Thursday 11 November 2023

With Lucy P. Marcus

Lucy P. Marcus (Founder & CEO of Marcus Venture Consulting, Chair of the Mobius Life Sciences Fund, Fellow of Judge Business School and Non-Executive Board Director – full bio below) will share her outlook on the state of venture capital in the UK, Europe and beyond, examining how the model            is functioning and asking whether it is robust enough to function in the future.

The session will examine the changing nature of what it means to be an accomplished VC in an arena of increasingly complex deals and sectors in a transitioning economy. It will also look at the impact of the economic environment where limited partners and venture capitalists are becoming increasingly risk averse: who is left to invest in early-stage ventures? Finally, Lucy will look at the responsibility the investment community bears when investing in sectors like biotech and cleantech, areas that impact people and the planet. 

EVENT DETAILS

Date: Thursday 11 November 2023

Capacity: 200 people 

Agenda: Networking and Drinks (from 6:30 onwards); Talk (7:30); Q&A Session (8:00);             Drinks and canapés, networking (until late)

Venue: Clifford Chance, 10 Upper Bank Street, London E14 5JJ‎ - 30th Floor                                       (we hope you’ll enjoy breathtaking views of London and the River Thames !!) 

Registration: here.

Proceeds from the event will go to the International Step by Step Association (ISSA),       a charity promoting equal access to education and care for all children.

ABOUT LUCY MARCUS

Lucy is the Founder and CEO of Marcus Venture Consulting, Ltd. Committed to fostering sustainable success for funding organisations, Marcus Venture Consulting works with clients from around the world in venture capital and private equity funds, institutions and corporations to help them create robust businesses with strong foundations for their funding efforts, and to ensure that they are recognised as smart and good money in what is a competitive and challenging funding environment. She is also a Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School, teaching and researching on leadership & innovation, and exploring the changing landscape in funding in biotech, pharma, and cleantech.

Lucy serves as non-executive chair of the Mobius Life Sciences Fund, chair of the Mobius Life Sciences Fund Investment Panel, non-executive director and chair of the board audit committee of BioCity Nottingham, and as an independent non-executive director and treasurer on the board of the International Step-by-Step Association (ISSA). She is co-founder, judge and chair of the board of the Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Awards, a member of the international advisory board of the Instituto de Empresa Business School in Madrid, is also on the board of the Wellesley College Business Leadership Council. She recently completed two consecutive terms on the advisory board of the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School, and was a non-executive director and board treasurer and fellow of the British-American Project. She co-founded and chairs the Leadership in Conflict project which is developing leaders in conflict and post-conflict zones. Lucy is also the Chair of The Global Task Force on Building Women Leaders, and the Founder of HighTech Women.

Bringing a 360 degree perspective, Lucy has worked in a numbers of sectors from software and the internet to government and financial services. Prior to founding Marcus Venture Consulting, Lucy was co-founder and VP of Marketing and Sales of an enterprise management software company, she was in charge of Marketing and Business Development for EMEA at Infinity Financial Technologies, ran the EMEA operations of a communications consulting company, and worked at Price Waterhouse in the East European Services Division and at the US Treasury Department’s Economic Policy Division.

Selected as a World Economic Forum Global Leader for Tomorrow, Lucy is also a fellow of the Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellowship Program and a fellow of the British-American Project, and was selected to take part in the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt Transatlantic Forums, and the Council of the United States and Italy’s Young Leaders Forum. Lucy was featured as “Director of the Month” in Director Magazine for December 2009. She has been listed as a “face to watch” in Management Today Magazine’s list of Britain’s 50 Most Powerful Women and in Business Age Magazine’s “10 Women Changing the Direction of British Business”. Lucy also served on the jury to select The Wall Street Journal Europe’s Most Successful Businesswomen in Europe, and on the “Digital Democracy” steering group of the John Smith Memorial Trust.

A regular speaker on global economic trends and best practices for investment, private equity, venture capital, entrepreneurship, technology, corporate governance, and women in business, Lucy is frequently quoted in the press, including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, Reuters, Investment Dealers’ Digest, Les Echos, the Guardian, Globes, Financial News, Venture Capital Journal, Infoconomy, and Red Herring. She has been profiled in the Financial Times, Tornado-Insider Magazine, and Lynne Franks’ Seedfusion. Lucy has appeared on CNBC, Sky Business Report, and BBC World Service; her articles have been published in Management Today Magazine, Tornado-Insider Magazine, netimperative, and Business 2.0. She was also profiled in the book “Powerful Women: Dancing on the Glass Ceiling” (Wiley 2001), and contributed to “Women in the New Economy: A Regional Perspective” (The Smith Institute 2001).

