Alan Barrell

Following a scientific training and six years working in the hospital laboratory service, Alan Barrell has spent almost thirty years in senior executive positions in technology based industries. He worked around the world with Baxter Healthcare, the world's largest Health technology company and was Chief Executive of Baxter UK for six years. Subsequently he switched industries and joined a very small Cambridge Phenomenon company in industrial electronics, Domino Printing Sciences, as Managing Director. Alan stayed six years, during which time Domino grew internationally and was listed on the London Stock Exchange. Today Domino has revenues of £300 million plus a market capitalisation approaching £400 million.

Alan's last full time Chief Executive position was six years with Willett International, a manufacturing and marketing company in industrial electronics which now has businesses in 100 countries, 26 overseas subsidiaries and sales of close to £100 million. From early 1998 until 2002 Alan´s business life was spread between non-executive chairmanship of smaller technology companies, engagement with N W Brown Capital Partners in raising a new regional early stage technology venture capital fund of £35 million, "The Cambridge Gateway Fund" and work with charities in which he has special interests. These include the Papworth Trust, The Royal Society of Arts Manufactures and Commerce (where he has been treasurer and member of the Trustee Board) and The Centre For Tomorrow´s Company of which he was Vice Chairman. During 2001 and 2002 he was Chair of the Steering Committee of the Cambridge International Enterprise Conference now held annually.

>From the beginning of 2000 until April 2002 Alan worked full-time as Director and Managing Partner of N W Brown Capital Partners Ltd, raising and investing the Cambridge Gateway Fund. He has also become closely associated with Three Business Angel Groups in Cambridge .The Cambridge Gateway Fund was recently week voted "Investor of the Year" in the Cambridge Evening News Business Excellence Awards 2002.

Alan´s most recent appointments have been as Entrepreneur in Residence, University of Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre, and Visiting Professor of Enterprise, University of Luton School of Graduate Business Studies, Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of Xiamen, Fujian Province, China, and Senior Enterprise Fellow, University of Essex.. He has also been appointed Chairman Health Enterprise East and Chairman Medilink East. He is Chairman of the biotech company Advanced Protein Systems Ltd., and of E-Financial Management Ltd. Also, a member of the External Advisory Board, University of East Anglia in Norwich.

In July 2005, Alan was presented by the Queen with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion – one of the first ten individuals awarded this new honour. On September 7th, Alan Barrell was conferred the Honorary Degree – Doctor of Business Administration ( DBA ) by the University of Luton ( Now re-named Bedfordshire ), in recognition of his work in the UK and Internationally of the encouragement and development of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in others.

In April 2006, Alan, with colleagues, founded Dragon Cambridge International Ltd., a company set up to assist companies and other organisations in UK, Europe and in China, connect with each other for good business reasons and to support Chinese businesses starting up in Europe.

Most recently, working in the Baltic Rim countries, assisting the establishment of Business Angel Organisations and Early Stage Venture Capital Funds. Associations in Estonia and Latvia.

Alexander Wiedmer

Alexander Wiedmer has been responsible for investments in the IT industry. He is currently on the boards of directors of Datamars, Omniperception, Babel Technologies, Kiala SA, Kotio SA, Neocase and WStore Europe.

Prior to joining the Team, Alexander Wiedmer was international marketing director for multimedia rights at Universal Content (Toronto), a licensing agency for multimedia content. He had previously created a consulting company in the field of communications marketing and event management in Canada.

Alexander Wiedmer studied at Upper Canada College (Toronto), McGill University (Montreal) and the University of Western Ontario (Hons. BA Phil.) and holds an MBA in Technology Management from Theseus International Management Institute (Sophia-Antipolis, France).

He has held various pro bono positions on boards and committees of educational organisations. He has Swiss and Canadian citizenships.

