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 United Kingdom based VP’ operating in the Artificial Intelligence space. If you think a VP’ 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.
Greer Hahn
VP of Marketing of Cognism
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About Cognism: Cognism is a B2B sales acceleration software company that provides a marketing and sales acceleration solution.
Cinz Ricciardone
VP of Product of Cognism
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About Cognism: Cognism is a B2B sales acceleration software company that provides a marketing and sales acceleration solution.
Richard Harris
EVP Head Of Global Sales of Feedzai
A veteran in both the finance and technology industries, Richard is helping to lead Feedzai’s global scaling. Before joining Feedzai, Richard held Vice President roles at both Experian and Accertify, during which time he built global sales teams and helped lead regional expansion. Richard has held leadership positions with Visa and PayPal, following various technical and development roles, and has also served as a member on the board of the Merchant Risk Council.
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About Feedzai: Feedzai develops risk management tools to prevent fraud and money laundering in transactions.
Simon McCann
AVP, UKI & BENELUX of Collibra
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About Collibra: Collibra delivers an end-to-end Data Intelligence platform to accelerate digital business transformation.
Henry Harris-Burland
VP of Marketing of Starship Technologies
Marketing Director proficient in launching world first products and services, driving growth within aggressive timeframes and translating complex “tech talk” into clear communications and stories. Has worked within a number of high-profile organisations including Starship Technologies and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.
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About Starship Technologies: Starship Technologies is a robotics company building fleets of self-driving delivery robots designed to deliver goods.
Juha Seppa
SVP, Product Delivery of Secondmind
Juha is a SW engineer with over 20 years of experience in product development. He is originally from Finland and moved to the UK with his family in 1999. He is responsible for heading up our product delivery and engineering activities. He is a keen classic rock fan and loves going to concerts with his wife. He seems to have a large collection of band t-shirts, and a somewhat questionable sense of style.
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About Secondmind: Machine learning for automotive innovators
Sami Salomaa
VP, Business Development and Planning & VP, Commercial and General Counsel of Secondmind
Sami is an applied mathematics engineer with more than twenty years experience building innovative and complex business models at the crossroads of finance and technology. Originally from Finland, Sami has spent much of his life as an expat around the world. He heads our initiatives in the financial sector. In his spare time, he prefers to build solid things that solve simpler problems, like huge natural light sky panels to help his family cope with winters in the far north.
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About Secondmind: Machine learning for automotive innovators
Graeme Smith
Senior VP of External Affairs of Oxbotica
Graeme Smith is the CEO of Oxbotica. He has held executive leadership positions in several global start-ups and Joint Ventures, building and leading international engineering teams in electronic/software product development, service delivery and customer support. In particular Graeme has held positions as Director of Ford Motor Company’s Telematics Support Services, Executive Director of Wingcast Europe (a Ford / Qualcomm JV), Managing Director of SEI UK Ltd and Vice President/COO of Connexis LLC. Dr. Graeme is also a recognised expert in Advanced Vehicle Control systems and the Connected Car, holding several patents in the areas of Adaptive Cruise Control and the application of Impulse Radar systems to vehicle systems. He has broad commercial and technical experience spanning all areas required to develop and market new products, including R&D, manufacture, outsourcing and customer support. Dr. Graeme has a BSc (Hons) in Electronic Systems and Control Engineering from Sheffield University, an MBA from Henley Management College, and a PhD in Robotic Assembly from the University of Hertfordshire. He is also a PRINCE2 accredited practitioner, a member of the Institute of Engineering Technology and a Chartered Engineer, with UK security clearance at SC level.
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About Oxbotica: Oxbotica powers the navigation, perception, user interface, fleet management, and other features needed to run self-driving vehicles.
Harvey Sahdra
SVP -EMEA of Heliocor
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About Heliocor: Heliocor is a regulatory technology company.We are building a global anti fraud ecosystem based on our Robolitics and Dokstor SaaS products.
