Megan Goodwin is a creative entrepreneur who has worked at the cross section between psychology, technology, gaming and media for 20 years.

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She started her career in marketing and business development for the incubated internet businesses at News International at the beginning of the digital revolution. Megan was then headhunted to spearhead the digital development of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’, her award-winning games went live in 60 countries. Next Megan leverage this experience to raise seed funding to set up her own digital innovation business that created apps and games for some of the world’s biggest TV brands like Agatha Christie, Deal of no deal, Strictly come dancing, Big Brother etc.

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Most recently, as a result of the video meeting boom and her black book of pioneers, Megan has launched the vision which provides ‘‘pop up’ advisory boards’ powered by world-class diverse thinking experts to unlock new growth for businesses. She strongly advocates the use of technology to include and empower humanity.

Andy Street was elected as the first Mayor of the West Midlands in May 2017. Andy was re-elected to serve a second term as Mayor in May 2021. The primary function of the role is to chair the West Midlands Combined Authority and brings with it significant powers over transport, housing, skills and jobs.

Before becoming Mayor, Andy combined a career with John Lewis, Britain’s most successful workers’ co-operative, with a host of high-profile economic development roles, working with local and national government.

Starting on the John Lewis graduate scheme, Andy rose through the ranks to become Managing Director, overseeing one of the most successful periods in the company’s history.

He was the Chair of the Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership between 2011 and 2016, helping to build the relationships that have underpinned the economic growth of the region. Additionally, he has been lead non-executive director for the Department for Communities and Local Government as well as a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group.

Outside of work, Andy is passionate about the arts, particularly in the West Midlands, having previously served as Vice Chairman of Performances Birmingham Limited, which is responsible for running the City’s Symphony and Town Halls.

In June 2015, Andy was awarded the CBE for services to the national economy. He was named the ‘Most Admired Leader’ of the year by business magazine, Management Today in 2014. He received the ‘President’s award’ from the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce in for his work in the region. He holds three honorary degrees, from Birmingham City University, Aston University and the University of Birmingham.

Alex became a social entrepreneur in 2015 after spending time as an industry mentor in a Brixton jobcentre and seeing first-hand how long-term unemployment destroys confidence, and dignity, robbing many of any sense of self or autonomy. He has in his own words, become almost obsessive in his desire to improve social mobility through employability and remove all the connected challenges of financial, digital, and fuel poverty for the most underserved.

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His belief in the importance of ‘democratising digital’ stems from 25 years as a C-Level consulting, operations management and business development professional – latterly at global IT outsourcer Capgemini – where he was seconded to the ethical business charity BITC as a Business Connector. This fuelled his ambition to uncover the untapped potential of young (and older) people - many from disadvantaged black and minority homes – who are most often those furthest away from mainstream education and good work, and place them at the heart of creating lasting equity and change by developing their employability and supporting their journey to a job.

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Alex has been involved in the development of the Construction and Digital T-levels and advises organisations from SMEs to multinationals and local government on developing and scaling inclusive and equitable ‘digital by default’ initiatives. He serves as a NED for Birmingham Tech CIC, is an independent member of the West Midlands Combined Authority Race Equality Taskforce, Catalyst 2030, and the Innovation Alliance West Midlands, as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Acumen Academy.

Huw is an Investor at Midven, supporting high-growth SMEs based in the West Midlands with up to £2m early stage venture capital. Huw joined Midven as a graduate from the University of Birmingham in July 2019, having spent his final year of studies with Jewellery Quarter-based venture studio, Novo Ventures.

Huw has deployed nearly £8m from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund and is a board observer with 8 of the Fund’s portfolio. He is a mentor at BEC (Birmingham Enterprise Community) and has been invited to speak at events hosted by the Department for International Trade, The World Economic Forum, Innovate UK, the Universities of Birmingham, Keele and Loughborough, and the National Cyber Security Centre.

Professor Martin Levermore MBE DL is founder and CEO of Medical Devices Technology International Ltd (MDTi).

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Martin Chairs the advisory board for HDRUK black internship programme and advisory board of Cancer Research UK.

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Martin is a Senior Associate with the Royal Society of Medicine, a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

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Martin holds a Visiting Professorship in Health, Education and Life Science at Birmingham City University (BCU).

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Mostly recently Professor Levermore was appointed a NED to the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and holds the board position as ‘Digital, Integration and Research’ Chair.

Professor Monder Ram OBE is the Director of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) at Aston University. One of the foremost international scholars researching ethnic minority entrepreneurship, Prof Monder Ram’s work has helped to shape the field over the past 3 decades.