Candace Johnson

Candace Johnson is an international telecommunications expert and entrepreneur. Currently, she is Vice President, NeuStar, Inc. She is co-initiator of the Astra satellite system and SES Global, one of the world´s largest satellite systems in the world. She is also founding President of Europe Online, the world’s first and largest independent Satellite Broadband Network, and founder of Loral Cyberstar-Teleport Europe, Europe´s first independent private trans-border satellite communications network. Ms. Johnson is also founding President of the VATM, the Association of Private Telecom Operators in Germany and founding President of the Global Telecom Women’s Network (GTWN). She has continued to be a long-time Member of the Board of Directors of all of these companies and organizations at various times throughout the years.

Ms. Johnson is also President of Johnson Paradigm Ventures (JPV). JPV is a principal founding shareholder with AXA, Caisse des Depots, Bayerische Landesbank, and the SPEF in Sophia Euro Lab, Europe´s first trans-border early-stage investment company based in Sophia Antipolis. Ms. Johnson is a Founding Member of the Board of Directors of Sophia Euro Lab. JPV is also a principal founding shareholder in Ariadne Capital, "Architecting Europe.net" based in London as well as a founding Member and Member of the Board of the Sophia Business Angels in Sophia Antipolis France.

In her personal capacity, Ms. Johnson is a minority owner of FMN, a German telephone manufacturing company, and a member of their Supervisory Council. She is also a minority owner of Alpha Com, a wireless data manufacturing company. Ms. Johnson is also a member of the Advisory Board of numerous European and US ventures as well as being a Member of the Board of Governors of Theseus MBA Institute, the University of Haifa, Sabanci University, and a Senior Enterprise Fellow for the University of Essex.

Ms. Johnson was also Vice President Worldwide of Iridium and brought it into the GSM MoU, the ITU and ETSI. She also was Director of Marketing for the German manufacturing company Fuba.

Ms. Johnson has been featured in articles in Time Magazine, the Financial Times, the Economist, Le Monde, WirtschaftsWoche, and Manager Magazin, to name a few. She has been decorated as an Officer of the Bundesverdienst Kreuz and the Couronne de la Chene respectively by the German and Luxembourg governments for her work in deregulating and privatizing telecommunications and media across Europe. She is also the second recipient ever of the United Nations-sponsored World Teleport Associations’ "Founders Award" and has been named by Time and Fortune Magazine as one of the 50 most powerful women in Europe.

Ms. Johnson has also received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" along with Vinton Cerf and Tim Berners Lee from the World Communication Awards, the prestigious global telecoms organization 2002. Ms. Johnson holds Masters Degrees with Honors from the Sorbonne and Stanford Universities and a Bachelors Degree from Vassar College.

Daniele de Winter

Daniele de Winter is the daughter of Dr Jan de Winter, a pioneering cancer specialist who opened the UK's first high-street Cancer Prevention Clinic in 1982. Daniele de Winter has worked with her father in cancer prevention for over 20 years, focusing on the lifestyle choices people can adopt to reduce their risk of contracting this disease.

Daniele's philosophy: that beauty and health are inseparable, led to her first health and beauty book ''What the Doctor Ordered' at the age of 15, this was followed by the US best-seller 'Eat Yourself Beautiful' at the age of 21. Daniele's latest book INSIDEOUT beauty™ was published in 2006 to accompany the launch of the INSIDEOUT beauty™ skin rejuvenation system.

In 2003, Daniele launched DANIELE de WINTER MONACO, a luxury, holistic beauty and spa company based in Monte Carlo. In three years Daniele has successfully launched her innovative and medically developed skin rejuvenation range in over 9 countries and has plans for expansion to a further 5 in 2006. Daniele de Winter has an MBA from INSEAD.

More info: www.danieledewinter.com

Fabienne Lavaud-Soulies

CEO of SELECTAL from Monaco Founded in the eighties in the heart of the French Riviera, SELECTAL is recognized on the European market for its high quality aromas and dehydrated food products which it develops and distributes to pro and gourmet cooks.

Kristine Oustrup

A Danish National and a graduate in International Business and Marketing, she originally joined the start-up phase of fashion brand St. Martins (Denmark) and later went to Hong Kong as Head of Special Projects for global lifestyle brand DIESEL.