A dual American and British citizen, Lucy holds a B.A. from Wellesley College (Wellesley, Massachusetts) and an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, England). She can be found on Twitter via @lucymarcus

Wednesday 26 January

With Tom Chatfield, Nicholas Lovell, Margaret Robertson and Michael Acton Smith

Venture Lectures invites you to a discussion on the future of the gaming industry, with 4 renowned panellists bringing with 4 distinct perspectives: starting and growing games companies; funding, profitability & transactions in the industry; sociology & uses of gaming; game design and traits of games for the future…. 

• Tom Chatfield, author of Fun Inc.: Why games are the 21st Century’s most serious business, essayist and game theorist (working with online games and media companies, including Mind Candy, Grex, Red Glasses and Intervox)
• Nicholas Lovell (founder of Gamesbrief, consultant giving financial advice to computer and video games with a background in M&A in media and tech, in particular as former Director of Media Investment Banking at Deutsche Bank)
• Margaret Robertson (consultant to EA, Sony, THQ, Channel 4, and now game designer and development director at Hide&Seek)
• Michael Acton Smith (CEO/founder of Mind Candy and Co-founder of Firebox.com. Mind Candy created the award winning Perplex City and Moshi Monsters, a virtual world for children with over 26 million users in 2010).  

The conversation will explore upcoming orientation in the industry and recent trends in gaming, emerging and future uses and opportunities, education, the place for entrepreneurs and dynamics between large firms and garage developers, recent transactions, the gaming experience and how it’s changing… finally, panellists will throw open the discussion for your own comments and questions. 

EVENT DETAILS

Time: 7:00: Drinks - 7:30: Panel talk + Q&A - 8:30: Drinks & networking

Address: Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), 12 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH

Registration: here. 

Tickets: £10

Anyone passionate about the business of gaming can register to attend.

Thursday 08 April 2023 - Creating Businesses from R&D

With Dr Hermann Hauser

Following our oversubscribed and very successful cleantech futures event last month, we have the pleasure to welcome                     Dr Hermann Hauser, Director of Amadeus Capital Partners, founder of many successful businesses, one of the most prominent figures of entrepreneurship in the UK and Europe.

Dr Hauser will share his vision and experience of ’Creating Businesses from R&D‘ next Thursday, 8 April at the Oxford & Cambridge Club, in London. More information and registration here.

Today, the Financial Times published ‘Teller of Hard Truths to Technologists‘, on Hermann Hauser. 

Lord Mandelson has recently accepted Dr Hauser’s recommendations to help the Government support the development of technology and innovation. Dr Hauser recently published an important report, commissioned by BIS and entitled ‘The Current and Future Role of Technology and Innovation Centres in the UK‘.

ABOUT HERMANN HAUSER:

In his long and successful history as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Hermann Hauser has founded or co-founded companies in a wide range of technology sectors. These include Acorn Computers, Active Book Company, Virata, Net Products, NetChannel, and Cambridge Network.

He was a founder director of IQ , IXI Limited, Vocalis, SynGenix, Advanced Displays Ltd, Electronic Share Information Ltd and E*Trade UK.

At Amadeus Hermann has been a non-executive director of many investee companies including CSR and Entropic Research Laboratory, a company that developed voice recognition software, which is now the voice recogniser in Microsoft Word. He is a non-executive director of Plastic Logic, which has developed a process for producing flexible plastic transistors for use in computer displays, and Solexa, which is developing ultra-high throughput DNA sequencing technology.

Hermann holds a PhD in Physics from the Cavendish Laboratory at King’s College, Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Royal Academy of Engineering and an Honorary Fellow of King’s College. Hermann was awarded an Honorary CBE for ‘innovative service to the UK enterprise sector’ in 2001. In 2004, he was made a member of the Government’s Council for Science & Technology.

