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 Social 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.
Bernhard Niesner
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of busuu
Bernhard Niesner is the CEO and Co-Founder of busuu – the world´s largest social network for language learning with more than 35m users. busuu provides language courses in 12 different languages combined with direct interaction with native speakers from the community. The London-based start-up received several awards and was named “Best Education Start-Up in 2011” by TechCrunch. busuu is backed by renown business angels like Martin Varsavsky and received investment from PRO-Founders Capital. Before founding busuu, Bernhard worked at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. In addition to busuu, he is Associated Professor at IE Business School in the area of online marketing. Bernhard graduated summa cum laude in International Business from the University of Vienna and holds an MBA (with honors) from IE Business School. In 2009 he was awarded “Entrepreneur of the year” in Austria.
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About busuu: busuu is a mobile app for language learning with the goal of breaking down language barriers.
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Michelle Kennedy
Co-Founder & CEO of Peanut
Michelle joined Badoo originally as lead counsel over 4 years ago. Prior to joining Badoo she was a successful corporate lawyer at leading international law firm, Mishcon de Reya, before being poached by the firm’s successful biotech client, Quotient Bioscience to head up their legal team. During her time at Badoo, she built the legal, compliance, HR and talent teams before moving into a more operationally focused role, including a position on the board. Today, Michelle is responsible for most key areas of the business, and works closely with founder and CEO Andrey Andreev, on the existing product, and exciting ‘special projects’ coming soon….
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About Peanut: Peanut is an online platform that provides a safe space for women to connect across fertility and motherhood.
Dhruv Ghulati
Co-Founder and CEO of Factmata
Dhruv holds a Distinction in Computer Science and Machine Learning from University College London, and a 1st Class BSc in Economics from the LSE. He was a product manager and co-founder of two London based machine intelligence startups, and is an Entrepreneur First alum and Forbes 30 Under 30 leader in Technology. He wrote his thesis in cost-sensitive classification and distant supervision for statistical claim detection.
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About Factmata: Factmata is an artificial intelligence company for automated content understanding..
Dylan Collins
Co-Founder and CEO of SuperAwesome
Dylan Collins is one of Europe’s most experienced digital media entrepreneurs, focusing on games, kids entertainment and the technology which underpins them. He is CEO of SuperAwesome, the #1 kid-safe brand engagement platform. SuperAwesome works with the biggest kids entertainment brands in the world including Disney, Hasbro, Warner Bros and Activision ensuring they connect safely with over a quarter of a billion kids each month. An active investor and advisor across both kids media and technology companies, he is Venture Partner with Hoxton Ventures and sits on the board of the UK’s top-rated marketing technology agency, Potato and Brown Bag Films, Europe’s leading kids animation studio. Previously Collins founded Jolt Online Gaming which became one of the pioneering social games publishers in Europe. Jolt was acquired by GameStop (NYSE: GME), the largest video games retailer in the world in 2009 to spearhead their digital media strategy. As founder and CEO of DemonWare in 2003, he led the company to become the leading online games technology firm in the global console games market. In 2007, DemonWare was acquired by Activision Blizzard (NYSE: ATVI), the world’s biggest video games publisher and is now the multiplayer backbone of the billion-dollar Call of Duty franchise.
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About Box of Awesome, brown bag films, Hoxton Ventures, Potato, SuperAwesome: SuperAwesome offers kid-safe tools and technology for the children’s digital media ecosystem.
Kirill Chliaifchtein
Founder & CEO of SwiftGift
Founder & CEO at SwiftGift
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About SwiftGift: SwiftGift is the world’s first Instant Gift Messenger App which allows you to send real gifts to anyone in your phone’s contact book.
Gerard Keeley
CEO & Co-Founder of Vidsy
Co-Founder & CEO at Vidsy.
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About Vidsy: Vidsy is the creative technology engine powering mobile video ad creation for brands.
Tony Hall
Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief of BBC
Tony Hall is the 16th Director-General of the BBC. The Director-General is the Chief Executive Officer of the BBC, its Editor-in-Chief and chairs the BBC’s Executive and Management Boards. The Director-General is the editorial, operational and creative leader of the BBC, with responsibility for a significant global workforce and the Corporation’s services across television, radio and online. Tony Hall – Lord Hall of Birkenhead – was appointed Director-General of the BBC on 22 November 2012. He is the 16th Director-General of the BBC. Prior to this, Tony was Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House from April 2001 until April 2013. He joined the BBC as a news trainee in 1973 and during a 28 year career at the Corporation he held roles including Senior Producer at World at One, Assistant Editor of the Nine O’Clock News, Output Editor for Newsnight, culminating as Chief Executive of BBC News from 1996 to 2001. While at the BBC he launched Radio 5 live, BBC News 24, BBC News Online and BBC Parliament. He was Deputy Chairman of Channel 4 Television and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. He is passionate about education and skills within the cultural industries. He was the founder Chair of Creative & Cultural Skills and Chairman of the Musical and Dance Scheme.He spearheaded the development of the new High House Production Park in Thurrock, Essex. He has been Chair of Stratford East Theatre, and Honorary Visiting Fellow of Journalism at City University, a member of the Regeneration Through Heritage Steering Group, a board member of Race for Opportunity, a former non-executive director of HM Customs and Excise and was a member of the Council for Brunel University. In 2009 he was asked by the Government and the Mayor of London to set up and chair a board to direct the Cultural Olympiad and also joined the board of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. He was appointed a CBE in 2005 and in 2010 was created a life peer with the title Baron Hall of Birkenhead. He sits on the Crossbenches in the House of Lords.