Her next adventure as Co-Founder of the French trend agency Style-Vision involved working with many great brands, while being busy building bridges to other trend agencies. It gave her the opportunity to start up the Round Table events which were held every May and October at the Grand Hotel de Cap-Ferrat in the South of France, supported by the Financial Times.

Currently, she works for Luxaro Publishing (www.luxarro.com) an amazing publisher of luxury brand magazines and occasionally join interesting events as a guest, debater or speaker.

Michael Peagram

Michael Peagram is an investor, businessman and philanthropist previously involved with the chemicals industry and now resident in Monaco. He enjoyed a successful career in the chemicals field before investing twenty five percent into a chemicals company that was making a £3mn loss. He opened up new markets, performed a miracle turnaround and took the company to flotation in ‘93 before exiting in ‘98 with a substantial fortune, which was reported to be £37mn. With an intelligent and pragmatic style he attributes his success partly to luck. "All entrepreneurs say that." He says with a modest smile. "It´s worth reading Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono. It says making money is about ability and luck." He adds that practice also makes perfect and that "hard work, logic wisdom and the guts to grab an opportunity" are also important. He mentions the word inspiration last. "Inspiration is pointless, if you haven´t done basic research about who will buy your products. Businesses should make products and then make profit and that is it."

Working with the church, Outward Bound Monaco, music, education, young people, the Duke of Edinburgh and Oxford charitable efforts, he says he moved to Monaco because he was advised to move offshore for five years. "People rarely do things for just pluses; there are usually minuses as well." He still maintains a house in Oxford, England which is his home town and where his parents live. He has some business ventures but these are taking more of a back seat these days and philanthropy and hobbies such as tennis are moving to the fore.

An important part of his philanthropic efforts are for Outward Bound Monaco, which sends children on three week physical challenge courses. Supported by Prince Albert II, Mike pulled up his sleeves to pitch in and spearhead the involvement of Prince Andrew, The Duke of York. One effort saw Outward Bound Monaco organise a private dinner with both in attendance. Tickets were offered to those willing to pay a fee in the region of £5,000 to specifically benefit Outward Bound Monaco and generous donors contributed larger sums so that Outward Bound Monaco was able to send £100,000 to Outward Bound UK. This money helped refurbish their residential centres. Mike says this created a strong partnership between the two organisations, the two Princes and with young people from both countries. The event sold out and an additional cocktail reception was offered to allow a full compliment of Outward Bound supporters to attend. It was a resounding success and became a moment to be proud of for Mike and all at Outward Bound Monaco.

His personal efforts include donations "which I have an annual budget for" and hands-on administrative work and fundraising for the charity. Outward Bound Monaco aims to raise the quality of children´s lives and to provide them with inspiration and motivation to achieve great things themselves. Whilst the main drive of the work helps under privileged children, Mike argued strongly for allowing those from affluent backgrounds to also be included into the programme. He rightly points out that you can have as many problems if rich or poor, they are just different.

Asking if Mike was a killer business man in his day, he says "he was always fair." Then tells a story. "At first all business plans and opportunities came to me for sign off, until I realised one day that the tables had turned. The ideas I picked were the ones that went on to be successful so staff ended up using me as a sounding board giving me more and more projects to look at." He laughs and says. "I ended up doing lots of work."

Thinking about the rise in philanthropic consultants applying "market forces" to the implementation of charitable work, I ask if he buys into this return on investment style. It seems he does. "No charity I work with will ever be in a financial shambles."

Although logic pervades in Mike´s scientist type personality, he admits to being a romantic at heart. Of his own values he says he prizes "winning with honour and playing by the rules." Then thinks before finishes up by saying. "And not cheating."

Roel Pieper

- Former Chief Technology Officer of Software AG
- Former President and CEO of AT&T’s Unix Systems, UB Networks, and Tandem Computers
- Former Executive Vice President and Board Member of Philips Electronics

Ronald Posner

Ronald Posner has been a leader in the consolidation of the high technology, internet and software industries for more than 30-years. He has a strong track record as CEO, investor and board member of improving market values and liquidity results for public and private companies in record time frames.

