Innovation Ambassadors

Ambassadors are champions for open innovation across London, with a dedication to ensure activities are effective, inclusive and diverse. They are leaders in the innovation community who have successfully executed innovation activities.

Ambassadors have excellent contacts and innovation expertise to effectively guide the Fellows. They are senior leaders, entrepreneurs, academics and corporate leaders with a passion for developing London’s open innovation ecosystem.

The network that the Fellowship has opened up is amazing and the personal support offered really is brilliant.
Claire Holden
Chief Innovation Officer, H&K Strategies

Innovation Ambassadors

Andrew Humphries

Co-Founder, The Bakery

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Andrew Humphries

Co-Founder

The Bakery

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Andrew Humphries is Co-Founder of The Bakery, the world's first dedicated workspace and tech accelerator for the advertising, marketing and communications industry. He is a successful serial entrepreneur, business and executive coach with a background in sales and marketing.

Andrew was voted one of the Sunday Times Maserati 100, recognising British business leaders who actively give back to the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Emma Frost

Director, Innovation & Sustainability, London Legacy Development Corporation

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Emma Frost

Director, Innovation & Sustainability

London Legacy Development Corporation

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Emma Frost is highly experienced in delivering strategic integrated urban regeneration programmes. She has been working on the London Olympic and Paralympic Legacy since 2006 and leads on all aspects of community and business development around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

She is also Chair of the UK Innovation Districts Group, and Co-Founder and Chair of Echo Trustee of East Village Trust and the One Percent Scheme.
Christopher Haley

Senior Entrepreneurship Strategy Specialist, The World Bank

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Christopher Haley

Senior Entrepreneurship Strategy Specialist

The World Bank

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Christopher Haley has more than 15 years of experience working with startups and open innovation. He previously worked at Nesta, the innovation foundation, where he led the role in the Startup Europe Partnership, a multi-year European initiative to connect startups and corporates.

He also has advisory roles with the APPG for Entrepreneurship, the UK Intellectual Property Office, the Enterprise Research Centre, the ScaleUp Institute, GEN UK and Startup Olé, and is a Startup Europe Ambassador.
Priya Guha

Venture Partner, Merian Ventures

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Priya Guha

Venture Partner

Merian Ventures

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Priya Guha is Venture Partner at Merian Ventures, investing in women-led innovation, and a member of the Innovate UK Council, NED at the Digital Catapult and Adjunct Faculty at the Ashridge Hult Business School.

She was previously General Manager for RocketSpace, launching the UK operations. Priya was recently named in the 2020 Top 50 Most Influential Women in Technology for the third year running.
Eric Van der Kleij

Co-Founder, EdenBase

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Eric Van der Kleij

Co-Founder

EdenBase

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Eric Van der Kleij is Co-Founder of the UK’s "Covid-native" EdenBase, the supergrowth innovation ecosystem, and was previously founder of one of London’s leading fintech hubs, Level39.

He is Chairman of quantum-safe data security company Keybox.co and distributed ledger Activeledger. He previously founded fintech company Adeptra, which was acquired by US FICO in 2012.
Saul Klein

Founder, LocalGlobe

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Saul Klein

Founder

LocalGlobe

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Saul Klein is Founding Partner at LocalGlobe, a new seed fund focused on helping London's great, most ambitious founders build game-changing businesses. Previously, Saul was a partner at Index Ventures from 2007 until May 2015.

In 2012, David Cameron appointed Saul to be the UK's first tech envoy to Israel and a Technology Business Ambassador. Saul is a serial entrepreneur with two decades of experience building and exiting companies in the US, Israel and Europe.
Amali de Alwis

CEO, Subak

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Amali de Alwis

CEO

Subak

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Amali de Alwis is the current CEO of Subak. Previously, she was responsible for Microsoft’s strategic and commercial direction across Microsoft’s startup and scaleup activities in the UK and CEO of Code First: Girls, a multi award-winning training company focused on increasing diversity in tech.

Amali was a founding member at Tech Talent Charter, topped the list of Most Influential Women in UK Technology and was awarded an MBE in 2019 for services to diversity and training in the technology industry.

Amali de Alwis is the current CEO of Subak. Previously, she was responsible for Microsoft’s strategic and commercial direction across Microsoft’s startup and scaleup activities in the UK and CEO of Code First: Girls, a multi award-winning training company focused on increasing diversity in tech. increasing diversity in tech.
Geraldina Iraheta

Director, Business Development, Digital Catapult

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Geraldina Iraheta

Director, Business Development

Digital Catapult

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Digital leader, technologist and strategic thinker, Geraldina Iraheta is the Director of Business Development at Digital Catapult. Passionate about turning innovative ideas into concrete business benefit, Geraldina works with leading corporations to drive a culture of innovation and deliver growth through the adoption of leading-edge digital technology.

Bringing a wealth of experience from her global career, including working with startups in Silicon Valley, where she has performed key roles at Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile, and Critical Path Inc.
Debbie Vavangas

Global Lead and Senior Partner, IBM

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Debbie Vavangas

Global Lead and Senior Partner

IBM

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As Global Lead and Senior Partner for IBM Services, Debbie’s primary focus is on two key areas: working with IBM’s most complex clients to help them pursue meaningful and lasting transformation, and building diverse, collaborative teams and ways of working that quite literally change the game.

In her work as the global leader for IBM Garage, Debbie brings the best of IBM to help clients shape, accelerate and execute their business vision and strategic imperatives, enabling transformation from the heart of the enterprise.
Jeremy Basset

CEO, Co:Cubed

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Jeremy Basset

CEO

Co:Cubed

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Jeremy is responsible for working with clients across a variety of verticals to define and develop their collaborative innovation capabilities. Prior to launching Co:cubed, Jeremy was responsible for initiating and leading the Unilever Foundry. Through the Foundry, Unilever partnered with more than 100 startups around the world, with almost half being scaled across the business. Jeremy holds an MBA from London Business School, is CPA qualified and has a degree in Marketing & Accounting from the University of Technology, Sydney.