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About BBC: BBC is a large-scale broadcasting corporation that offers content to inform, educate, and entertain people.
Priyanka Gill
Founder & CEO of POPxo
Priyanka Gill is the Co-Founder and President of MyGlamm. She is also the Founder & CEO of POPxo, India’s largest community of women.
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About MyGlamm, POPxo: POPxo is India’s online community for women that deals everything from fashion, beauty, lifestyle, work, and etc.
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
John Ridding
CEO of Financial Times
John Ridding is the Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Times Group, one of the world’s leading business news organisations recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Under his stewardship, the FT has expanded its global operations, successfully scaled and transformed its core business and acquired a number of companies that support its multichannel strategy, including Money-Media, Medley Global Advisors, Exec-Appointments, Assanka (renamed FT Labs), Alpha Grid and Longitude. John sits on the board of Bonnier Business Press, part of the international media conglomerate Bonnier AB. He is also Chairman of Room to Read, a US-based charity that supports education and literacy in developing countries, and a member of its UK Advisory Board.
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About Financial Times: Financial Times is a business news organization providing essential news, comments, data, and analysis for the global business community.
Tom Hooper
Founder and CEO of Third Space Learning
Matr is Tom’s second venture in education technology. In 2009 he founded BrightSpark, an online teaching business he sold to TES in 2012. He graduated with an MA in Philosophy and Politics from the University of Edinburgh, then worked in investment from 2003-9, when his start-up career began.
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About Third Space Learning: Third Space aims to help every student access great quality online tuition to help them succeed in, and love, their learning
Muayyad Shehadeh
Co-Founder and CEO of Uhive
Over 25 years of experience, CEO of Genie9, BigMIND and UHIVE A long and broad experience in machine learning algorithms and A.I. systems.Created BigMIND cloud which was the first cloud solution to utilise cold and hot storage, and integrate A.I, Muayyad has a degree in Architecture. He is well known as a Windows C++/WIN API Guru with deep conceptual thinking; which is an ability he developed and enhanced through his Architecture degree Spent last 5 years working on UHive Social Network Idea
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About Uhive, Zoolz: Uhive is a social network that lets users socialize, interact, and find people across the world while earning its own digital currency.
Norm Johnston
CEO of Unruly
Norm Johnston is Chief Digital Officer at MindShare.
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About MindShare, Unruly: Unruly is an advertising technology company that gets videos watched, tracked, and shared across the Open Web.
Samuel Huber
Founder & CEO of Admix
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About Admix, VR Focus: Admix is the first programmatic monetisation platform for in-game advertising
Robyn Exton
Founder and CEO of Her
Robyn is the CEO & Founder of HER the world’s largest brand for LGBTQ womxn & queer people. HER builds products and experiences that connect womxn in the way that works best for them. Their app is home to 4 million people across the world, with dating and community connections, and their events run in 15 cities, hosting 50,000 people per year. With content, events and communities, HER is opening up opportunities for LGBTQ womxn that never existed before.
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About Her: Her is a dating application for lesbians, bisexual and bi-curious women, allowing users to connect with each other and their community.
Nick Robertson
Founder & CEO of ASOS
Nick Robertson is a Founder & CEO At ASOS.
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About ASOS, ASOS Ventures: Asos is an online platform engaged in the retail of fashion and beauty products for men and women.
Jessi Baker
Founder & CEO of Provenance
Jessi Baker is the founder of Provenance, building the future of supply chain transparency and product trust on the blockchain. She is an Art and Science hybrid, with Master’s degrees in Engineering from the University of Cambridge and Design from the Royal College of Art. She has worked with brands on technology strategy across the US and Europe, including Adidas, The Four Seasons, The Guggenheim Museum, British Airways and Will.I.Am. She is an associate researcher at the Intel Institute for Sustainable Cities and a regular speaker on technology and social business.
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About Intel, Provenance: Provenance is the leading software solution for sustainability communications
Oliver Reason
CEO of Giggl
Oliver Reason is the CEO of Giggl, revolutionizing online interaction. Oliver started programming at a very young age, and earning money at 11. He is now building on his own company as well as consulting others.
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About Giggl: Watch and browse together with your friends and teams. Your new portal into the internet.
Edward Griffith
Founder and CEO of LoveCrafts
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About LoveCrafts: LoveCrafts is a start-up that builds social marketplaces for the crafts sector.
May Al-Karooni
Founder & CEO of Globechain
May Al-Karooni is the founder of Globechain – an award winning British reuse marketplace that connects corporates to charities and smes to redistribute free unwanted items, creating social impact data to its members. May previously worked within the investment banking and asset management industry, fundraising monies for venture capital, property and hedge funds for the last 10 years totaling over £120 million in funds raised. In 2013 May set up Globechain after seeing a demand for a new online circular economy within the waste management industry after her own employer expressed a need to reuse items in a more collaborative way. Globechain has gained huge momentum growing to 10,000 members with eBay as its mentors and securing contracts with some of the world’s largest brands as well as growing a large network of charities nationally and internationally. Globechain works within the retail, commercial and construction industry and last year diverted 5,100,000 kilos from landfill with items being re distributed within the UK as well as abroad as far as Sierra Leone, Guinea, Kenya, Libya and the Ukraine providing savings of over £1,500,000 to charitable causes.
