Inspirational stories from four female founders

With guest panellists Emma Sinclair MBE, Co-Founder of EnterpriseAlumni; Addie Pinkster, CEO of Adelpha Group; Aleksandra Pedraszewska, Co-founder & COO of VividQ; and Joanne Smith, Chair of SME Council at the Confederation of British Industry

Numerous pieces of research show the link between female leaders and stronger financial performance, greater employee productivity and collaborative ways of working. Yet, in the UK, only 25% of businesses have a female founder and only 11% are all-female led. We are missing out on an opportunity to build bigger, better businesses and ultimately more growth for the economy. This session will focus on the how. We will explore the lifecycle challenges from startup to scale-up to exit and how this interacts with the entrepreneur’s personal journey. COVID-19 has shone a light on the importance of agility and being able to pivot and repurpose. We will pick up on how entrepreneurs have navigated this pandemic as well as the importance of culture, business resilience and the role of governance.

Chaired by Bina Mehta, Partner and Member of the Board of KPMG.

Registration: 18:25-18:30
Panel talk: 18:30-20:00
Networking: 20:00-20:30

This event is one of three Enterprise Tuesday events, that focuses on female founders who will recount and share insight on their inspirationmotivation and realisation on their journey.

Ticket booking is essential for the February series. Please note: main registration closes 24 hours prior to the event. The event will take place on Zoom.

Register

Enterprise Tuesday introduces budding entrepreneurs to the world of business, aiming to inspire people to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions. The talks are open to everyone but prior registration is essential.

Have a question? Please email the team at enterprisetuesday@jbs.cam.ac.uk.

Find out more about future guest speakers and topics

Speaker bios

Emma Sinclair

Emma Sinclair MBE, Co-Founder of EnterpriseAlumni

Emma is the youngest person in the world to have floated a company on the London Stock Exchange, doing so at 29. A serial entrepreneur, she now co-leads global software company EnterpriseAlumni. Their software powers the corporate alumni networks of some of the world’s largest companies, allowing them to leverage this vast pool of people for competitive advantage. Outside of her day job, she contributes to media and is UNICEF’s Business Advisor. In 2016, was awarded an MBE by the Queen for Services to Entrepreneurship.

Addie Pinkster

Addie Pinkster, CEO of Adelpha Group

Addie is the founder and CEO of Adelpha, a female-led corporate finance firm, and leading private investment network. Adelpha focuses on UK-based growth companies, usually in the £10-150 million EV space. Although sector agnostic, they are known for their work in private equity 2.0, cleantech, hospitality/retail SaaS, and games/esports/dsports infrastructure. Track record aside, they are respected for the diversity within their client portfolio, with more that half of the companies being female-led. Addie read SPS then Management Studies at Cambridge before joining UBS and Citi in their hedge fund facing businesses. She has a portfolio of private direct and LP investments, holds a number of non-executive director positions, is a playing member of the MCC, and mum to two school-age boys.

Aleksandra Pedraszewska

Aleksandra Pedraszewska, Co-founder & COO of VividQ

Aleksandra is a Co-founder and COO at VividQ – a frontier tech company with world-leading expertise in holographic display. She is a certified project manager and a graduate of Cambridge Judge Business School. Before joining VividQ’s founding team, she gained professional experience at Rolls-Royce, HBO, and an investment fund IdeaLab Ventures. At VividQ, Aleksandra leads the sales, marketing and operations teams, to bring VividQ software to the market with pioneering hardware manufacturers and chipmakers, and on maintaining investor relations. She was named on the Forbes 30 under 30 Europe and London Tech London Advocates 25 under 25 lists and won the WinTechSeries Rising Star award in 2019.

Joanne Smith

Joanne Smith, Chair of SME Council at the Confederation of British Industry

Joanne Smith has worked in financial services for over 25 years. Always an innovator with a passion for compliance, since 2000 Joanne has built the award winning TCC into the largest independent compliance consultancy in the UK. In 2012 Joanne turned her focus to regtech, conceptualising Recordsure, a unique and powerful solution to regulatory requirements, which is generating interest globally and across multiple sectors, beyond financial services.

Bina Mehta

Bina Mehta, Partner and Member of the Board of KPMG

Bina’s clients include large private and listed international clients. As Chair of KPMG’s Emerging Giants practice in the UK, Bina is a regular commentator on issues impacting fast growth businesses and is actively involved in the trade and investment agenda, helping businesses with international growth. Having qualified as a Chartered Accountant in the UK, Bina worked in India during the establishment of KPMG India and has over 20 years’ of international M&A and restructuring experience in the UK, USA and Canada acting for private equity houses, lenders and corporate clients.

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Online Event
Organiser: Judge Business School

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