Keynote
Professor Stephen Curry
Assistant Provost for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Professor Stephen Curry holds joint appointments at the College. In October 2017, he was appointed as Assistant Provost for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion to direct the College’s strategy in this important area for staff and students.
Prof. Curry is also a member of the Department of Life Sciences (DoLS), where he has worked as a structural biologist on a variety of problems related to protein-drug interactions and the replication of RNA viruses such as foot-and-mouth disease virus and human norovirus (the winter vomiting bug). His group has made major contributions to our understanding of drug interactions with human serum albumin and of a range of host-virus protein interactions that are crucial to initiate translation of viral RNA into new virus proteins in infected cells.
Though he is now winding down his structural biology research, Prof. Curry remains an active teacher in DoLS, contributing to a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes in Biochemistry. From 2011-15 he served as Director of Undergraduate Studies in DoLS.
Prof Curry’s research and teaching have long been combined with strong interests the wider role of science in society. He is active in public engagement, having made and presented a number of science videos. He has keen interests in science policy, particularly in R&D funding, in research evaluation (and the use and mis-use of metrics), and in scholarly publication. He is Chair of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). He has written extensively about science and the scientific life in the Guardian and on his Reciprocal Space blog, and can be found on Twitter as @Stephen_Curry.
Panel Discussion - ‘Embracing Diverse and New Technology’
Natalia Bayona
Director of the Innovation, Education and Investments Department at the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)
Natalia Bayona leads the innovation, education and investments strategy of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the United Nations specialized agency for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and accessible tourism worldwide. With a diverse background on politics, destination management and business, she has become the first innovation director at UNWTO, has introduced entrepreneurship and education as key factors for tourism and development, and has positioned UNWTO as an innovation benchmark within the wider United Nations system as recognized in the UN 2020 Mapping of Innovation, Data and Digital Capacities. Furthermore, she has joined the UN Executive Leadership Programme for Sustainable Development led by the UN System Staff Collegue (UNSSC).
Karimi Kihato
People Ops Projects Director, Matillion
Karimi Kihato LinkedIn currently works at Matillion as a Director in People Operations and projects, driving transformation and growth for a fast scaling business. She is a passionate and driven HR leader with deep expertise at both a strategic and operational level. She has a wealth of experience gained from working in Life Sciences/Pharmaceutical, Tourism/Hospitality, and now Digital Innovation and Technology sectors.
Karimi is a champion for belonging and a tireless advocate for ED&I in work practices and how employees experience work. Her role as a People leader allows her to challenge the existing culture, and also support the development of inclusive practices. She firmly believes that people should find real satisfaction and meaning in their work and would like to help them achieve that.
Karimi was nominated to feature in the GTA- Black Women in Tech 2021 book, The Voices in the Shadow here with hundreds of copies distributed to school libraries across the UK to inspire and encourage more diversity into tech.
David Shrier
Professor of Practice, AI & Innovation with Imperial College Business School
David leads both the TRanslational AI Lab (TRAIL), applying trusted AI solutions to problems of business, government, and society, and the Institutional Digital Assets Project, helping mainstream organisations understand and adopt digital assets such as crypto and other DLT derivatives. David is founding faculty of Imperial's Centre for Digital Transformation. His academic teaching focus is on using technology innovation to drive change at scale.
David is a globally recognized thought leader in technology and educational innovation, parallel entrepreneur, and author. Collaborating with Professor Alex 'Sandy' Pentland at MIT, David revolutionised the university executive short course model for online learning. The portfolio of digital classes he created originally for MIT and University of Oxford have engaged nearly 20,000 innovators in over 150 countries. David is personally responsible for spearheading the three most profitable online classes in history.