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About Globechain: Globechain is a B2B reuse marketplace connecting businesses to charities, creating social impact data.
Ashley Friedlein
CEO & Founder of Guild
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About Ably Realtime, Cambridge Judge Business School, Centaur Media Plc, Econsultancy, Founders4Schools, Guild: Guild is the platform for professional communities and networking.
CARMEN HIJOSA
Founder & CEO of Ananas Anam
Carmen Hijosa Originally from Spain, Dr. Hijosa has a track record in the design and manufacturing of leather goods, selling through her own company and supplying key retail outlets such as Harrods and Liberties in London. While working in the Philippines as a consultant to the Product Development and Design Center of the Philippines in the ‘90s, Dr Hijosa became aware of the qualities of pineapple leaf fibres and began to explore possible ways to develop a new textile material that could be used as an alternative to leather and petroleum based textiles. As written in the Huffington Post, it took around 7 years to develop, what is now Pinatex. A strong and sustainable textile, that can be used in everything from bags to furniture. Even shoe companies like Puma and Camper have made prototypes with the textile. What started as an alternative to leather, have become its own product. Carmen believes that there is a place for Pinatex in the world, right between leather and petroleum based textiles.
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About Ananas Anam: Piñatex is a strong, versatile, breathable, soft, light, flexible textile that can be easily printed on, stitched and cut.
AF_initDataCallback({key: \’ds:1\'” alt=”” class=”wp-image-14850″ width=”154″ height=”152″/>Alex Packham
Founder & CEO of ContentCal
Alex Packham is the Founder & CEO at ContentCal.
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About ContentCal: ContentCal allows users to collaborate, share, plan and publish content to drive engagement on social media.
Daneh Westropp
Founder & CEO of Pickle
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About Pickle: Find different friends for different things!
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
Kwame Ferreira
Founder & CEO of Impossible
Kwame is founder and CEO of impossible.com which helps develop businesses through a planet centric design approach, aligning business goals with planetary needs. Kwame has, among many other things, created record labels (enchufada.com), emotional wearables (bond-touch.com), bot engines (nikabot.com) and kind insurance companies (kinsu.co.uk).
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About Impossible: A new social network of giving and receiving. impossible. Do good. Feel good.
Andrey Andreev
Founder/ CEO of Badoo
Andrey focuses the majority of his time and energy on product development, strategy and new projects to continually innovate Badoo across web and mobile platforms. In addition to Badoo, he founded several other highly successful internet businesses: SpyLog, Begun and Mamba.ru. His entrepreneurial spirit continues to inspire everyone on the team and today Badoo is the largest Social Network for Meeting New People in the World with over 135 million registered users, generating over $150 million USD’s per year and operating in 180+ countries. Andrey is the serial entrepreneur and founder behind Badoo, the 4th successful company he has built in the last 10 years. His successes include Begun, a company focused on selling contextual advertising by auctioning keywords – often described as an earlier version of Google AdWords. He also created Mamba.ru, which has evolved into Russia’s largest online dating site, with over 10 million monthly active users.
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About Badoo, Bumble, Chappy, Lumen, MagicLab: Badoo is a dating-focused social network, allowing users to chat, make friends and share interests.
Jack Parsons
Chief Executive Officer of Big Youth Group
Young, motivational and opinionated, Jack Parsons is a millennial on a mission. Making waves in the millennial market as someone not afraid to break the status quo. Jack Parsons is now CEO of yourfeed. A social platform he created to help connect young people and their skills to employers. He has grown a significant social following of brands and fans watching and supporting his mission to connect two million young people to commercial opportunities by 2020. Jack has amassed 32,000 followers on Twitter and 25,000 followers on LinkedIn – and this continues to grow.
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About Big Youth Group: Big Youth Group helps to improve the odds for young people aged 18-30 years old around the world.
Jack Parsons
Chief Executive Officer of Big Youth Group
Young, motivational and opinionated, Jack Parsons is a millennial on a mission. Making waves in the millennial market as someone not afraid to break the status quo. Jack Parsons is now CEO of yourfeed. A social platform he created to help connect young people and their skills to employers. He has grown a significant social following of brands and fans watching and supporting his mission to connect two million young people to commercial opportunities by 2020. Jack has amassed 32,000 followers on Twitter and 25,000 followers on LinkedIn – and this continues to grow.
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About Big Youth Group: Big Youth Group helps to improve the odds for young people aged 18-30 years old around the world.
Jude Ower
Founder & CEO of PlayMob
Jude Ower is changing the world through game play. She has spent 10 years working within games, creating educational, training and awareness games across a range of organisations from corporate, government and education. Jude is now concentrating on social and mobile games, and how engaging mass audience of game players can make a world changing difference.
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About Department for International Trade, PlayMob: Playmob is the gaming engagement platform for brands with purpose.
Rebecca Lammers
CEO of Laika Network
A customer funded business, helping content owners manage and monetize their online content on YouTube, Facebook and other platforms. Our clients are spread across several sectors including music, TV, film, gaming, education and general entertainment. Corporate clients include Sony ATV, BMG, Kobalt Labels Services and Concord Music Publishing. Artist clients include The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden, Phil Collins and Genesis.
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About Laika Network: Laika Network helps content owners manage and monetize their online videos.
Michael Breidenbruecker
Founder and CEO of Last.fm
Michael is the founder of RjDj, a London – and New York – based startup. RjDj is an app that generates a dynamic soundtrack using the Phone’s external audio input. He is a musician who used to play saxophone, changed to laptop and now plays mobile phone and iPad. In the past, Michael was one of the original founders and CEO of Last.fm.
