What is the SHIFT Speaker Database?
The SHIFT Speaker Database aims to highlight the diversity of tech and digital public speakers in the South West, as well as offer support for those new to the sector and region. Our focus is on facilitating platforms for underrepresented voices in tech and digital.
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Ali Kazmi
Founder
Bristol
Ali is the founder of Ethical Equity and A I Simulator. He is on a mission to diversify (and open up) the world of angel investing and provide access to capital without barriers or gatekeepers.
Alicia Teagle
Co-Founder
Bristol
Alicia is the Co-Founder of SR2 and Founder of Women Rock & Tech Volunteers. Alicia is passionate about Recruitment, B-borp, Tech 4 Good, Volunteering, Diversity, Founders and Women in Businesses.
Andy Thornton
Senior Digital Marketing Executive
Bath
Andy can talk about making workplaces, marketing and design more inclusive. He has experience speaking at conferences, guesting on podcasts and being part of a panel, covering topics from 'How to be a good LGBTQ+ Ally' to 'Content writing that is fast, easy and compelling'.
Angela Loveridge
Online Safety Champion
Bristol
The founder of Better Together - Online Safety, Angela is passionate about helping parents, carers and professionals to keep children safe online. Her passion and approach to online safety has earned a nomination for the NSPCC/AoCPP award for Child Protection Trainer of the Year.
Annie Legge
CO-Founder
Bath
Annie is co-founder of DOT PROJECT and Tech4Good South West, a rich network of organisations and individuals throughout the South West creating the opportunities for businesses, the public sector and civil society to have new, collective and transformative impact through technology.
Beth Levi
Data Scientist
Bristol
Beth is a Data Scientist working in Bristol for a Cyber Reinsurance company and am interested in Data Visualization and Dashboarding. She is also interested in promoting women in tech, as someone who underwent a complete career change from a non-tech role.
Beth Pope
Founder & Managing Partner
Bristol
Beth is the Founder and Managing Partner of Firehaus, helping innovative organisations ignite their brand for greater impact and growth. A former digital agency head, she is a business review panellist for SETsquared, podcast guest, and speaks on female leadership and nurturing strong business cultures.
Bobbi-Jo O’Gilvie
Web Designer
UK
Bobbi is the Founder of Ready to Blog, a studio that specialises in branding, web design, and strategy for the passionate entrepreneur, and Circe, an app for women in business, and a Vision Coach who helps her clients scale to 7-figures through a compassion-based approach.
Briony Phillips
CMO
Bristol
Briony's commitment to economic development and the entrepreneurial ecosystem doesn’t end with The Investment Activator Programme or Rocketmakers, in 2021 she released an open dataset to raise awareness of Tech for Good businesses and hosts events and projects with the region’s growth at their heart.
Caroline Clark
Co-Founder
Bristol
Varied experience across science, engineering, innovation and startups. PhD Engineering, ultrasonic signal processing. Academia, research commercialisation, innovation. Startup operations and finance, founder journey, people and team development.
Chineme Ifedi
Strategic Projects Business Analyst
Bristol
Chineme is a data-driven professional with an engineering background and 10+ years of experience in program, project, and portfolio management. Chineme enjoys speaking about project management, business analysis and her tech career journey.
Chris Chinn
Product Development Manager
Bristol
With 25 years experience in commercial, Government and 3rd sectors, Chris enjoys speaking about Project Management (Waterfall and Agile), Root Cause Analysis, Business Analysis, Online Broadcasting, Atypical and Neurodiverse thinking. Facilities Management, Construction, Engineering, Events.
Cornell Campbell
Head of Sales
Bristol
Cornell has a background in technical product centric startups, consultative solutions and value add services with global enterprises, international Government and Law Enforcement. Cornell is passionate about sales consultancy in Virtualisation, IoT, Government Software development, Data Science, Fitness and Mental Health.
Crystal Carter
Head of SEO Communications
Exeter
Crystal is Head of SEO Communications at Wix. She helps SEO and Wix users understand how to get results with SEO, PPC, CRO, digital strategy, digital campaigns and deep-dive data interpretation. Crystal loves speaking about SEO, Digital Marketing, Personal Branding and Digital Transformation.
Dani Hughes
Head of Digital Engagement
Bristol
Digital marketing specialist with over 10 years experience in planning, strategy and paid media buying. Working for some of the UK’s biggest charities to health and wellness organisations, delivering award winning campaigns. Passionate about closing the digital and women in leadership gaps, by offering training,...
Daniel Edmund
Public Speaker
Bristol
A dynamic public speaker and facilitator, looking to make an impact on societal discussions around diversity, equity and inclusion. Daniel enjoys speaking about social action, race, gender, and identity. He is a documentary filmmaker, presenter, producer and podcast host.
