Mr Norman Molyneux
Managing Director, KPMG Acceleris
Norman has been assisting SME’s with start-up, development, and scale-up funding for over 20 years through his previous roles as founder and chief executive of Acceleris Capital and board member of Seneca Partners Limited. The corporate finance house assists companies in raising funds under the Enterprise Investment Scheme and the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme as well as providing ongoing support and monitoring to its companies. Since its inception Norman has assisted in raising over £80million for UK SMEs, thus providing over 600 jobs nationwide.
Norman is a qualified chartered management accountant and has extensive experience with both SME and multinational companies through roles with PwC and in the industry both in the UK and North America. Norman holds numerous directorships in the companies he advises, fulfilling both executive and non-executive positions, including functional responsibilities and management of shareholders. Norman’s direct involvement with University of Liverpool spinouts and technology-based SMEs has seen him take up a role on The University of Liverpool Management School advisory board and the North West advisory group of the London Stock Exchange.
Mr Paul Nolan
Group Managing Director, Nolan Partners
Paul spent six years as the Group HR Director for The English Football Association and Wembley Stadium, where he worked closely with the board, chairman, and chief executives to build leadership teams, handling every senior executive and non-executive appointment. Prior to this, Paul spent 13 years in consumer-facing international businesses, including a position on the board of a division of an FTSE 250 business with specific responsibility for acquiring and developing leadership talent.
As well as leading our sports practice and conducting all of our board-level searches and chief executive and managing director mandates, Paul has conducted significant work in the betting & gaming industry, including several Executive board-level searches at Ladbrokes plc and William Hill plc.
Paul sits on the judging panels of the ‘Leaders 40 Under 40 Awards’ and the ‘Top 50 Most Influential Woman in Sport’. Paul also sits on the board of ‘Positive Futures’, a charity supporting hard-to-reach young people in North Liverpool.
Prof Michael Osbaldeston OBE
Associate Director, EFMD
Michael Osbaldeston was director of Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University, from 2003 to 2009. Prior to this, he held senior roles at Shell International and Ashridge Business School. Michael is a past chairman of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (UK), a non-executive director of the University of Stellenbosch Business School - Executive Education Ltd, (South Africa), and was previously a vice president of the European Foundation for Management Development (Belgium).
More recently, he has been appointed as a vice president of Ashridge Business School, vice chair of the Governing Council of the Royal Agricultural University, international development advisor at SKEMA Business School (France), and associate director of quality services (Accreditation) at EFMD (Belgium) with responsibility for the EQUIS, EPAS, and EDAF accreditation and development systems.
Michael is a graduate of the University of Liverpool (BSc Biochemistry 1969; Master of Business Administration 1971).
Michael was awarded an OBE, for services to national and international higher education, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2008.
Kathia Ramirez
Group Account Manager (Tourist Board & Partnerships) at TUI
Kathia holds an MBA degree from the University of Liverpool (2016) and a Bachelor’s degree in Tourism from Universidad Autonoma de Sinaloa in Mexico (2010).
Kathia started her career running a Travel Agency start-up in Mexico from 2010-2015. As a Director, she was involved in all levels of operations including coordinating the full product/ destination development lifecycle. After graduating from UoL in 2016 she joined one of the world’s leading Tourism businesses - TUI Group. She started in the Sales & Marketing department as Content Distribution Manager and two years later, she moved to Group Purchasing within the Sales & Business Development area where she was responsible for negotiating financial contributions with Tourist Boards from multiple destinations across the globe to support the launch of the new Tours product in TUI UK&I.
After one year in this role, she was promoted to Group Account Manager, negotiating contributions and flight incentives on behalf of all TUI’s source markets (UK, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, France, Poland, Nordic). In this role, she is responsible for securing the highest value contributions from TUI’s most strategically important commercial partners.
In 2021 and 2022, Kathia volunteered as a mentor for three Mexican businesses within the Tourism Recovery Programme - an initiative from the TUI Care Foundation. This programme provided dedicated mentoring, financial support, business development, and market access training for 945 tourism business leaders across Egypt, Mexico, South Africa, and Kenya to support their journey toward recovery and growth beyond the pandemic.