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About Last.fm, Reality Jockey: Last.fm is an online music catalogue providing users with personalized recommendations based on their taste in music.
Antoine Amann
Founder & CEO of Echobox
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About Echobox: Echobox is the leading content automation platform
John Hoffman
CEO & Director of GSMA
John Hoffman is the CEO and Director at GSMA.
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About GSMA: The GSMA is a trade group that represents network operators using GSM technology for their networks.
Mohammed SHK
Chief Executive Officer of Bazaar Daily UK
Mohammed Abdul Abidiz Sultan Haleem Wali Khane II (b 31 Jan 1995) is a British-American newspaper publisher; blogger, columnist, digital developer, and influencer quietly regarded as a prolific name in European blogging. Having never spoken to the mainstream press, Mohammed is world-renowned for his staunch privacy and elusiveness of the media. He is a mainstay fixture at Hollywood events; Silicon Valley forums, and fashion week. He rose to prominence in the blogging and tech community in 2002 with the launch of Fashion Bzaar (the original Bazaar Daily) and what would become of it today. He has been nominated for numerous accolades as a blogger although has refused to ever appear at any such ceremony. At 25 years old, Mohammed is one of New York ‘s most prominent bloggers given his status and estimated 101M website subscribers. He is best known for having joined the ranks of Wallis & Holdings when he was 7 years old. The partnership led to the creation of a joint agency between Taylor Wallis & Mohammed that would later become Khane Enterprise. When Wallis died at the age of 18, Mohammed became the sole heir to each of their estates.
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About Bazaar Daily UK, Bazaar Daily UK, Daily Chronicle, Gladeon Entertainment, Khane’s Landing: Bazaar Daily (UK) is the British counterpart to Bazaar Daily News, a massive online news agency founded by Sultan H. Khane II.
David Goldberg
Co-founder and CEO of Founders Pledge
David is the co-founder and CEO of Founders Pledge a new international charity through which tech entrepreneurs commit to donate a small percentage of their personal exit proceeds to high impact social causes. Since launching in June 2015, Founders Pledge has raised $575 million for high impact charities through more than 1300 pledges in 30 countries. Having run the gauntlet of finance, start-up, and academia, David started Founders Pledge to make it absurdly easy for entrepreneurs to do good through their work and in lives. David moved into the non-profit sector from an eclectic commercial background. Immediately following high school, David joined one of the largest privately held mortgage banks in the U.S., where he launched the secondary marketing department, after which he worked as an investment banker Los Angeles. David also founded and ran a boutique real estate firm in Germany. David is a graduate of UCLA and the University of Cambridge.
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About Founders Pledge, Wayra: Founders Pledge is a global community of entrepreneurs finding and funding solution’s to the world’s most pressing problems.
David Kershaw
Co-Founder ,CEO & Exec Director of M&C Saatchi
David Kershaw is a founding director of M&C Saatchi. He joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 1982 after obtaining an MBA at London Business School. He became managing director in 1990 and was made chairman and chief executive of the UK agency in 1994.
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About M&C Saatchi: M&C Saatchi Group is a creative company that connects specialist expertise, fuelled by data and technology.
Andrew Baev
CEO of Bookmate
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About Bookmate: Bookmate is mobile story-on-the-go subscription service providing convenient access to ebooks, audiobooks and other long-form content
Andrea Manfredi
Founder & CEO of Blasting News
After graduating from Bocconi University in 2005, Andrea earned an MBA at INSEAD, studying in Paris and Singapore. He spent several years working as a manager in top strategic consulting firms mainly in the UK and Italy. Working as a journalist since 1998, Andrea is the Founder & CEO and the Editor-in-Chief of Blasting News.
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About Blasting News: Blasting News is the leading social news publisher. Where every voice counts.
Sean Riley
Founder & CEO of Ad Dynamo
Sean Riley is founder and CEO at Ad Dynamo. Prior to this, he was managing director at Entelligence Ltd. and had worked one at E-Data Solutions and Credit Suisse.
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About Ad Dynamo: Ad Dynamo is Africa’s largest digital media sales house. Ad Dynamo manages sales in Africa for Twitter, Oath, Snapchat & Spotify.
Lilia Stoyanov
CEO of Transformify
Global strategic leader driving operations within finance, treasury, project management, product and business development areas in both Fortune 500 and fast growing fintech companies. Experienced in E commerce, On -line payments, On-line Gambling, Fintech, Business Transformation and Interim Management.
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About Transformify: Transformify Freelancer Management System (FMS) is the seamless way to manage and pay freelancers, consultants and contingent workers.
Yohann Merran
Founder, CEO, Lead Dev of Meet My Friends
Founder, CEO, Lead Dev at Meet My Friends
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About Meet My Friends: MMF is a hybrid app between a social network and a city guide, to spontaneously discover events you’ll love exploring with your friends.
Asaf Peled
Founder and CEO of Minute Media
Asaf is the Chief Executive Officer of Minute Media, parent company of 90min. Asaf founded 90min in 2011as FTBpro. Since then, 90min has grown to be the world’s largest football media platform, driven by a contributor-driven model, and has expanded the brand throughout Europe, North America, South America and Asia. Asaf is involved in all aspects of Minute Media’s growth and operations, from product development to marketing and content. Prior to 90min, Asaf was the founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Top 7 International and also spent four years at Cisco Systems Israel where he was responsible for business development in the Israeli market. Asaf has a M.B.A. from The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania and a bachelors of arts from Tel Aviv University. He resides in London and his favorite team is the San Antonio Spurs.