From his considerable research output to the founding of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship, Prof Ram has become established as a leading scholar and impactful researcher. His commitment to engaged scholarship has resulted in several social science inspired initiatives that have benefited diverse and overlooked communities. His research outputs are complemented by a lengthy record of external research funding awards from prestigious sources such as ESRC, NERC and Low Pay Commission as well as from national and regional public bodies.

Prof. Ram has held visiting Professorships at Lund University and Turku University in Finland. He serves as an advisor to the All Party Parliamentary Group for BAME Business Owners and is a member of the Ethnic Minority Business Group at the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Naomi Nash is Head of Community and Collaboration at Birmingham Tech and has been supporting the Midlands tech start-up community for nearly a decade.

Before joining Birmingham Tech, Naomi worked at Tech Nation where she was their Midlands Scaleup Engagement Manager. Prior to this, she held several roles connected to the local tech ecosystem and was part of the team that helped launch Birmingham Tech Week back in 2019.

Sharniya has worked in banking for a decade, in her current role as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Consultant Sharniya supports the bank to develop and deliver DEI strategies, programmes and initiatives. She is passionate about inclusion and empowering those who are underrepresented in their industries. In previous roles, she created and delivered customer focused initiatives engaging with diverse communities and encouraging inclusive entrepreneurship support.

Sharniya led a programme to accelerate multi-ethnic owned businesses, which was highly commended at the 2019 European Diversity Awards and won the Supplier Diversity programme of the year at the 2022 British Diversity Awards. Most recently Sharniya was awarded Employee of the Year at the Multicultural Business & Community Champion Awards (2022). Sharniya has a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and a Masters in Events and Exhibitions Management.

Nathan has spent more than 20 years advising corporate clients on private equity and venture capital investments, mergers and acquisitions and management buy outs. He acts for UK and international companies, although the majority of his clients are entrepreneurs/founders, start-ups and scale-ups, SME's and management teams. Nathan is ideally placed to help clients to grow their business by raising angel, venture capital or private equity funding (including under the SEIS, EIS or VCT schemes), or assist clients to exit their business via an M&A or MBO.

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Nathan leads VWV's national Technology practice, which he founded in 2008 and is also a key member of the firm's Pharma and Life Sciences team, leading VWV's work in supporting emerging life sciences companies. Nathan acts for a significant number of tech and life sciences start-ups (including University 'spin-outs'), scale-ups and other high-growth technology and life sciences companies and was previously judged by business publication, Corporate INTL, as the Emerging Companies Corporate Lawyer of the Year in England.

Dr Pam Waddell is the founding Director of the Innovation Alliance for the West Midlands (IAWM), a regional partnership working to stimulate science and technology-based innovation to improve prosperity and wellbeing across the West Midlands. IAWM’s objectives are to build a vibrant innovation ecosystem for the West Midlands and to catalyse collaborative activity focussed on demand-led innovation. 

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Pam is a recognised authority in the role of innovation as a driver for economic growth and improved public services, with extensive experience of leading, building and supporting strong innovation networks across diverse sectors and types of institution, and in partnership and project building, including winning of major project funds. She has led strategy and operation plans for delivery, both in her current role and from her 16 years in the Research Support team at the University of Birmingham. Pam was one of the architects of the West Midlands Innovation Programme on which IAWM works closely with the WM Combined Authority.

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Matthew has worked in low carbon energy and innovation for over 25 years, 14 of which he spent growing a successful engineering consultancy based in Warwickshire. He’s led a large number of collaborative innovation projects in cleantech throughout his career, most recently a major project to set out industrial decarbonisation pathways for the Black Country.

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Matthew has served on numerous Boards and Committees in the West Midlands, including current positions as Chair, West Midlands Industrial Energy Taskforce, Chair of Energy Capital and member of the WM Innovation Board.

Davies is an Access to Finance Account Manager at the GBSLEP Growth Hub, where he provides investment readiness support to local businesses who are looking to raise funding. Leveraging his extensive experience as an entrepreneur, his background in accounting and enterprise development, as well as his expertise in pitch deck development, business strategy, and financial modelling, Davies helps businesses achieve their growth objectives in line with the GBSLEP’s mission.

Jenny Millar demystifies pricing strategy, giving business owners the clarity and confidence to price their services more effectively. She founded 

Untapped Pricing to shine a light on the untapped potential of pricing to boost profitability, drive engagement with customers and unlock growth bottlenecks.

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Jenny’s background includes 10 years with eBay Europe where she built world-class analytics teams to transform their 20 petabytes of data into commercial intelligence. She delivered major price changes across eBay’s major European markets and reignited the growth of eBay UK's $2.7bn Electronics vertical.