He started his career at The Coca-Cola Company and Xerox Data Systems in sales and marketing roles. He then led two successful liquidity events in the computer services business in the 70´s at National Training Systems, which he founded and sold the Safeguard Scientifics (SFE), and Tratec, which was taken public and then sold to McGraw Hill.

He then led consolidation and turnarounds in the PC and enterprise software industries from the early 80´s to the mid-90´s as CEO of Peter Norton Computing, which he merged with Symantec (SYMC); as CEO of Wordstar, which he merged with The Learning Company to create over $3B in market value after 20 consumer software acquisitions; and at Ansa software (CEO role) and Ashton-Tate (Exec VP role), both of which were merged into Borland (BORL). He was an investor and board director of Cyber-Media, which was sold to McAfee (MFE), and SmallWorld in the UK, which was sold to General Electric. He was also an early investor in Segue Software (SEGU), just sold to Borland.

Mr. Posner then participated in the growth and consolidation of the internet industry, starting in the mid-90´s, as a start-up investor/board member in such companies as Match.com, sold to InterActive Corp (IACI); Spinner.com, sold to AOL; NetAngels/Firefly, sold to Microsoft; Rival Networks, sold to Terra-Lycos; Flipside.com, sold to Vivendi, and Click2learn that was merged with Docent to form Sum Total Systems (SUMT). He remains an active investor in www.iwin.com.

Since its formation in 1997, PS Capital, has made investments in and provided advisory services to the telecom/wireless/digital media industries. PS Capital also led the recapitalization of Novatel Wireless (NVTL), and made investments in Popular Telephony, a VOIP company, Iris Wireless, Brand Mobile, Instrumental Media, and d3d Media.

Recently Mr. Posner became a Venture Partner at Saints VC (www.saintsvc.com), focused on secondary venture transactions in Europe and Asia. He also serves on the advisory boards of IDG Ventures (San Francisco), Next Stage Ventures (Paris), Palace Ventures (London), and Minerva/Sabanci Ventures (Turkey). He was the first E.I.R. at Mayfield Fund in 1988.

Additionally, Mr. Posner serves on the boards of eChinaCash, Trinity Learning and Razorsight, and is an investor in several VC Funds, including NEA and JP Morgan Technology Partners.

He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS Math degree from Rensselaer.

Ton Willemsen

Chief Operations Officer and Director of Ifex Ltd.

He worked for over 25 years in a broad range of industry sectors at both national and international level. In the more recent past, Mr. Willemsen has led the worldwide industrial distribution group Eriks NV, quoted on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, following which he joined Amgate, a specialist in database driven internet solutions.

Walter de Brouwer

Walter De Brouwer was nicknamed by Corriere della Sera the "Woody Allen del business" because of his übernerd personality. He is most known as the founder of the European cult company Starlab, the first private blue sky research laboratory (called 'Nerd Heaven') that once, together with Paul Allen's Interval and MIT specialized in highly advanced 'deep future' research. This gained him the reputation as a futurist and big-picture thinker. De Brouwer was asked for the 20th Anniversary of The Wall Street Journal Europe as one of the four guru's to depict the World in 2023 together with John Naisbitt (Global Paradox), Bill Ghitis (Dupont) and Shai Agassi (SAP).

De Brouwer studied Philology at the University of Ghent and did his PhD in Semiotics at the University of Tilburg (Holland). He started his academic career as an assistant lecturer at the Jesuit University UFSIA (Antwerp) but left academia in 1989 and became an entrepreneur. In 17 years' time he set up more than 40 companies, was involved in several international IPO's (Stepstone [LSE: sso], Eunet-Qwest [nyse:Q]) and stood at the cradle of long-distance carriers in two continents (Eunet, Qwest). Originally De Brouwer's expertise was in publishing; he founded an international publishing house that published three computer magazines in three countries and was taken over by VNU in 1995.

In 2008 Walter De Brouwer was elected Chairman of the (British) Royal Society of Arts (RSA, Europe) serves since 2003 as a Director of the Tau Zero Foundation, which was formerly known as NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project.