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About 90min, Minute Media: Minute Media is a media and technology brand focused on two main pillars—platform and content.
marco muccini
Group CEO of Topos Network
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About Papermine, Topos Network: The Borderless Bank of Migrants
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.
Nik Kafka
Founder, Chief Executive Officer of Teach A Man To Fish (TAMTF)
Nik Kafka is the founder and Chief Executive of Teach A Man To Fish. Leaving a successful banking career in the City of London for a local microfinance institution in Paraguay, Nik discovered an innovative school aiming not only to teach the poor how to become rural entrepreneurs, but to do so as a self-financing social enterprise. Having helped transform this school into a replicable model, and realising the huge potential for funding education through enterprise rather than charity, he returned to the UK to found Teach A Man To Fish. Under his stewardship Teach A Man To Fish has grown into an international network whose membership now numbers over 4,500 education institutions and experts in more than 125 countries. Over 50,000 young people have benefited directly from Teach A Man To Fish programmes across Africa, Asia & Latin America. Honoured as a Young Global Leader in 2009 by the World Economic Forum, he was more recently named in 2011 as one of Devex’s 40 Under 40 International Development Leaders in London. He holds a first-class BSc in Chemistry from the University of Bristol, an MSc in International Development from the School of Oriental & African Studies at the University of London, as well as professional qualifications in finance.
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About Teach A Man To Fish (TAMTF): Encouraging and supporting education projects that generate sustainable livelihoods for young people across the developing world.
Ari Last
Founder & CEO of bubble app
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About bubble app: Bubble, an on-demand mobile app, connects parents with babysitters that their friends already know and trust.
Tomas Utting
Assistant to CEO of Combyne
Tomas Utting is an Analyst of combyne.
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About Combyne: Combyne is a social tool for creating outfits. It’s the fusion of a game, a practical utility and a social network.
Yannis Piperakis-Papadakis
CEO of DOPE Studio
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About DOPE Studio: DOPE creates [D]ata driven, fully [O]ptimized, top [P]erforming, digital [E]xperiences for local & international brands!
Jeremy Jauncey
Founder, Chief Executive Officer of Beautiful Destinations
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About Beautiful Destinations: Beautiful Destinations is a media company that shares authentic, inspirational, and immersive travel stories.
Sachin Karia
Co-Founder and CEO of The Sauce
Sachin Karia is the founder and CEO at The Sauce.
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About The Sauce: The Sauce has a vision for bringing the next generation back together in real life using the power of social video profiles.
Bonnie Takhar
Lead Founder and CEO of LetsBab
Bonnie Takhar is the founder and CEO of LetsBab, a digital mall that is disrupting the way you shop and digitalising word of mouth. Takhar, a seasoned fashion executive with over 20 years experience, has held a number of high ranking positions.
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About LetsBab: LetsBab is a digital mall revolutionizing the way you shop and share products with others.
Gideon Joseph
CEO of Transatlantic
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About Transatlantic: Transatlantic is a communications consultancy focused on accelerating the growth of start up fast growth businesses
Tom Hares
CEO & Co-Founder of Buzzbike
Prior to dreaming up Buzzbike, Tom led advertising for Apple, inspiring him to create something that not only made an impact on the world, but did so with craft and care at every turn.
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About Buzzbike: Buzzbike is launching a tech-driven cycle scheme for London, creating a new sponsorship platform for brands.
Pedro Carmo Oliveira
CEO & Co-founder of Talent Protocol
Pedro Oliveira is the CEO and Co-founder at Talent Protocol.
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About Landing.jobs, Talent Protocol: decentralized platform where talent can create a personal token
Khing Oei
Founder & CEO of AlphaSwap
Khing is an investor and entrepreneur. Prior to founding AlphaSwap, Khing founded and ran Eyck Capital, a hedge fund with peak AUM of $200mm. Khing started his career at Goldman Sachs in M&A and subsequently worked as an investor/portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Investing Group and multi-billion dollar hedge funds Fortress and Halcyon. Khing holds a Master of Science in Econometrics and an Associate’s Degree in Business Mathematics & Computer Science from VU University in Amsterdam.
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About AlphaSwap, Privium Fund Management: AlphaSwap is an investment technology platform, bundling its analyst community’s best stock ideas into Data-as-a-Service
Joshua Nino De Guzman
CEO, Co-Founder & Director of Dexerto
Joshua Nino De Guzman is the CEO & Co-Founder at Dexerto
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About Dexerto: Dexerto is the world’s largest digital esports and gaming lifestyle platform news platform.
Seth Ward
CEO & Founder of Pynk
Online since the ’80s, I grew up eating my cereals off of arcade game machines which led to my first thriving business aged 8 – running a lunchtime arcade sanctuary for my school buddies in my garage (in true Silicon Valley style). Serial tech entrepreneur and incubator since the ’90s. A hands-on, can-do leader, I’ve: – Raised investment (and delivered ROI) – Coded prototypes, alphas and betas – Set up data-driven analytics that enabled rapid growth – Recruited and led globally disperse tech teams – Built a business from $500 to eight figures in 4 years with zero investment – Pioneered digital download and mobile video streaming platforms for AOL, Vodafone, Orange and Universal Music – Co-founded a business which transformed professional soccer scouting before selling to an industry leader And I… – love to immerse myself in the most positively disruptive technology (from those arcade games and pre-WWW internet in the ’90s, web in the 90s, mobile in the 00s and now blockchain and AI in the 10s – learn to teach, and teach to learn; I feel most alive when I’m learning and applying new thinking – realise that as a society we need to actively shape our use of technology to help us reach our human potential rather than allowing it to rule our lives and diminish our connection to each other I first started mining Bitcoin in 2011. I’m currently focused on the blockchain space, dedicated to helping everyday investors and startups. I love blockchain, and I kinda love capitalism – both are broken right now, but could fix each other. Let’s make things better!