Dawn Walter
Founder & Senior Content Designer
Bristol
A senior content designer with over twenty years’ experience of creating customer-centric content, Dawn's passion to understand and represent the user in everything she creates is why she studied anthropology—for a deeper understanding of people and society.
Devon Lowndes
Founder & Director
Bristol
Neurodiversity and EDI consultant, Devon, empowers you to build an environment to everyone’s needs and goals. Devon wants to give organisations the tools to build an inclusive culture, where everyone feels supported.
Emilie Harryman
Partnerships Manager
Bristol
Emilie spent the beginning of her career in the creative industries before moving into the tech sector. She now leads partnerships at Bristol's Engine Shed where she grows their network developing partnerships and project collaborations.
Emily Hill
CEO & Co-Founder
Bristol
Emily is co-founder and CEO of software house Ghyston and enjoys talking about workplace culture and creating a great place to work, for which Ghyston has won many awards. Emily is also passionate about promoting women in tech, authentic leadership, and using business for good.
Emily Kent
Co-Founder & Director
Bristol
Co-Founder and Director of One Big Circle Ltd - specialists in Intelligent Video & analytics. Building innovative and robust solutions to capture and process video data in the transport industry. An experienced entrepreneur promoting diversity & inclusion in the workplace and promote work/life fit.
Emma Millington
Head of Client Relationships & MD
Bristol
Emma is a female agency owner who sees things differently. Driven by hearts and minds, rather than tech outputs, Emma's compass works differently. In here talks she explores digital projects through a clients' eye, breaking structures in digital and emotionally driven design philosophies.
Emma Pauncefort
Learning Science Practitioner
Bath
Emma straddles education, music and technology in no particular order. A linguist and literacy exponent by trade, with a passion for connected and critical lifelong learning and 'tech for good', she is excited by the possibilities of the interplay between education & tech.
Eriol Fox
Product Manager & Senior Designer
Bristol
Designer of 10+ years, Eriol works at Simply Secure on design, research, open-source and technology projects, and is also a PhD researcher at Newcastle University's Open Lab. Eriol is a non-binary, queer person who uses they/them pronouns.
Gill Wildman
Director
Bristol
Gill Wildman has been a design strategist for 20 years, in the area of bringing design methods and approaches into the business and the public sector. This can take many forms. She helps companies to innovate within their current and future products and services.
Glyn Blaize
Group COO
Bristol
Glyn Blaize is a Tech Entrepreneur and COO of a tech scale-up Amdaris. He has held an impressive number of director roles over his career, including Commercial Director, Sales Director, and Operations Director at growing SMEs and Managing Director at Addocura.
Gwen Edwards
Director of Marketing
Keynsham
Gwen has worked in telecoms and the tech sector since 1999, and have quite a lot of international experience in product development, marketing communications and strategic partnerships, and now works for a telecoms company, a cloud-services company, and an AI-finance startup.
Hannah Smith
Operations & Training Manager
Minehead
Hannah works for the Green Web Foundation, a non-profit with a mission to make the internet fossil free. With a BSc in Computer Science and experience as a freelance WordPress developer, she brings a rare ability to marry technical understanding with an understanding of people.
Heather Macdonald
CEO & Founder
Bristol
I help leaders in technology companies to tell the world WHY they and their products are worth giving a damn about. With over 15 years' experience in corporate communications and technical product marketing, I can articulate a company's value to customers, investors, employees and more.
Helen Tanner
Founder
Bristol
I'm a data fanatic and loving speaking about everything data and SMEs. In 2017, I founded Data3, the award-winning UK data lab. In 2020, I wrote 'The Data Escalator' and in 2021, we launched myDATA3 - the all-in-one business dashboard.
Helen Varley
Developer
Bristol
With over 18 years experience working in the web industry, Helen njoys speaking about frontend development, working in dev teams and technology, working with clients and designers.
Jack Jordan-Connelly
Business Incubation Manager
Bristol
Having been diagnosed with ADHD at an early age, Jack is a huge proponent of non-linear career paths and enjoys sharing his stories and experiences to encourage others to explore options they may have not considered previously.
Jaye Cowle
Managing Director
Exeter
Jaye Cowle is the Founder of Launch, an award-winning paid media agency in the South West. Her energy and shrewd business know-how has seen her leverage digital advertising for national and multi-national brands.
Jenny Bailey
Chief Executive Officer
Bristol
A former academic who set up Ferryx in 2019. I am passionate about the impact of the gut microbiome on both gut health and health of the body as a whole. Areas of interest are drug discovery and food supplement development.