Jenny teaches entrepreneurship at Warwick Business School and pricing strategy at LSE.

Sukhy Nijjar currently works as a Senior Policy Advisor for the Mayor of the West Midlands.

Prior to joining the private office, she had a career in Investment Banking and previously ran her own business.

She has a Masters in Investment Management from Bayes Business School in London.  She spent her investment banking career working in Global Markets for various Institutions, specialising in Corporate FX Sales for FTSE 100 clients. Sukhy left the city of London, returning back to the West Midlands to set up and run her own business before joining the Mayoral team in September 2020. 

With over 17 years of recruitment experience and market insight, Mike identified a significant growth opportunity for SF.  In 2018, he founded SF Technology - part of SF Recruitment – with the aim of providing a level of customer service and delivery that is synonymous with the SF brand, to an exciting and emerging sector.

 Mike successfully introduced the winning SF formula to the Tech world; quickly confirming its proficiency in sourcing and securing the very best Tech talent for its clients. 

Fast forward to 2022, and under Mike’s leadership, the team has grown into a multi-million-pound business, delivering on recruitment projects and consulting across all aspects and levels of the Technology space.  SF Technology’s client’s range from start-up and scale-ups through to established multinational businesses.

Elizabeth is the award winning founder & former CEO of a UK tech company that invented a software product and pioneered a new technology market. The company was listed on AIM and was acquired by a major US software company in 2017.

She now works with Tech StartUps and ScaleUps to help them grow/scale their businesses and get investment. Elizabeth was named as one of The Telegraph’s ‘Most Disruptive Entrepreneurs’, West Midlands Woman of the Year for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Technology’ and she was awarded an MBE for her services to industry in 2012.

David leads CCC’s Economic Strategy & Funding Team, and leads the Authority’s work in economic policy and strategy, which includes working with local, regional and national business support partners in designing business support programmes for the Coventry & Warwickshire economy.

After an initial career in economic research and consultancy, he was responsible for leading the EU Structural Funds Technical Assistance function in Coventry & Warwickshire.  He has been working with WMCA and fellow West Midlands Local Authorities in designing activities for the Local Business Priority of UKSPF, and other funding streams that can help deliver the WM Plan for Growth.  

Nazia Iqbal has recently been promoted to the role of Regional Manager for the West Midlands at Innovate UK and will lead on senior stakeholder engagement, shaping Innovate UK’s strategy and approach for the West Midlands region. Nazia joined Innovate UK in June 2020 and was primarily working in the Investor Partnerships team.

Nazia Iqbal is a qualified solicitor and has many years of experience working within the investment management sector. She has worked for many financial companies including PIMCO Europe, Aviva Investors, Barclays Bank Plc, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Deutsche Bank.

Nazia considers Equality, Diversity and Inclusion to be a fundamental cornerstone to reaching out and enabling UK businesses to access opportunities to accelerate scale and growth, accordingly a key focus will be driving business impact through innovation and ensuring the West Midlands region realises those benefits by connecting with Innovate UK’s business support systems.

An MBA with over 34 years’ experience of working within the public and private sector. A strategic leader with highly developed communication skills, strong financial management, very entrepreneurial, innovative, committed to collaborative and partnership-based working.

A proven track record of leadership and successful delivery of business support activities across the West Midlands region.

After an initial career in economic research and consultancy, he was responsible for leading the EU Structural Funds Technical Assistance function in Coventry & Warwickshire.  He has been working with WMCA and fellow West Midlands Local Authorities in designing activities for the Local Business Priority of UKSPF, and other funding streams that can help deliver the WM Plan for Growth.  

Steven loves being around people who are positive, determined and ambitious. Having the chance to help people realise their business aspirations is a privilege that he finds challenging and rewarding.

His 20’s were spent working in a variety of legal and financial roles and this experience has given him a head for numbers and a keen eye for detail. Over the last 15 years Steven has worked as a Businesses Adviser supporting SMEs to innovate and grow.

Now Steven spends most of my time helping businesses raise at Seed Stage. Over the last 18 months he has helped 7 clients raise a total of £4 Million. The smallest deal being a £160K raise and the largest being £1.9 Million.

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Steven also runs a series of investment readiness events in the Midlands called Pitch Panels and Innovate UKs flagship training programme Investa-Bility.

Dan is the Policy Manager for Business at the West Midlands Combined Authority.  He is responsible for developing policy that informs interventions around business support and productivity growth.

Previously at the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership, he has 20 years' experience working across the West Midlands and liaising with businesses directly, with intermediaries and other stakeholders.