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About Pynk: Pynk is where everyday people invest better together.
Justine Roberts
CEO , Founder & Owner of Mumsnet
Justine Roberts is the Founder and CEO of Mumsnet. Over the last 20 years Mumsnet has grown into the UK’s busiest and most influential network for parents, with over 10 million unique users per month. Mumsnet regularly campaigns on issues including support for families of children with special educational needs, improvements in postnatal and miscarriage care, and freedom of speech on the internet. Mumsnet was awarded the Online Comment Site of the Year (Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards) 2011 and 2014. Justine was the Institute of Internal Communication Communicator of the Year in 2014 and EY Entrepreneur of the Year London and South Winner in 2016. Justine was one of EU-Startup’s Top 50 Most Influential Women in Startups and VC in 2019. Before Mumsnet, Justine wrote about football and cricket for the Daily Telegraph and the Times and before that she was an economist and strategist for SG Warburg. She is a mother of four (and two dogs) and was appointed CBE in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to the economy.
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About Gransnet, Mumsnet: Mumsnet is the UK’s busiest social network for parents.
Patrick Beraud
Founder & CEO of bemoir
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About bemoir: Bemoir is a social media platform that enables its users to share their stories with photos and videos.
Rich Martell
Co-founder & CEO of orderswift
Richard Lewis Martell, also known as “Rich Martell” or “Dicky M” (born 10 February 1989) is an Internet entrepreneur best known for founding Floxx Media Group and being the creator of FitFinder. According to sources, Martell started his first internet business, when he was only 15 years old to provide income throughout his education at Bedford School and later University College London. Whilst at University Martell worked in the Technology divisions of a number of investment firms including Goldman Sachs. Martell launched FitFinder on Friday, 23 April 2010 at 9am; within 6 hours of the site being up it had to be pulled down due to such high demand and abuse. He said the site was intended “just for a few of us to communicate on throughout the day, however word got out at UCL, and after 2 days of it being online, the UCL one alone had over 25,000 unique users.” He was quoted later describing his surprise at the popularity of it as it was ‘only a joke’. In May 2010, Martell was given the maximum fine by his university for ‘bringing the university into disrepute’. Martell refused to remove the site; however, on May 28, 2010, the website was removed and replaced with a holding page and message signed off by Dicky M citing ‘increased pressure’ from universities to remove the site. He vowed to bring back a new improved FitFinder for the next academic year. On 3 January 2011, Martell launched his new business, Floxx. The initial concept of Floxx was based around a mobile app which was similar to FitFinder but with a few subtle differences. It was reported that Martell had initially raised funding from Dragons Den investor, Doug Richard and US super angel Kevin Wall. In July 2011, Martell announced that Floxx was going to focus on developing ideas that were specifically for use on mobile platforms, especially location based social networks. A few months later, the app MapChat was launched reaching a top 10 ranking in the app store. In October, Martell launched Spottd – a location based social network allowing users to share and discover posts around them. In early 2012, Martell announced that Floxx would be expanding and launching a digital media agency business as part of the company, thereby drawing from his team’s experience with mobile apps, product design and highly scalable websites.
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About Buckmore Park Karting, orderswift: orderswift is a desktop and mobile application that enables restaurants to manage their online orders.
Christopher Molozian
Co-Founder & CEO of Heroic Labs
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About Heroic Labs: Heroic Labs builds social infrastructure for games and apps.
Mark Kieve
CEO of Zao.com
CEO at Zao.com
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About Pixid, Zao.com: Zao offers social recruiting and employee referral program management software for companies.
James Osmond
Chief Executive Officer of Triptease
James is a highly experienced marketeer who has worked across a wide array of industries: from technology, to retail, financial services, hospitality and wellbeing. He learnt the ropes as brand manager at Unilever and went on to co-found a global marketing strategy consultancy, Clear, which sold to M&C Saatchi just five years later. James now leads Triptease’s HQ in London, where he leads the company from
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About Triptease: Triptease is a travel SaaS company that empowers hotels to recapture guest relationships and increase direct bookings.
Kabir Ahmed
Chief Executive Officer of Favorey
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About Favorey: We are building a community of trust, where we can all ask for help from trusted contacts, and use our skills to help others.
Tom Bureau
Chief Executive Officer of Immediate Media Co.
Tom has extensive experience of running print, cross-media and digital content and platform companies. He was co-founder and CEO of digital start-up Silicon Media Group. After its acquisition by CNET Networks, Tom led the expansion of this highly profitable digital content pure play in Europe. Tom joined cross-media platform business Magicalia as CEO in mid 2008, working with Exponent Private Equity. The merger of Magicalia, BBC Magazines and Origin Publishing in November 2011 created Immediate Media Co. Tom has steered the company to fast growth in both profitability and digital innovation since then.