Jess Hellens
Founder
Bristol
Entrepreneur and Creative Communications Consultant with a particular focus on closing the gender gap equivalent of 1.1million missing businesses due to only 1 in 3 entrepreneurs being a woman. UN Women UK delegate changing the business landscape for women, marketing and PR strategy, creative communications.
Jess Saumarez
Director and Chief Commercial Officer
Bristol
Jess is a Certified Digital Marketing Leader, founder of tech businesses and lover of plants. She is also the Director and Cheif Commercial Officer at Stephenson Law, a company that's challenging the legal industry by offering unparalleled service and expertise without the typical corporate stuffiness.
Jo Hodge
Owner
Southville
Jo enjoys sharing her expertise on SEO and Email Marketing.
Joanne Kitson
Senior Data Scientist
Bristol
Joanne has been lucky enough to jump between diverse fields in the course of her career. She enjoys speaking about data science & machine learning, electronic engineering, and is currently working on time series based Data Science/Machine Learning projects.
Julia Kemp
Head of Marketing Growth
Bath
Julia is a Head of Growth at IOV Labs, the foundation behind the layer 2 blockchain Rootstock. She has nearly ten years of marketing experience working as a consultant to high-growth startups, in both B2B and B2C.
Karen Velasquez
Lead Product Manager
Bath
Lead Product Manager at Signable with over a decade of experience working with digital products for startup and scaling organisations, Karen immerses herself in everything to do with product and leadership.
Karin Rudolph
Founder
Bristol
Founder of Collective Intelligence, a hub for ethical innovation for tech businesses wanting to embed ethical thinking into their products and services. She have a background in Sociology, studies in Philosophy with expertise in AI and data ethics, privacy, and ethics as a service.
Katie Roberts
Client Development Manager
Bristol
Katie has spoken at Noisey Little Monkey webinars and does a lot of videos on LinkedIn speaking about Inbound Marketing / Sales, Sales Enablement and HubSpot.
Laura Burnett
Head of Delivery
Bristol
Laura is a people focused product specialist with a wealth of experience in building high quality products, managing global teams and driving positive organisational changes, while demonstrating the highest level of value to Public Sector Delivery.
Laura Gemmell
Senior Data Scientist
Bristol
Founder of Edtech company Taught by Humans, Laura saw a need for fun, friendly accessible tech education to make sure everyone has access to the opportunities provided by advancing technology. She loves teaching and she is driven by the lightbulb moment in her students eyes.
Lyssa-Fêe Crump
Founder
Cornwall
GIF obsessed marketing badass who loves helping brands grow, Lyssa-Fêe wants you all to say no to vanilla! Founder of Kraken Marketing, a marketing agency that works with companies around the globe, she regularly speaks about Agile marketing, diversity in tech, and data-driven marketing.
Marina Traversari
Senior Director
Bristol
Marina, former COO of Spherics, now Snr Director at Sage PLC, with experience in tech leadership at Facebook and Oracle, as well as advisory roles for various organisations. A champion of diversity, technology, and startups, Marina is dedicated to enhancing the global tech ecosystem.
Marissa Ellis
Founder
Bristol
Marissa is a strategist, advisor, speaker, best-selling author and the founder of Diversily.com. She aims to change mindsets and inspire action on topics such as: inclusive leadership, mindset, purpose, inclusive innovation, diversity in tech, inclusive thinking, team success & culture change.
Marissa Lewis-Peart
Midweight UX Consultant
Bristol
Marissa is a UX Consultant, Board Director and Public Speaker with a passion for how people experience brands.With a Visual Communications degree in Graphic Communication, she began her career as a Graphic Designer specialising in Brand Design & Brand Strategy.
Marva Lord
Writer
Wales
Marva is a writer and web worker building websites, digital media projects and social media presence. Her writing background includes funding proposals, journalistic writing, writing for the web, creative writing, copy editing, and poetry. She also has considerable arts presentation, admin, and marketing expertise.
Mevis Birungi
Offline Animation Edit
Bristol
Writer, Actor and Director, Mevis creates short films depicting experiences and issues often ignored by society, writing with a focus on the psychological perspective of the female leads in her stories. Mevis quickly built up her creative CV with her debut BBC funded film “Nakato”.
Monica Shupikai Simmons
Director
Westminster
Monica Shupikai Simmons is an investment banker at ICON Corporate Finance. With 20+ years of experience, Monica has an MBA from the University of Oxford, and a bachelor’s from the University of Cape Town. Women in finance are rare. Black women in finance are…. unicorns!