Martin Henley
Senior Vice President, Technology Services of Globality
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About Globality: Globality revolutionizes how businesses buy and sell services by matching the best provider at the right price for every project.
Gareth Jones
Vice President, Intellectual Property of BenevolentAI
Gareth Jones is vice president of intellectual property at BenevolentAI, a company developing and applying artificial intelligence (AI) technology to enhance and accelerate scientific discovery. In this role, Gareth Jones is responsible for all strategic and operational aspects of intellectual property across the BenevolentAI technology and pharmaceutical business units. Gareth Jones started his career in software engineering, holding technical leadership roles at IBM and Vodafone across a variety of cutting-edge technology areas. He initially became involved in intellectual property as an inventor and has more than 20 granted patents. At IBM, Gareth Jones became one of the youngest recipients of the Master Inventor title, in recognition of his sustained innovation leadership through management of invention harvesting and inventor education and mentoring. Following a role managing the global invention harvesting process at Vodafone, Gareth Jones was recruited as head of intellectual property at SwiftKey, an AI technology start-up that was sold to Microsoft in one of the largest UK tech exits of 2015/2016. He built and scaled IP operations, prepared the business for sale and played a key role in facilitating the acquisition. Gareth Jones joined the Microsoft IP team to oversee the SwiftKey integration and provided additional support evaluating patents for licensing, divestiture and prosecution.
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About BenevolentAI: BenevolentAI is a developer of artificial intelligence and computational medicine technologies.
Charlie Mayer
SVP Global Sales of Signal AI
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About Signal AI: Transforming decision making for business leaders through augmented AI
Louis Cointepas
Vice President, Americas Customer Success & Market Development of Signal AI
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About Signal AI: Transforming decision making for business leaders through augmented AI
Lewis Crosbie
VP of Growth of Sensat
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About Sensat: SenSat simulates reality in real time, which helps computers solve real world problems.
Lorenzo Alberton
VP of Engineering of Sensat
Lorenzo Alberton introduced solid development, QA, deployment, communication and monitoring processes into an early-stage DataSift, transforming and growing the engineering department and designing and implementing many critical components of the platform. His expertise lies in large-scale software architectures, low-latency platforms, machine learning, databases, efficient algorithms and data structures, topics he often talks about at international conferences. For the past 10+ years Lorenzo has been working with large enterprise companies in Italy, US and UK, in high-visibility projects affecting millions of users in different domains, from Television and Communication (BBC, Channel 5, Cable & Wireless, Dennis Publishing), to Finance and Betting (Ladbrokes, Betfair, Interactive Investor), Manufacturing and Internet Security (AVG).
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About Sensat: SenSat simulates reality in real time, which helps computers solve real world problems.
Clive Thomas
Senior VP of Global Sales of Autogrid
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About Autogrid: AutoGrid Systems organizes energy data and employs big data analytics to generate real-time predictions that create actionable data.
Matt Fyles
VP Software of Graphcore
Matt Fyles is a software team lead at Graphcore.
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About Graphcore: Graphcore develops a microprocessor designed for AI and machine learning applications.
Sally Mortimore Doherty
CMO & VP Marketing of Graphcore
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About Graphcore: Graphcore develops a microprocessor designed for AI and machine learning applications.
Simon Stacey
SVP Operations of Graphcore
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About Graphcore: Graphcore develops a microprocessor designed for AI and machine learning applications.
Ian Anderson
VP of AI of Glance
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About Glance: Glance is an artificial intelligence-driven software company that delivers personalized content on the lock screen of smartphones.
Helene Bouteille
VP Client Services of LoopMe
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About LoopMe: LoopMe is focused on brand advertising, using AI, attribution, and analytics to deliver measurable outcomes.
Yigal Elstein
Vice President UK&I of Tricentis
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About Tricentis: Tricentis offers enterprise software testing solutions that enable enterprises to achieve high automation rates while minimizing risks.