EVENT DETAILS

Date: Thursday 08 April 2023

Time: From 6.30pm

Venue: Oxford & Cambridge Club, 71 Pall Mall, London, Sw1Y 5HD

LINKS:

• Hermann Hauser’s page on Wikipedia.
• Profile of Hermann Hauser by Ingenia Magazine.
• Cambridge Network founded by Hermann Hauser. Cambridge Network is a Europe’s leading high technology community, bringing together business, academia and venture capital with networking. 
• Hauser Forum, University of Cambridge. Opening in early 2010, the Hauser Forum is a new, mixed-use development at the University’s West Cambridge site, made possible thanks to a generous £8 million donation by the Hauser-Raspe Foundation. The East of England Development Agency (EEDA) has invested £2 million into the project which will create a state-of-the-art enterprise hub to stimulate “open innovation”; innovative collaborations between clusters of academics, start-up businesses and established industries.
• Comprising two buildings, the Hauser Forum will be home to Cambridge Enterprise, the IdeaSpace, Seminar Centre and the Café Atrium.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Slides Creating Businesses from R&D by Hermann Hauser

Wednesday 16 June 2023

With Cliff Prior, Lily Lapenna, Christoph Warrack, Matt Kepple.

Social entrepreneurship is a rapidly growing sector, seizing interest in business schools, Government, think tanks, charities and companies. But the term is so broad that it hides major tensions. Participants will explore these tensions, the lessons learned on social entrepreneurs and impacts so far, and engage in a creative discussion about the future.

Oxford Entrepreneurs & Cambridge University Entrepreneurs bring you this event on social entrepreneurship which will be held at Adam Street Club on Wednesday 16 June. Keynote speakers and panelists include Cliff Prior, CEO, UnLtd, Lilly Lapenna, CEO, MyBnk, Christoph Warrack, CEO, Open Cinema and Matt Kepple, Cabinet Office Ambassador for Social Enterprise and Chairman of The Commission for Youth Social Enterprise.

About the theme

In the red corner: the active community agenda. People from disadvantaged communities taking initiative to improve their neighbourhoods. Community involvement, mutual ownership, and social capital are their touchstones.

In the blue corner: the social business movement. What matters is scaling up, social entrepreneurs with real business models who can deliver social impact at scale and with profit or at least financial self sufficiency. Impact, investment and growth are their icons.

And in the middle? the blended social enterprise model, with its asset lock and partial ability to distribute profits.

Which will win out? Or is it horses for courses, with market segmentation and greater clarity on which models are most useful when?

This session will outline UnLtd’s work, lessons learned on social entrepreneurs and impacts, and open out to engage participants in a creative discussion about the future.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Matt Keppel is Chairman of The Commission for Youth Social Enterprise and represents youth social entrepreneurship at the Cabinet Office. He has set up multiple social initiatives including GRADULICIOUS, WillWeMakeIt.com, Passion4Fashion, Sponsor-a-Kid-for-a-Quid which won him Channel4’s IDEASFACTORY Award and currently developing Wahblo.com. 

Lily Lapenna is Founder of MyBnk, creating an independent peer led banking programme which teaches young people how to save, spend and lend money responsibly. Working with young people as young as nine years old, she is fundamentally changing how people relate to finance, financial services as well as enterprise. In just 3 years over 20,000 young people from the ages of 9 to 25 have been exposed to MyBnk. Lily was recently awarded the Young Social Entrepreneur of the year by the UK Government. In January 2010 she was awarded the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship.

Christoph Warrack, Founder and CEO of Open Cinema. Open Cinema is a national network of film clubs programmed by and for homeless and socially excluded people. Each year it helps 3000 homeless and excluded teenagers and adults to regain mental health as well as building their confidence and employability through weekly film nights, interactive discussions with major filmmakers, and practical filmmaking projects. Working with the NHS, Metropolitan Police, Crisis, St Mungo’s, Channel 4 and over 20 other leading film and social sector agencies, we are the only organisation providing such a powerful means of engaging chronically excluded people.

Cliff Prior, CEO of UnLtd. UnLtd is a charity which supports social entrepreneurs - people with vision, drive, commitment and passion who want to change the world for the better. We do this by providing a complete package of funding and support, to help these individuals make their ideas a reality.

EVENT DETAILS

Time: 7:00: Drinks - 7:30: Cliff’s talk - 8:30: Drinks & networking

Address: Adam Street Club, 9 Adam Street (Off the Strand), WC2N 6AA London

Dress code: none

Register here.

UnLtd is a charity which supports social entrepreneurs - people with vision, drive, commitment and passion who want to change the world for the better. We do this by providing a complete package of funding and support, to help these individuals make their ideas a reality.