Nathalie Alpi
Chief Product Officer
UK
Nathalie is the Chief Product Officer at Amba Health and Care, who combine beautiful products, the latest medical technology with a simple application to keep older people safe and well in their own homes while giving carers and families peace of mind.
Neciah Dorh
CEO
Bristol
Neciah is an innovative entrepreneur with a solution to the challenging problem of identifying bacterial infections. He is confident speaking about Diagnostics, Antimicrobial Resistance, Health-tech, Founder Journey & IP.
Nicola Hogg
Wordpress Developer
Bristol
Nicola is a full stack developer with experience in PHP, React, Remix, SCSS, Wordpress and Woocommerce, who is enthusiastic to speak about web development, accessibility in coding or game development.
Nicola Telford
Founder
Bristol
Nicola is the Founder at ViewsForChange The Impact Marketing Platform & Club. She was named techSPARK Founder Of The Year 2022. Nicola enjoys speaking about Marketing, Female Founder Journey, Raising Early Stage Investment, Tech For Good and Corporate Giving.
Nicole Askwith-Williams
Product Manager
Bristol
Product Manager, PT & Online Coach, Nicole looks to find balance in work and home life. Agile ways of working and user research are some passions inside the office, and making sure the mind and body are in top condition is something she strives for.
Phurita Letheren
Product Designer
Bath
How UX discovery work can help you validate your business ideas. I want to share the reasons why UX discovery can help people/ companies that have ideas but unsure if there will be a market or a need for it.
Premila Patel
Senior Associate
Bristol
I am a corporate lawyer with a background in commercial strategy. I am working with companies to provide succession planning and purpose-driven strategies to balance the triple bottom line (purpose/planet/profit).
Rachel Dugdale
Founder
Bristol
Almost 20 years hands-on experience in AI, machine learning & data science across multiple sectors. Specialising in sociotechnical & systems impacts, ethics & bias in tech, and increasing diversity & inclusion. TEDx and conference plenary experience.
Rajnish Razdan
Owner and Creative Director
Bristol
Rajnish is an award-winning Creative Director. He is the Owner and Creative Director of Riggs & Razdan, an agency built on 26 years integrated agency experience that award-winning creative work across commercial and not-for-profit sectors.
Rediat Abayneh
Asset Coordinator
Bristol
Rediat is a Coordinator at Aardman Animations, working as an asset coordinator on the new CG animation series, Lloyd Of The Flies. For over 40 years, Aardman has entertained and charmed the world, creating much loved characters and bringing unforgettable stories to life.
Rema Mukena
Content Producer
Bristol
An award-winning bright minded individual, passionate about creating engaging content, Rema was named one of the most influential people in Bristol under the age of 24 by Rife Magazine and one of the most inspiring Black journalists in the UK by Behind Local News.
Renee Jacobs
Founder
Bath
Passion for relationship building and creating inclusive, safe and welcoming spaces feeds into Renée's customer-focused work at Actual Experience and is the driving force behind the social enterprise she founded: B in Bath. Renée is also a Non-Executive Director at TechSPARK.
Rin Hamburgh
Founder & Creative Director
Bristol
Rin is the founder of RH&Co, a copywriting agency that works with expert-led businesses to help them clarify and communicate their message and build their authority using content. Her expertise covers brand messaging, brand voice, content strategy and content marketing.
Sally Short
Digital Learning Specialist
Bristol
Sally is a digital trainer currently working on the legal sector. Developing and delivering training courses for all types of software/hardware, as well as developing a learning management system and creating just-in-time resources.
Sara Hamilton
Head of Product
Bristol
Head of Product & Tech for The Bunch - a scale-up utlility bill aggregator. I've worked in tech for the last 10 years and have participated in events and groups passionate about getting and retaining Women & non-binary people in tech.
Sara Telahoun
Principal Consultant
Bristol
Climate change expert with over 10 years in sustainability who delivers tools and support to local governments on reducing the impacts of climate change, Sara has worked to help local governments understand their greenhouse gas emissions and opportunities to decarbonise and develop climate action strategies.
Shannon D’Arcy
Associate Brand Manager
Bristol
Shannon has a specific interest in building an authentic network and sharing a brand story that customers can relate to. She is an Associate Brand Manager and extremely excited to be part of Huboo's vision to revolutionise the way the world's fulfilment needs are met.
Sharifa James
Co-Founder
Bristol
Conversations and holding space around Black Queerness, general LGBT+ topics, LGBT+/Queer women in football.