Michelle Coventry
VP People of FiveAI
Michelle Coventry is a talent advisor at Kindred Capital. People lead and team builder of multiple investor-backed tech companies. Graduate in Aeronautical Engineering.
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About FiveAI: FiveAI provides a software platform designed for providing a solution in urban mobility in public transport to complex urban environments.
John Redford
Co-founder, Chief Architect & VP Perception of FiveAI
John Redford is a Co-Founder, VP Perception, and Chief Architect at FiveAI. He co-founded and was VP Software at Element 14 Inc, a DSL chipset company bought by Broadcom in 2000 for $640M where he continued to lead the DSP and high-performance software development. Previously John was CTO at Acorn Computers and is a graduate in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge.
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About FiveAI: FiveAI provides a software platform designed for providing a solution in urban mobility in public transport to complex urban environments.
Ben Peters
Co-Founder and VP of Product of FiveAI
Ben Peters is a Co-Founder and VP of product at FiveAI.
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About FiveAI: FiveAI provides a software platform designed for providing a solution in urban mobility in public transport to complex urban environments.
Simon Walker
Co-Founder VP Engineering of FiveAI
Simon Walker is a Co-Founder and VP of Engineering at FiveAI.
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About FiveAI: FiveAI provides a software platform designed for providing a solution in urban mobility in public transport to complex urban environments.
Laura Brown
VP Finance of FiveAI
Laura Brown is a finance team leader at Icera (sold to NVIDIA). KPMG training. Graduate in Zoology.
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About FiveAI: FiveAI provides a software platform designed for providing a solution in urban mobility in public transport to complex urban environments.
Subramanian Ramamoorthy
Vice President Prediction and Motion Planning of FiveAI
Subramanian Ramamoorthy is a research leader in prediction and motion planning. On faculty at the University of Edinburgh. PhD in Robotics.
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About FiveAI: FiveAI provides a software platform designed for providing a solution in urban mobility in public transport to complex urban environments.
Edmund Ovington
VP & GM of Unbabel
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About Unbabel, Unbabel: Unbabel allows modern enterprises to understand and be understood by their customers in dozens of languages.
Riaz Rahman
VP Healthcare Global of Brainomix
Riaz is Vice President Healthcare Global at Brainomix. He has a BSc Honours degree in Human Genetics from King’s College London and a Masters degree in Human Molecular Genetics from Imperial College London. He is responsible for the company’s revenue, direct sales operations and the management of distributor, agent and channel strategies globally. He leads the development of national and international sales strategies and manages relationships with clinicians and key opinion leaders in each country after market entry. He has held a number of senior management and commercial positions in Pharmaceuticals, Management Information, Health Consultancy and Technology with over 17 years’ experience of working with private and public healthcare.
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About Brainomix: Brainomix specializes in the creation of AI-powered imaging biomarkers that enable precision medicine for better treatment decisions
Hugh Williams
VP Professional Services of OpenLink Software
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About OpenLink Software: Provides a modern platform for exploiting power of AI, Semantic Web, Cognitive Data Virtualization, and Multi-Model Data Management
Andrew Dewhurst
VP Engineering of XMOS
Andrew is responsible for all core engineering activities, delivering our applications, tools, silicon and technology infrastructure. With over 30 years technical leadership across high-tech ventures, Andrew has extensive experience in the consumer, automotive and defence sectors.
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About XMOS: A deep tech company at the leading edge of the AIoT, putting intelligence, connectivity & enhanced computation at the core of smart products
Kristian Keep
Vice President Of Engineering of Decibel
Kristian Keep is the vice president of engineering at Decibel.
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About Decibel: Decibel is a real-time intelligence platform that enables businesses to measure and improve online customer experiences.
David Byron
SVP Global Alliances and New Markets and General Manager of Global Sales and Marketing of CUBE
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About CUBE: CUBE is a global RegTech provider empowering regulated financial institutions to meet compliance challenges head on.