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About Immediate Media Co.: Immediate Media Co. is a special interest content and platform company.
Martin Adams
Co-Founder & CEO of Codec
Martin is an international keynote speaker on innovation, artificial intelligence and disruptive technologies, and the Founder and CEO of Codec.ai. Codec.ai has raised millions & uses artificial intelligence to identify new target audiences and understand what content and products they want to consume, all before brands have to guess. Codec won ‘the Best Artificial Intelligence Product in Marketing’ award at CognitionX and has been named one of the ‘Hottest AI Businesses in Europe’ by TechCrunch. Martin has been recognised as one of the UK’s Top 100 Entrepreneurs by Maserati and as an innovation advisor he has worked with some of the most high-profile individuals and organisations in the world on how to use technology to be more innovative and connect more deeply with real people- including companies like Pfizer and Red Bull and governmental organisations like the Royal Marines. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and the Co-Founder of the Social Media Unit @ UCL and the Digital Leadership Council.
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About Ambient Tone, Codec, CognitionX, Digital Leadership Council, London Speaker Bureau, University College London (UCL): We help brands to discover and tap in to the pockets of culture that drive growth. Powered by award-winning AI.
Kaan Akın
Founder, CEO of Hackquarters
Tech investor, startup mentor and founder of Hackquarters Startup Accelerator. He is involved with corporate accelerator programs.
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About Hackquarters: Hackquarters accelerated 150+ startups and helped 40+ corporates to innovate with startup collaboration
Wahab Ahmad
CEO and Founder of TimeAway
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About PenAndWeb, TimeAway: Enriching family holidays, tried and tested by like minded mums
Marisol Grandon
Founder & CEO of Unfold Stories
Marisol Grandon is CEO of Unfold Stories, a British startup specializing in digital storytelling for international development and purpose led brands. Marisol spent 10 years in UK government including 8 years at Department for International Development as Head of Creative Content where she pioneered innovative content, immersive films and engaging social media campaigns on global issues.
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About Unfold Stories: Unfold Stories specialise in digital storytelling for people in international development and global issues.
Gian Paolo Ziletti
Founder & CEO of My Circle Golf
Founder and CEO of My Circle Golf, the business networking service for golf players. I’m a MBA graduate with 7 years previous experience in management consulting (Deloitte, KPMG, Accenture) advising clients developing Transformation Programme with a particular focus on the technology, processes and communication. While working on multinational clients across Europe I have been able to build a broad range of skills in such as managing cross-functional and multinational teams, product development and launch, managing commercial relationships with large organisations and driving business development.
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About My Circle Golf: Networking service for Golf players that helps golfers organise golf games and connect with like minded people
Adrian Wong
Founder & CEO of MOXI AI
Founder & CEO at MOXI AI, the personal butler for your social life. Building the future of socialising by being the fastest and easiest way to plan a group activity that everyone wants, and make it happen. Multi-disciplinary leader having led UX, creative, agile IT & business relationship management teams, cross-industry for tech start-ups, digital agencies & major corporates. 20 years building products, brands and experiences. Launched a global online gaming product in a saturated market securing one million users in 15 months. Hands on expertise in UX/UI Design, Marketing & Branding.
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About MOXI AI, Venture Agenda: MOXI is an AI butler for your social life. The fastest way to achieve group consensus.
Alex Bodini
CEO & Co-Founder of Spin Brands
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About Spin Brands: The go-to Scale Up Social Media Specialists
Pip Jamieson
Founder & CEO of The Dots
Pip Jamieson is the Founder & CEO of The Dots (https://the-dots.com), a professional network for people that don’t wear suits to work -‘dubbed “The next LinkedIn?’ by Forbes. Delightfully Dyslexic with a distinctive marmite laugh (you either love it or you hate it) Pip was named by The Sunday Times as one of the Top 100 Disruptive Entrepreneurs innovating in their respective fields & as one of the trailblazing leaders having a positive impact on the world. Being a dyslexic sole female tech founder, Pip has put promoting social responsibility and helping business build diverse teams at the heart of everything they do! 68% + of The Dots community is female, 31% + BAME & 16% + LGBT+. The Dots also do a lot of work around socioeconomic diversity and neurodiversity to fuel a more balanced industry of the future.
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About The Dots: The professional network for people who don’t wear suits to work.
Philip Bock
Chief Executive Officer of Supervisual
Philip Bock is 25 years old and works as a creative in advertising. He recently launched his first startup, Sponsta, which now takes up most of his time in London where he lives with his girlfriend and their rabbit.
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About Supervisual: Connects brands with a global community of creators and instantly facilitates creative collaboration.
Kerim Derhalli
Founder and CEO of invstr of Invstr
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About Invstr: Invstr is a fintech app empowering investors to invest with commission-free investing and banking.
Alexander Johnson
Founder & CEO of SnapBoost
Alexander Johnson is a British entrepreneur, public speaker and performance & leadership specialist. Alexander founded several companies in a range of industries, from financial services to technology, through to beauty and wellness. He contributes to various advisory boards and management teams as a business strategist. He is the founder and CEO of SnapBoost, a mobile and web app which connects users to a pool of on-demand professional photo editors.
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About SnapBoost: SnapBoost is an online marketplace. It connects individuals and businesses to an on-demand workforce of professional photo editors.
Jenny Tsai
Founder & CEO of Wearisma
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About Wearisma: Wearisma is a premium influencer marketing solution for brands, agencies & influencers.