Sofia Salgado Cerveira Pinto
Dean at Católica Porto Business School
Sofia was Dean of Católica Porto Business School - Universidade Católica Portuguesa, from 2013 to 2020. Prior to this, she held other senior roles in the same University.
She is an independent member of the board at Mota-Engil SGPS (listed company) and served as an independent member of the board at STCP – Sociedade de Transportes Colectivos do Porto, SA between 2016 and 2018. Since 2019 Sofia is also a member of the EQUIS Board at EFMD.
She completed her Doctor in Philosophy in Business Studies at Warwick University (UK) and has an MSc in Management of Commercial Operations and a degree in Management, both from Universidade Católica Portuguesa. She has participated in the High Potentials Leadership Program at Harvard (2012) and has completed the International Directors Certificate at INSEAD (2019).
She is an academic in the area of service operations, service quality, and operations management and has written a book on service quality measurement and management. Prior to academia, Sofia held a line management post in a service organization in the hospitality and entertainment industry.
Vaidehi Vaidya
Founder & Managing Director, Women in Sport India (WISI)
When Vaidehi Vaidya set foot into the world of sports as a football player - and later coach, she was keen to connect with like-minded women and set out in search of an organization that would enable her to do so. However, she was disappointed to find that there was no group specifically catering to women working in the sports industry.
Determined to support women in sports across all levels, Vaidehi founded Women In Sport India (WISI) in 2020. This decision stemmed from her resolve to address a significant gap in the market - an absence of an empowering community for women to exchange knowledge about building a career in sports, both on and off the field.
WISI believes in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals of good health, wellbeing, and gender equality. It strives to achieve equal opportunities and representation for women by developing resources, sharing knowledge, and providing a network to make the women’s sports ecosystem simpler.
Vaidehi’s passion for sports runs strong, and she has spent many years advising in the field. As a consultant with the Asian Football Development Project, she spearheaded key youth and women’s football development projects across Asia. During her research on Women’s Football in India with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), she began to think about revolutionizing sports development in the country consciously. As a sportswoman herself, her goal with WISI is to create a strong community that supports and empowers women in sports.
Vaidehi has an MBA in Football Industries from the University of Liverpool. She is also a TEDx speaker and the first official FIFA Fan Forum member. She is passionate about connecting with people who have a flair for entrepreneurship, especially women who have opted for unconventional paths.
Alfred Yeung (BA DipArch DMS MSc RIBA MCMI MAPM)
Managing Director of Brock Carmichael Asia and Executive Director of ARE Assets Management in UK
Alfred has more than 30 years of experience in real estate development. Over the last two decades, Alfred has served in many senior executive roles in a number of multi-national listed companies including Great Eagle, Melco International, and Kowloon Canton Railway Corporation, and has built real estate networks around the globe. Overseeing developments across Asia, UK, North America, and Australasia, he manages a number of regional offices across the globe.
Alfred is a chartered architect by profession, qualified at Liverpool J.M. University, and received a Master's degree in Construction Management from Bath University. He has also received executive management training from Harvard Law School, Franklin Covey Leadership Programme, and Richard Ivey Business School.
Alfred is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Urban Lands Institute, Chartered Management Institute and Association for Project Management in UK. Alfred is a founding member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Hong Kong Chapter. He currently serves as a Governor of Ruthin School in North Wales and has been appointed as Adjunct Associate Professor and Reader at the Chinese University of Hong Kong He has also served as visiting critic in many schools of architecture including the University of Liverpool, Manchester School of Architecture, and the National University of Singapore.
Mark Astaire
Board Director and Investor
Mark brings over 35 years of investment banking experience to the Board having held a number of senior leadership positions including Chairman of Corporate Broking and Vice Chairman of Investment Banking at Barclays and Head of Corporate Broking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Mark was also a member of the Takeover Panel. He is an active investor in early-stage companies. He is a non-executive director of Cavendish PLC, Next 15 Group plc, a member of the board of Sky News and a trustee of the Holburne Museum in Bath.
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