Tanu Chellam
VP Product of Seldon
Social-impact oriented tech entrepreneur who has won awards for managing both people and products, across corporate and startup environments.
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About Seldon: Machine Learning Deployment Platform
Gurminder Sunner
VP Engineering of Seldon
Gurminder has extensive experience architecting highly scalable systems in the games, media and e-commerce industries in the UK and West Coast. His role at Seldon ensures that the services running on the backend systems maintain their high availability and continue to grow in innovative ways.
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About Seldon: Machine Learning Deployment Platform
Maurice von Sturm
VP Engineering of Wluper
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About Wluper: Advanced Conversational AI to provide powerful voice-first experiences for any industry.
Maurice von Sturm
VP Engineering of Wluper
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About Wluper: Advanced Conversational AI to provide powerful voice-first experiences for any industry.
Duncan Towers
SVP Engineering of Audio Analytic
Duncan Towers is the Senior VP Engineering at Audio Analytic
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About Audio Analytic: Audio Analytic creates exceptional human experiences through giving consumer technology a greater sense of hearing.
Richard Belgrave
CRO & VP, AI Sales of Leverton
Richard is UK Managing Director of LEVERTON.A former Corporate Financier with a passion for revolutionising how individuals work with data and documents.
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About Cabot Financial, Leverton: Leverton is AI-powered data extraction and contract analytics platform.
Olly Paulovich
Co-Founder & VP Marketing & Sales 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.
Jacek Zienkiewicz
Co-Founder & VP of Engineering of SLAMcore
Jacek’s background is in robotics and sensing. He achieved a Master’s Degree in Control Engineering and Robotics, specialising in motion planning algorithms for autonomous vehicles. After five years developing novel laser-based distance measurement algorithms and software for SICK AG, he moved to London to pursue his research interests. He earned his PhD with the Robot Vision Group at the Department of Computing, Imperial College London. His research aims to develop a dense visual perception system suitable for mobile robot navigation and guidance.
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About SLAMcore: SLAMcore provides location, mapping and perception software for robots and other autonomous machines to become spatially intelligent
Lauren Oldham
VP, Product of ThoughtRiver
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About ThoughtRiver: ThoughtRiver reviews and rates contracts via a contract Intelligence engine.
Jason Martindale
VP Global Sales of Symphony Ventures
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About SYKES Digital Services, Symphony Ventures: Symphony is a professional services firm passionate about creating value for the world’s leading organizations.
Ivan Kotorov
VP Enterprise Accounts of VendorMach
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About VendorMach: Big data analytics platform for ecommerce supplier planning and accounts payable (AP) reconciliations, reducing fraud, error and costs.
Rob Parkes
VP UK Operations of AMY Robotics
Rob Parkes is the Owner and CEO at Service Robotics.
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About AMY Robotics, Service Robotics: Amy Robotics Co. Ltd. is an innovative technology company focused on research and development of service robots.
Raman Sidhu
VP Business Development of Beemray
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About Beemray: Beemray is the API and analytics for human context data. Anonymously. In real-time.
Christopher Kellner
Global VP Sales & Partnerships of DigitalGenius
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About DigitalGenius, Pavilion: DigitalGenius is an AI platform that puts customer support on autopilot by automating repetitive processes and delighting customers.
Drew Smith
VP Product Strategy of Volo
Drew joined Volo in June 2015 and leads product vision and direction at Volo. Drew started his time at Volo as part of the sales team, originally working as a Sales Consultant and then a Senior Consultant. He is passionate about the retail industry and the ever-evolving consumer world. Drew’s main driver at Volo is to ensure that we build value-first technology which enables our customers to be successful.
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About Volo: Volo is an ecommerce business.
Tom Reuner
Senior Vice President of HFS Research
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About HFS Research: It is our mission to provide visionary insight into the major innovations impacting business operations
Benjamin Hansz
Vice President of Simplaex
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About Simplaex: Simplaex is the company behind the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence-powered user targeting technology.