Shira Tsinovich
Senior Quality Assurance Manager
Bristol/Gloucester
Shira is passionate about quality assurance, performance engineering, software testing and diversity in tech. She is experienced in test, deployment, product ownership, professional services, advocating for customer needs, and management of onsite and offshore teams, strong analytical and problem solving.
Sophie Creese
Founder
Bristol
Sophie is the Founder of MotherBoard and Co-Founder of HeyFlow. Sophie is actioning positive change for women in the workplace by supporting businesses to create inclusive workplaces through HeyFlow and the MotherBoard Charter. Sophie is an experienced event-host, panel speaker and podcast guest and is...
Stephanie Jay
Founder
Bristol
Dr Stephanie is a researcher, creative consultant, and photographer renowned for her innovative work, "Dance Articulate," fusing art, movement, and mental wellbeing with creative technology. A celebrated speaker on leadership, entrepreneurship, and diversity & inclusion, her recent TEDx talk offers a captivating perspective on leadership.
Sunjay Singh
Creative Director
Bristol
As Director of video production company Life Media UK, Sunjay has spent 10 years growing businesses through the sheer power of video marketing. Sunjay has overseen the successful creation of hundreds of KPI-busting marketing videos, delivering real results for brands across the UK and internationally.
Tanuvi Ethunandan
Founder & CEO
Bristol
Tanuvi is a Chartered Accountant and CEO and Co-Founder of Data Duopoly, which was founded in an EU-funded incubator, Launchpad, solving major industry problems with innovative tech-based solutions. Alongside, achieving a Masters in Entrepreneurship.
Tanya Morton
Worldwide Director
Devon
Dr. Tanya Morton is the worldwide director of customer success engineering for MathWorks, the makers of MATLAB and Simulink. Tanya can talk about tackling climate change with the help of AI & electrification and Women in STEM.
Tess Coughlan-Allen
Head of Growth
Bristol
International speaker presenting about using tech for good through do_action. As the Head of Growth for Atomic Smash, Tess enjoys speaking about Storytelling in marketing, culture and wellbeing, attitudes for overcoming adversity.
William Britton
Founder
Bristol
William is the Founder of AutonoMe. He has raised over £1m and now have a full time team of 13 staff, a Board, product on the market used nationally, numerous commercial partnerships and loads of great stories of social impact.
Yiota Demetriou
UX Lead
Bristol
Yiota is an experienced UX Researcher, Award-winning Product Designer, Educator, and Content Creator who advocates for Human-Centred multisensory interactive experiences. She's passionate about understanding users empathically, and how sensory understandings can be integrated into innovative solutions across industries to create intuitive cognitive designs.
Yusra Shaeik
Technical Director
Bristol
Yusra is a motivated technician with experience working in multiple fast-paced, ever-changing environments. They are a Technical Director at Dial A Geek, where they work closely with clients, as well as managing all Dial A Geek projects and their Projects Team. They're also MTA certified.
Zobir Alexander
Founder
Bristol
Zobir is a Medical Doctor and founder of Well Squared. With proper education about nutrition, wellbeing and planet-friendly practices, Well Squared help user to stay healthy. Zobir is passionate speaking about Medicine, Marketing, Healthcare, Wellbeing and his Founder Journey.
Be a part of the SHIFT Speaker Database
The SHIFT Speaker Database aims to highlight the diversity of tech and digital public speakers in the South West, as well as offer support for those new to the sector and region. Our focus is on facilitating platforms for underrepresented voices in tech and digital, in particular:
- Those from the LGBT+ community
- Women, trans and non-binary individuals
- Those of Black and Asian heritage
- Neurodivergent and disabled individuals
The South West has a thriving tech and digital sector with a track record of holding invaluable events for our community to connect with one another.
Whilst our sector holds a copious number of events, they, unfortunately, don’t represent the diversity of the region. This is something we can’t afford to ignore as our sector grows alongside the need for diverse talent; the significance of representation has been proven to be a great source of inspiration to those wanting to join the tech and digital sector.
Zara NanuCEO & Founder of Gapsquare
“The lack of diversity at events, senior roles and boardrooms merely shows one part of underrepresentation in the tech sector. There are so many talented unrepresented voices in the industry who have the potential to make the Bristol & Bath tech sector even better, so we’re really happy to support SHIFT to celebrate diverse voices in our region.”
Joyann BoyceCEO & Founder of Arima & Co
"The more we can get the underrepresented voices of experts in tech and digital into conferences, events around the South West, the greater and richer our community will be"
Marissa Lewis-PeartMidweight UX Consultant at Immersive Labs
"I decided to join the SHIFT Speaker Database as it was the perfect opportunity to not only become the kind of role model that I would love to see, but also network with other people from underrepresented backgrounds and other speakers."
