Keynote address

12:10 - 13:00

Margaret Manning
Chief Operating Officer at
Senseful AI

Margaret founded Reading Room digital consultancy in 1996, before the dot com boom, at a time when naysayers were predicting the imminent demise of this “internet thing” and proved those naysayers incorrect!  

Reading Room grew to become a global, award winning consultancy with offices in the UK, Singapore, Australia and Thailand and winning awards for excellence (Forrester Wave™ Top 10) and Fast Growth (Sunday Times Tech Track) before it was sold in 2015. Margaret led an MBI to purchase the Singapore and Australian businesses, growing these and selling to EY in 2019.

Her degree in cognitive psychology, specialising in artificial intelligence, alongside her management consultancy background with PWC have led to a keen interest in how businesses can successfully adapt to take advantage of waves of technology and social change.

In recent years Margaret has delivered keynote speeches at events in the UK, Australia, and many ASEAN nations on a range of topics including women in business, entrepreneurship and Agile Business process. She was sponsored by the Singapore government to host a series of ‘business clinics’ as part of a mentoring program for young Singaporean entrepreneurs.

Margaret received an OBE was for services to British export and remains committed to supporting SME’s to innovate and succeed nationally and internationally.

Keynote address

16:20 - 17:10

Adam Nemenyi
Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer at
Sentry Aerospares

After graduating from business school, Adam founded Aerospares 2000, a leading aftermarket supplier of aircraft spare-parts, in 2003. Along its journey, Aerospares 2000 experienced tremendous growth and was recognised as a scale-up for numerous years. It also received several awards recognising its industry-leading service and quality levels, including the prestigious Queen’s Award for International Trade in 2017.

In 2019, Aerospares 2000 secured private equity investment and Adam was instrumental in the transformational acquisition of Sentry Aerospace in 2022. Under his leadership, newly merged entity, Sentry Aerospares, has firmly established itself as a global leader.

Since completing the BGP, Adam has maintained a close relationship with Cranfield. In 2022, he spoke on the BGP program and shared his journey as part of the Bettany Centre Speakers Series. In 2023, he returned to give a three-hour talk during the MBA Kobe study visit.

As well as delivering an annual lecture for the Air Transport Engineering - Maintenance Operations course, Adam also serves as a visiting lecturer at Cranfield School of Management, covering entrepreneurship and airline supply chain management. He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.