Event details
This panel discussion will be chaired by Salina and Maike, PhD students at Imperial and co-founders of The Elevat(Her) Podcast, and will feature Imperial female alumni who have started their own company in STEM, as well as experts in finance and entrepreneurship.
We will cover the challenges of starting your own business, raising funding as a female founder and top tips to get into entrepreneurship.
The panel will be followed by refreshments and the opportunity to chat with our guests!
We will be joined by:
-Elena Rueda Carrasco & Dr Paulina Cecula, Co-Founders of Dama Health
-Dr Chiara Heide, Founder & CEO of P.Happi
-Sarah Ranchev-Hale, Head of Imperial Enterprise Lab
-Dr Michelle Rogan, Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship - Imperial College Business School
More about our panel speakers:
Dr Michelle Rogan
Michelle Rogan is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Academic Director of the MSc Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management at Imperial College Business School. Previously she has held tenured faculty positions at the University of North Carolina and INSEAD. In her research, she is currently exploring the role of networks in new venture growth, how gender and networks affect entrepreneurial entry and career mobility, and the potential bias of AI in hiring practices. Dr Rogan’s research has been published in several top journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Management Science and the Annual Review of Sociology, and she is a Senior Editor at Organization Science. She teaches topics related to innovation management, corporate entrepreneurship and networks in Masters, MBA and Executive Education programmes.
Sarah Ranchev-Hale
Sarah Ranchev-Hale is currently Head of the Imperial Enterprise Lab, created in 2016 with the mission of inspiring and nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators at Imperial College London. The Enterprise Lab supports entrepreneurial development from idea through to start-up working with more than 2,500 unique students, alumni, early career researchers, and academics per year. Since 2016, the Enterprise Lab have supported over 340 startups to incorporate, and our community of entrepreneurs have gone on the raise over £420 million in external grants and investment.
Prior to this, Sarah has had experience in delivering world class employer branding, recruitment, and programmes at Morgan Stanley, and leading teams in student engagement, programme management, & partnerships at world renowned business schools and universities.
Dr Paulina Cecula
Dr Paulina Cecula (MBBS, BSc) is a junior doctor working at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She graduated from Medicine at Imperial with Management from Imperial Business School. Her dissertation research project investigated the use of AI to improve patient flow on mental health units. Throughout medical school, Paulina worked with various startups and across different teams, such as Cera Care and Parla. She now mentors medical students interested in MedTech. She's currently a co-founder of Dama Health - a personalised medicine female health startup where she leads product and clinical development.
Elena Rueda Carrasco
Elena is the co-founder and CEO of Dama Health, a female technology start-up using AI analytics and genetic sequencing to personalise the way in which women are matched and prescribed contraception and other hormonal medication. Before her entrepreneurial journey, Elena worked as a consultant at Merck KGaA’s Innovation Center bringing early stage technologies into early stage businesses in the fields of 3D drug printing, antibiotic resistance and the fertility space. Elena holds a Bachelors degree in Medical Sciences and Epigenetics and a Masters degree in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management from Imperial Business School.
Dr Chiara Heide
Chiara is the founder and CEO of P.Happi. P.Happi is a female-led, venture capital funded biotech start-up developing pioneering microbiota solutions for urinary health and beyond. Frustrated with the lack of innovation in the female health space, Chiara started the company after completing her PhD in synthetic biology/bioengineering at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London (ICL) in 2020. She studied Advanced Chemical Engineering at ICL, and did her undergraduate in Chemistry at UC Berkeley, University of Potsdam and ETH. She was a Marit Mohn/Departmental Scholar, and Scholar of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. While studying at Imperial College, Chiara founded a supportive network for female academics ‘WOMENinSTEM@IC’ to improve retention of women in STEMM careers.