Nick Rosa
Metaverse Strategy & Extended Reality Lead Europe & APAC, Accenture
Creative technologist, experience designer, and digital transformation specialist, who previously worked for Google, Spotify, IBM IX, Yahoo!, and Atari; Nicola "Nick" Rosa is now part of Accenture Technology Innovation and the Accenture Metaverse Business Group where he leads the Metaverse Strategy and Extended Reality business in Europe and APAC. Nick is also the chairman of the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) council for Immersive Technologies where he helps define best practices, use cases, and advantages of using XR for UK digital agencies; and a Director at the Academy Of International Extended Reality (AIXR) a non-profit entity producing the annual VR Awards. Nick is also the co-host and co-author of a monthly podcast produced by AIXR and sponsored by Accenture called “Field of View” where he interviews entrepreneurs, researchers, and pioneers in the field of XR and Metaverse.
Ying-Ying Hsieh
Assistant Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Imperial College Business School
She is also an Associate Centre Director of the Center for Cryptocurrency Research and Engineering at Imperial College London. Prior to joining Imperial, she completed her Ph.D. in General Management at Ivey Business School, Canada. Ying-Ying holds the role of Research Fellow at the Scotiabank Digital Banking Lab at Ivey.
With a focus on organization theory and strategy, Ying-Ying's research unpacks the coordination and governance mechanisms within blockchain-based decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). At a higher level, her research investigates how technological innovation enables novel forms of organizing. Her research settings revolve around the context of the cryptocurrency industry (e.g., Bitcoin) and more broadly, the financial technology (FinTech) industry, with theoretical underpinnings of organization design and entrepreneurial strategy. Her recent work explores the adoption/diffusion and change of DAOs.
Panel Discussion – ‘Building Mental Resilience in the Hybrid World’
Chris Ruane
Ex-MP, Vale of Clwyd (Wales);Trustee, Oxford University Mindfulness Centre
Chris Ruane was the MP for the Vale of Clwyd for 21 years. Working with Oxford University he established mindfulness lessons in the Houses of Parliament in 2013. Since then 300 politicians and 700 members of staff have received mindfulness training. He established the All Party Parliamentary Group ( APPG) on Mindfulness ( and is current Honorary President). He was also an officer the APPG's on Heart Health, Wellbeing Economics, Gut Health and Arts Health and Wellbeing.
He is currently a board member of Oxford Mindfulness Centre and Mindfulness Wales. He is Chair of Ruby Wax's Frazzled Cafe Charity and Chair of the Mindful Initiative's Global Network. He has spoken on mindfulness and wellbeing at the UN ( twice), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)Paris, and the Dalai Lama's Mind and Life Conference, Munich. He has given talks on mindfulness and wellbeing at the following Universities Oxford, Harvard, Berkeley, Bangor, UCL, Lyon, Aarhus and Radboud. He has also spoken at international wellbeing conferences in Washington, Toronto, Los Angeles, Sydney, London, Bangor, Mexico and Brazil.
He has just published his account of taking mindfulness into the political sphere in the UK and around the world in The American Psychological Association's Journal The Humanistic Psychologist
Laura J. Noval
Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Imperial College Business School
Laura holds a PhD from the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna). Prior to her PhD, she obtained an MBA from the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Germany and a bachelor degree in Tourism and Hotel Management from the Université de Perpignan in France. In addition to her studies, she has extensive international professional experience in Argentina, the United States, France, Germany, and Austria.
Laura's research interests lie within the fields of Organizational Behavior and Behavioral Business Ethics. Specifically, she is interested in the affective, cognitive, and motivational processes of ethical decision making in organizations. Laura's research has been published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (OBHDP), the Journal of Business Ethics, and Organizational Dynamics. Her PhD thesis won the Society for Business Ethics Best Dissertation Award in 2016 and she was recognized as one of the "Top 40 under 40" business professors in the world by Poets & Quants in 2020.
Aneeka Gupta
Director of Research at WisdomTree
Prior to the acquisition of ETF Securities in April 2018, Aneeka worked as an Equity & Commodities Strategist at the company. Aneeka has 17 years of experience working as a Research Analyst across a wide range of asset classes. In her current role she is responsible for conducting analysis for all in-house equity, commodity and macro publications and assisting the sales team with client queries around products and markets.
