Sir John Vincent "Vince" Cable is a British politician who was the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015 and the Member of Parliament for Twickenham from 1997 until losing his seat in the 2015 election. He was the only senior politician to predict the economic crash, and has written several books on economics. Before entering national politics Sir Vince, who is Cambridge-educated with a doctorate from Glasgow University, worked variously as a treasury finance officer for the Kenyan government, deputy director of the Overseas Development Institute, and was special advisor on economic affairs for the Commonwealth Secretary General, Sir Shridath Ramphal. In the 1990s he worked for oil giant Shell International, becoming its chief economist in 1995, before being elected to Parliament in 1997.

The man who turned 30 years of taxi driving experience into a revolution of the taxi hail. In late 2010, Russell Hall came together with two other cabbies and three entrepreneurs to set up Hailo - a free smartphone app which puts you just two taps away from a licensed vehicle, and lets drivers get more passengers when they want them. This fast growing startup raised $100M from an all star cast including Sir Richard Branson, Accel, Atomico, KDDI, USV and Wellington Partners. Today, a Hailo hail is accepted around the world every two seconds from Hailo’s global network of over 60,000 drivers and more than a million passengers. Russell demonstrates how an intimate knowledge of the industry is the key to a successful business.

Rachel Elnaugh is an award winning British entrepreneur who rose to fame as an investor on the first two series of BBC Two's TV show Dragons' Den, in which hers was the sole female perspective amongst the five investing entrepreneurs known as the “Dragons". Rachel’s first business was the market leading ‘experiences’ brand Red Letter Days which she grew from nothing into a 拢multi-million market leading brand. SourceTV - a curated content marketing portal designed to help Thought Leaders, Transformational Teachers, Healers, Therapists and Coaches get their messages of empowerment to a global audience, is now her main business focus.

Alan Giles is a British businessman with immense experience of working in retail. He was Chairman of Fat Face, the 200 store active lifestyle casual clothing brand from September 2006 until July 2013, and was Chief Executive of HMV Group until September 2006, having led its leveraged buy-out in 1998 and subsequent LSE flotation in 2002. From 1993 to 1998 he was Managing Director of Waterstones, and earlier in his career he worked in various marketing roles for Do It All, WH Smith Retail, and Boots. He was a non-executive director of Somerfield plc until 2004 and Wilson Bowden plc until 2007. Alan is currently a non-executive director of the Competition and Markets Authority and an Associate Fellow at the Sa茂d Business School, Univeristy of Oxford. He is also a non-executive director of Rentokil Initial plc and a member of OFT's Audit and Risk Remuneration committees.

Famous for bronzing more celebrity bodies than we've had hot dinners, Judy Naaké is an entrepreneur with a difference. Most recently seen as the subject of BBC2's much acclaimed 'Peter Jones Meets' series, Judy's story is an inspirational one. When she first discovered the St Tropez tan in her late 40's she was so confident in her product that she sunk all her savings in to the business, leaving her struggling to pay her gas bill. In 2010 she sold her business for £70million, ten years after she recovered from breast cancer, saying she didn't see the point in being 'the richest body in the cemetery'.

Andrew Heath Co-founded AlphaSights, a fast-growing knowledge broker, where he currently serves as Managing Director. With previous experience in asset recovery, principal investing and strategy consulting, Andrew has a proven record of founding, growing and running successful asset and knowledge brokerage businesses across Europe, North America and Asia.

Andrei Brasoveanu joined Accel Partners, an $8.8 billion leading early and growth-stage venture capital firm, in 2014 and focuses on software, data and fintech businesses. Prior to Accel, Andrei worked with Foundation Capital and KCG as part of their Young Entrepreneurs Program, the largest equities high frequency trading firm in the US, and with Siemens Venture Capital where he helped identify innovative energy technology companies. Earlier he helped build a $6 million 3-person hedge fund start-up focused on algorithmic futures trading. Andrei holds an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School, and an AB in Mathematics summa cum laude from Princeton University, where he also concentrated in Computer Science and Finance. He was named by Business Insider in 2013 ‘one of the 27 most impressive Harvard MBA students’.

Tech Venture Capitalist at Dawn Capital, a London based VC with over $200m under management.They invest in great teams attacking big markets with a particular focus on technology in SaaS, enterprise software and fintech.Dawn Capital are business builders and invest at the inflection point when a business has a proven product and business model and is ready to scale. Their sweet spot is writing cheques for between $3-$6m. Ari holds a B.Sc. in International Relations (first class) from the LSE.

Magnus Rinnan Gaarder is an Investment Manager at Nauta Capital in London. Magnus focuses on origination, deal flow management, company and market review, deal closing activities and portfolio management. Prior to Nauta Capital, Magnus worked as an investment banker at Portico Capital's London office, focusing on M&A and private capital raising advisory within the technology, data and business services sectors. Magnus started his career at Leerink Swann’s investment banking practice in New York, where he provided M&A advice to medical technology, biopharmaceutical and healthcare services companies.

Matt Kuppers is the founder and CEO of Startup Manufactory, a venture development firm that build and scale startups, provide entrepreneurship education to universities and consult corporates on innovation. Matt is also co-organizer of Startup Europe Week, an event series organized by the European Commission.  Prior to Startup Manufactory, Matt co-founded MenuSpring, a restaurant dish search engine that has been featured in the best British Startup 100 ranking in 2013, currently valued at £5m. Matt also acts as advisor and screening panel member to a number of accelerators such as Microsoft Ventures Accelerator, London Business School ESS, Saïd Business School, and as startup mentor to Startupbootcamp FinTech and Pitch@Palace, Before becoming an entrepreneur, Matt studied towards a PhD in social psychology at LSE, Matt also completed a nine-week course in entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

The LSE graduate and apprentice winner is a highly ambitious Michelin star restaurant owner and marathon runner. She is currently a director at One point global offers a unique and best in class solution for 'mobile first' market research data collection. She admires Richard Bransons attitude to personal-service and will speak about how LSE helped her to succeed with some of the UK’s best known business people including James Caan and Sir Alan Sugar.

Alexander Lushnikov is the co-founder of Chainy - an online community of talented creative people who participate in exclusive contests to produce original creative content for brands and global icons. He is one of 2014–15 London Leaders and is currently working with London Sustainable Development Commission to make London a better city to live in. He is a Host at the London New Tech Meetup - one of the fastest growing tech communities in London and around the world. He also co-founded the Global Affairs Summit in order to empower young generation with the platform to address global challenges of the 21st century together with the world’s leading experts.

Matt Kuppers is the founder and CEO of Startup Manufactory, a venture development firm that build and scale startups, provide entrepreneurship education to universities and consult corporates on innovation. Matt is also co-organizer of Startup Europe Week, an event series organized by the European Commission.  Prior to Startup Manufactory, Matt co-founded MenuSpring, a restaurant dish search engine that has been featured in the best British Startup 100 ranking in 2013, currently valued at £5m. Matt also acts as advisor and screening panel member to a number of accelerators such as Microsoft Ventures Accelerator, London Business School ESS, Saïd Business School, and as startup mentor to Startupbootcamp FinTech and Pitch@Palace, Before becoming an entrepreneur, Matt studied towards a PhD in social psychology at LSE, Matt also completed a nine-week course in entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.