Director of Maiyet. Kristy brings to the team a keen entrepreneurial spirit, a successful track record of growing globally recognized fashion businesses, and hands-on experience working within developing countries. Kristy began her fashion career in merchandising at Gap, Inc. While at Gap, Kristy led the Petite business for Banana Republic where she opened stand-alone stores and tripled the business over 2 years. She then relocated to Tokyo to lead the BR Japan merchandising division. Engaging an entirely new customer, Kristy was instrumental in positioning the BR brand and customizing product for the Japanese market. Upon returning to the US, Kristy became the head of merchandising for Gap Accessories and Product (RED). There, she redeveloped the accessories lines, led the development and launch of Gap Jewelry, and focused intensely on creating a more creative and effective business model for Product (RED). Kristy left Gap to start her own consulting business, during which time she worked with brands such as Stronghold Denim, All Saints, and Mercado Global, a fair trade company based in Guatemala. As a design consultant for Mercado Global, Kristy worked directly with indigenous artisans, teaching new techniques and guiding product development for an assortment sold to Nordstrom and Levi’s. After working as a consultant for the LA based luxury brand Band of Outsiders, Kristy joined the company full time as their President and COO, initiating a long-term growth plan that resulted in new product launches and expanded wholesale penetration. Kristy graduated with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University and holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Finance from University of Southern California.
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About Maiyet, New York University, The Conduit: Maiyet is a modern, artisanal luxury fashion brand that designs, sources and produces apparel, accessories, and jewelry.
Patrick Borre
CEO of Billetto
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About Billetto, Billetto, Downtown.dk, Gfish, Takeoffer: Biletto is an online event discovery platform that enables individuals to host, promote, and attend events.
Robin Weil
Founder & CEO of Wedding Planner
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About Music Students for hire, Wedding Planner: Wedding Planner has helped over 275,000 brides to realise their dreams – they would love to help you to plan your BIG day.
João Andrade
Co-founder & CEO of One Hundred Group
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About One Hundred Group: One Hundred helps athletes find their individual summits by organizing and hosting 100mi and 100km ultra mountain trails.
George Rockett
Co-Founder & CEO of DatacenterDynamics
George is a co-founder of the global DatacenterDynamics Conference and Expo Series and is the Publisher of ZeroDowntime Magazine. He and his team are responsible for the content direction of all DCD events. Having been involved in IT and Business publishing for over a decade, he cut his teeth on the data centre market in 1998 with the launch of ‘Colocation Network Europe’ and has been involved in a multitude of publishing initiatives within this market sector since that time, including the award-winning ‘Building Datacentres Europe’ Directory. George’s ability to view things continually from a fresh perspective and to join the dots between the various disciplines that converge on the data centre market are hallmarks of DCDs success as an organisation. DatacenterDynamics considers itself much more than just a B2B media provider which is highlighted by the number of long-term relationships that have been forged internationally with end-users, vendors and consultants alike.
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About DatacenterDynamics: DatacenterDynamics is a full service B2B information provider tailored to professionals that design, build, and operate data centers.
Nick Scott
CEO of Big Group
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About Big Group: Big Group is a marketing agency.
Craig Bennett
Chief Executive Officer of The Wildlife Trusts
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About The Wildlife Trusts: The Wildlife Trusts is a non-profit organisation that organizes events to spread awareness to save wildlife & bring people closer to nature.
Clemi Hardie
Head of Pencils (CEO) of Noodle Live
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About Noodle Live: We’re an event technology company.
Remi Majekodunmi
FOUNDER/CEO of PinEventz
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About PinEventz: PinEventz offers a platform for Event organisers not to just promote or sell tickets but to continue the conversation where its stop.
Julie Lake
CEO, Founding Director of FinTechCity – The FinTech50
Julie is CEO and Founding Director of The FinTech50 launched in 2013 to recognize the European game-changers transforming financial services. Published annually, the list is now helping FinTech companies to raise profile globally, connect with influencers, investors and funders and generate business. In 2017, the FinTech50 will announce the first FinTech50 Asia and a new Financial Inclusion 50 which will showcase innovators worldwide who are delivering greater access to financial services.
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About FinTechCity – The FinTech50: FinTechCity London is the home of The FInTech50 – 50 game-changing businesses across Europe.
Maggie Philbins
CEO of TeenTech
Maggie Philbin has worked in radio and television for 30 years on a wide range of science, medical and technology programmes from Tomorrow’s World to Bang Goes The Theory. A popular keynote speaker and award host, she works consistently to improve diversity in contemporary industry, emphasising social and ethnic diversity are as important as gender. In June 2016 she was voted most influential woman in UK IT by Computer Weekly and also named 2016 Digital Leader of the Year.
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About TeenTech: Discover how your school can enter the TeenTech Awards.
Maggie Philbins
CEO of TeenTech
Maggie Philbin has worked in radio and television for 30 years on a wide range of science, medical and technology programmes from Tomorrow’s World to Bang Goes The Theory. A popular keynote speaker and award host, she works consistently to improve diversity in contemporary industry, emphasising social and ethnic diversity are as important as gender. In June 2016 she was voted most influential woman in UK IT by Computer Weekly and also named 2016 Digital Leader of the Year.
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About TeenTech: Discover how your school can enter the TeenTech Awards.
Jacki Vause
Founder and CEO of dimoso
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About dimoso: It’s all changing. In the new world of apps, tablets and social media, the old media world has been turned on its head.