Will Read
CEO & Founder of Sideways 6
Will Read is Founder & CEO at Sideways 6.
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About Sideways 6: Sideways 6 is a platform helping organisations including british airways and sainsbury’s to harness the innovative ideas of their employees.
Mikhil Raja
Co-founder & CEO of SonicJobs
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About SonicJobs: SonicJobs is a job platform revolutionizing the way candidates search and apply for jobs.
Alessandra Di Lorenzo
CEO & Founder of LM Forward
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About LM Forward: LM Forward is a marketing services company that offers media and content activations.
Marjorie Leonidas
CEO of Taggstar
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About GlobalReach Technology Ltd, Taggstar: Real-time social proof message expert for enterprise eCommerce | Conversion uplift by up to 12% | Shop Direct, N Brown, TUI, Missguided use.
Rutger Bruining
Founder & CEO of StoryTerrace
Rutger Bruining is the founder and CEO of Story Terrace. Prior to founding Story Terrace in 2014, Rutger worked as an investment director at Arle Capital Partners for five years. Rutger starterd his career as a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton in 2014. In 2003, Rutger graduated from University of Amsterdam where he completed master’s degree in Business & Economics (Finance). He also graduated with honors at Columbia University – Columbia Business School for his MBA in 2008.
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About StoryTerrace: StoryTerrace helps people to capture their life story using professional writers and software.
Simon Hellier
CEO of GLOBALDRUM
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About GLOBALDRUM: GLOBALDRUM enables secure mobile-to-mobile social interaction for enterprises and their audiences.
Robert Proctor
CEO of Audioboom
Robert Proctor is CEO at AudioBoo.
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About Audioboom, Audioboom Group: Audioboom is a podcasting distribution platform.
Paola Marinone
Founder & CEO of BuzzMyVideos
Founder & CEO at BuzzMyVideos.
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About Blackbox, BuzzMyVideos, TechItalia:Lab: BuzzMyVideos is leading martech company that drives hyper-growth & new revenue from and on YouTube.
Amanda Cai
CEO and Founder of Icontract Ventures Ltd.
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About Icontract Ventures Ltd.: iContract connects professional contractors with recruiters to match jobs
Julian M. Baladurage
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of MBJ LONDON
Julian Baladurage joined MBJ LONDON as CEO & Co-founder in 2011.
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About Forbes New York Business Council, MBJ LONDON: MBJ LONDON is a web and app development company offering Website as a Service.
Outi Pietilanaho
Co-Founder & CEO of Vimma
Entrepreneur, Co-Founder & CEO @vimma #passioneconomy #futureofwork
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About Vimma: The OS for the Creator Economy
Felix Hamer
Co-Founder and CEO of Waggle-It
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About Buzzer Feedback, Waggle-It: Waggle-It is an anonymous location based social polling app that allows users to crowdsource everyday dilemmas
Tomas Vohradnik
CEO of NEARBER
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About NEARBER: App which tracks your position via Google Maps API and shows you everything that’s happening nearby.
Ben Bilboul
Chief Executive Officer of Karmarama
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About Karmarama: Karmarama is a full service communications agency, combining creative excellence with technology-inspired solutions
Olga Egorsheva
CEO & Co-Founder of Lobster
Entrepreneur at Lobster. Building a bridge between every individual online and creative professionals. Inspired by independent creativity. Inspiring by breaking the rules. The world is my home country to learn, work and start companies.
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About Lobster: Lobster is a platform which enables brands, agencies and the media to licence visual content directly from social media users.
Matt Wheeler
CEO of Driftrock
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About Driftrock: Driftrock helps brands find their audience online, using data from around the web to power better targeted, more timely Social Media Ads.
Matthew de la Hey
CEO & Co-Founder of inploi
Matthew is co-founder & CEO of inploi, a recruitment marketing platform built to connect great employers with the future of the workforce. With employer branding at its heart, inploi empowers companies to speak to candidates as consumers of workplaces, helping them to tell their stories with captivating videos, images, and written content in order to engage active and passive candidates. When actively hiring, inploi’s software is a powerful recruitment tool incorporating job post creation and distribution, applicant tracking, CV-parsing, candidate-job matching, proactive talent search, video profiles, instant messaging, video calling, file sharing, programmatic job advertising and more. For jobseekers, inploi provides a beautiful professional presence making it easy to access career-related information, apply for job opportunities, and connect and communicate with employers, and with each other. Matthew is a Mandela Rhodes Scholar and a two-time Weidenfeld Scholar.
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About inploi: inploi is the future of talent engagement and job discovery.
Laura Degiovanni
CEO and Founder of TiiQu
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About TiiQu: TiiQu is a trust mechanism derived by immutable verifiable sources about one’s ID, Work, Knowledge, Performances
Matt Rantell
CEO & Founder of The Square
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About The Square: The Square is an award winning workforce management platform & hiring marketplace for construction businesses.
Susan Kabani
Founder/CEO of Ugenie
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About GroYourBiz, Ugenie: Private membership mobile hub for businesses to efficiently manage, engage and monetise their existing most valuable asset – their clients!
Ifty Nasir
Co-founder and CEO of Vestd
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About Vestd: Vestd is a secure online platform that makes giving shares to your team, customers or partners simple, affordable, and fast.
Oliver Bridge
Founder & CEO of Cornerstone
Oliver Bridge is a Founder at Cornerstone.
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About Cornerstone: Cornerstone is a subscription service for men’s toiletries.
