VentureDay 2023

Fireside chat

"The contradictory tales – from a founder and funder perspective"

Mary McKenna

Mary McKenna is a Northern Irish exited serial tech entrepreneur and now angel investor. She co-founded successful online learning company Learning Pool and since selling Learning Pool has worked extensively with early stage startups and scaleups across the entire European ecosystem and especially with female and first time entrepreneurs. She has angel invested in 25 or so early stage tech startups to date and along with some friends she co-founded social enterprise AwakenHub, an all-Ireland female founder community, in summer 2020. AwakenHub now has 3,000 members and is about to launch Ireland’s first and only women-led angel syndicate, AwakenAngels.

Mary & Denise will explore the entrepreneurial journey and the ever-evolving investment landscape, unravelling the myths that often surround these realms, shedding light on the realities that entrepreneurs and investors face.

Denise McQuaid

Denise has lived and worked in Europe, Asia, and the US, accruing multi-sector exposure, helping early-stage technology organisations to scale and grow. She has over 15 years’ experience of developing and creating innovative new businesses and products. Denise is Director of Innovation Scouting at Co-Cubed working with FSTE 100 clients to navigate startup ecosystems globally to identify the most promising and disruptive innovations within their industries, scouting for the most impactful companies relevant to their strategy or investment thesis.

Keynote address

Surviving and Thriving in Difficult Times

To survive and thrive in challenging times businesses must be very sure and clear about their purpose… their WHY? I will be talking on the core values that have anchored our journey and underpinned our remarkable growth in the past six years despite unprecedented global macro challenges. My Cranfield learning team members who joined our journey will also share their insight on the contributory factors to our success.

Jerry Ejikeme

CEO of Sochitel

Cranfield Entrepreneur of the Year Alumnus Award Winner 2023

Jerry is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience in the telecommunications and FinTech industries. After a successful venture with Inmarsat in West Africa, he led African operations at Nomi Mobile, an MVNO backed by BT/British Telecommunication.

In 2007, Jerry founded Sochitel UK and Nomiworld to focus exclusively on the emerging international remittances industry. Sochitel is a leading global FinTech platform, enabling banks, mobile money operators and financial institutions to offer mobile top ups, data bundles, digital vouchers, and prepaid utilities to their customers. Processing millions of transactions daily, the Sochitel platform reaches over 150m unique end users and is connected to some of the world’s leading brands.