Prior to WisdomTree, Aneeka began her career as an equity analyst at Bear Stearns International Ltd in London. She also worked as an Equity Sales Trader at Sunrise Brokers across US and Pan European Exchanges. Before that she worked as an Equity Derivatives Sales Manager at Mashreq Bank in Dubai.
Aneeka holds a Masters in Mathematics from Oxford University and a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Delhi, India. She is also a CFA Charterholder.
Keshav R. Murugesh
Group CEO of WNS
Keshav is responsible for executing the business strategy and directing the overall performance and growth of ∼ 52,000 people organization, with over USD 4.5 billion+ market capitalization, presence across 16 countries and 55 offices. He has differentiated WNS as the first player in the outsourcing space to implement an endto-end vertical approach, a technology-enabled offerings program and a unique clientcentric client-partner program wherein AI, Analytics, Robotics, Mobile, Social and Cloud solutions have been coopted into operational models to deliver actionable insights to clients. Keshav, known as the ‘Turnaround Turk’, has been at the helm of global majors such as Syntel and ITC (an affiliate of BAT Plc). Apart from his professional crests, he is a BPM industry evangelist. He was chairing the NASSCOM BPM Council for two consecutive terms (2015-17). He led a massive industry re-branding campaign called ‘Become World Worthy’; created a conducive ecosystem for building the talent pool through closer ties between industry and the academia, and introduced first-of-its-kind NASSCOM BPM Pioneer Awards. He was also the Chairman of the NASSCOM Consumer Interest Protection Task Force.
Sankalp Chaturvedi
Professor (Organisational Behavior & Leadership) at the Imperial College Business School
Currently, Sankalp is also leading the Gandhi Centre within the School. He holds a Ph.D. from the NUS Business School, National University of Singapore. Prior to his Ph.D., he has a Masters in Human Resource Development and Management from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (India), and a Bachelors in Engineering from RAU, Udaipur (India).
The central focus of Sankalp’s research is in the areas of Leadership, Mindfulness, collaboration mechanisms in Teams. Broadly, he examines different conditions and mechanisms by which leaders can be more effective across levels and contexts. Specifically, Sankalp is interested in examining the “nature vs. nurture” debates with regard to leadership behaviors in organizations. He uses behavioral genetics methodology to advance the understanding of the biological basis of behavior. He is also keen to study the role of mindfulness in leadership spillover effects on follower stress, well-being, and performance.
Ideas to Impact Challenge (i2i) 5 mins presentation per team (5 mins Q&A)
Oksana Stowe
Founder and Host Founder and Host, ESG in VC
Oksana is a founder and host at ESG in VC, a podcast focused on ESG issues within venture context. She is also an experienced Venture Capital and angel investor. She was a Partner at Redrice Ventures, an early-stage investment fund focused on consumer brands and related technology companies.
She also worked at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Moelis & Co within M&A investment banking and Oakley Capital where she advised fast-growing disruptors such as The Hut Group and Just Eat.
Her notable investments are: Unmind, mental health B2B platform; Huboo, next-generation fulfilment solution; Lvndr, LGBTQ+ sexual healthcare platform and Sknups, a platform to enable digital collectables and fashion to be traded within games and metaverse.
Sacha Brereton
Management Consultant, Accenture
Devon Zimmerling
Investment Director, Cambridge Associates
Michael is a strong believer in tech for social good and a social entrepreneur himself. He founded Donaco, a tech startup helping charities like UNICEF raise funds more efficiently online & is currently looking at how to promote Sustainable Living via ethical commerce.
Through his experiences in ESG Investment Management, Risk Management and Engineering firms across three continents, he brings a strong understanding of both the technology and the business needs to take a product to market.
Michael currently sits on the board of Xpatria, a Swiss based non-profit supporting vetted projects on the ground in Lebanon, and holds a dual Masters in Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management from Imperial College London.