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Latest - Business Sector: Investment Funding

Edwina Dunn OBE

Edwina Dunn OBE has spent her 40 years in the IT industry analysing great globs of data and turning it into useful business information to guide businesses. We call that today the analysis of big data. She started at the US CACI company which used census data to help customers such as banks and building societies. She left with her husband after nine years and they formed their own consultancy focusing on analysing customer data. Their big breakthrough was launching the Clubcard customer service for Tesco which catapulted Tesco to the front rank of UK grocery marketing. They sold the business to Tesco and formed another company. She is concerned about the ethics of using data and about the role of women in IT.

Sir Peter Ogden

Sir Peter Ogden co-founded Computacenter in 1981, just at the right time: IBM launched the PC legitimising desktop computing and the use of dealers to sell the products. Computacenter focused initially on the financial sector which was Ogden’s background. It won an IBM dealership and was promoted by IBM as one of its chosen few dealers. The launch of Compaq IBM-compatible pcs turbo boosted the company’s growth. Unlike other companies in the IBM PC adverts of the 1980s, Computacenter not only survived but grew, using venture capital and then an IPO. Sir Peter likes forming companies and says when it needs an HR department it is time for him to leave. Computacenter expanded into France and Germany, which is now a larger market for it than the UK.

Andy Ayim

Andy Ayim moves in the world of venture capital, tech start-ups, and product development. In 2010 Andy, along with his brother, Kwabz and a few friends set up Mixtape Madness, a passion project to create a central location online for people to listen to UK hip-hop and grime music.

He is currently Managing Director of the London Accelerator at Backstage Capital, that looks for investment opportunities with companies founded by those from under-represented groups, including women, people of colour, and the LGBT community.

In 2018 Andy was named in the Financial Times as one of the top ten most influential black and minority ethnic tech leaders in the UK.

John O’Connell

John O’Connell is a high-profile London-based technology entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. He founded Staffware, one of the then leading software companies in the UK, which he sold in 2004. Since then he has personally invested in fourteen technology businesses, having chaired the vast majority of them. He also chaired and co-owned the professional rugby club then known as London Wasps. At present he is Chairman of Active Navigation, and he is the founder and Chairman of ScaleUp Group,