Get inspired by experienced entrepreneurs

Join a vibrant community of innovators at the Bettany Centre Entrepreneurship Speaker Series, where knowledge sharing and storytelling take centre stage.

Hear the personal journeys of seasoned entrepreneurs as they share not only their successes, but the lessons learned from their challenges.

This series offers a unique space for authentic conversations, where you can ask questions and gain deeper insights into the real stories behind thriving businesses.

More than just listening, you’ll have the chance to connect with fellow entrepreneurs, building a network of like-minded individuals who share your passion for growth and innovation.

Each series includes a weekly panel or keynote, with the Autumn Series in November and the Spring Series in February.

Register for our next session and be part of the conversation!

The Entrepreneurship Speaker Series is part of the Venture Programme, an extracurricular programme designed to unlock the entrepreneurial spirit of every Cranfield student hosted by the university’s entrepreneurial hub, the Bettany Centre.

Who should attend?

This is a free and public event series aimed to engage our entrepreneurial ecosystem of students, alumni, staff as well as local businesses and investors.

Location & travel details

Sessions are typically delivered online and on campus. Please see upcoming events below for details.

Next sessions

Panel Discussion featuring recipients of Cranfield’s Seed Fund – Thursday 14 November 2024

Andrea Fiore | OHMG

With over 30+ years of experience in Business Development, Strategy, Marketing & Sales roles in a variety of sectors (including Technology, Retail, Marketing & Communications and Consumer Brands), Andrea has delivered and implemented business strategies for various blue-chip organizations to increase efficiency, lower cost, and drive sales growth.

Andrea also has significant international expertise in the development and management of important multinational companies and brands – including The Body Shop, Octagon Sports Marketing and Retail inMotion (Lufthansa Group Company).

In his current role, Andrea is co-founder of OHMG, the first beverage based on Magnesium in the SWAGϼ & Europe.  OHMG is 100% natural and contains zero calories, zero sugars and zero sweeteners. Known as the ‘Relaxation Mineral’, Magnesium is responsible for more than 300+ biochemical reactions in the body, from helping muscle recovery, to balancing the nerves and calming the mind. OHMG is currently in all Whole Foods stores, expanding in Waitrose stores and in over 50 independent retailers - with further retail partners in the pipeline. OHMG has recently launched in Switzerland, with further launches under consideration in the US, Italy and UAE.

Andrea is passionate about building brands that make a difference to people’s lives – from developing important social messages at the Body Shop, to improving the standard of inflight food at Lufthansa Group to now helping to develop a functional drink in the beverage industry aimed at improving mental wellbeing.

Emmanuel Kirunda | Olsights Ltd.

Emmanuel graduated with a full-time MBA in Sept 2021.  He was the recipient of both The Odgers’ Award and Spirit of Cranfield Award.  Upon graduation, he joined Olsights Ltd as a Co-founder.  Prior to the MBA, he had spent over a decade working in the Oil & Gas industry in East and West Africa and the SWAGϼ.  He is a PMI certified Professional Project Manager and holds an MSc from the University of Texas in Austin.  He started his professional career in the US in the Civil Engineering and Investment Banking industries.

At Olsights, he is responsible for finance, business planning and growth, and corporate administration. Olsights is a B-Corp certified London-based cleantech company with a purpose to accelerate the energy transition by providing affordable and efficient clean energy and decarbonisation insights.  Their flagship product, The Olsights Eye, is an industry-first visualisation app that uses interactive dynamic 3D visualisations to speed up early-stage decision-making about the viability of industrial scale decarbonisation opportunities (mainly hydrogen, carbon capture and energy storage), and their connection to the power transmission grid.  

Dr Filomeno Martina | WAAM3D Ltd.

Dr Filomeno Martina is the CEO of WAAM3D Ltd, a spin-out company of SWAGϼ commercialising the Wire+Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) process. WAAM3D has 40 employees, and customers in 18 countries, from the USA to Japan. He is also a Non-Executive Director at Addept3D, in Singapore.

Prior to this, he was Senior Lecturer in Additive Manufacturing at the Welding Engineering and Laser Processing Centre, SWAGϼ, where he was the course director of the first MSc on Metal Additive Manufacturing in Europe. He is the winner of the 2022 FAME Jr award and has received further awards from BAE Systems (2010, 2018), Royal Aeronautical Society (2013), European Space Agency (2015), and The Welding Institute (2018).

In his spare time, he is a yoga practitioner and teacher, and enjoys live music.

Register

David Buik – Monday 18 November 2024

David

David Buik, having seriously disappointed his selfless and impecunious parents with an unacceptable lack of academic qualifications at Harrow School, has been fortuitous enough to have spent six decades in the City of London with a modicum of success and a disproportionate amount of joy and happiness.

He cut is teeth on the branding iron of finance in an aspiring merchant bank – Philip Hill, Higgison, Erlangers, prior to largely enjoying 35 years money broking, mainly with RP Martin, Prebon Yamane and BGC Partners, living through copious international financial crises, ‘Big Bang’ and ‘9/11’, with a few sharp unenjoyable bumps in the road with MW Marshall and Eurobrokers.

He has spent the twilight of his business life as a market commentator with City Index, Cantor Fitzgerald (BGC and Cantor Index), Panmure Godon and Aquis Exchange.

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Sarah Jordan – Thursday 21 November 2024

Founder and CEO of Y.O.U Underwear

Sarah Jordan

Sarah is the multi-award-winning Founder and CEO of Y.O.U Underwear, the Oxford-based ethical underwear business that certified as the top-scoring B Corp in the SWAGϼ and world’s highest-scoring fashion brand in 2021. Sarah was volunteering in Uganda in 2016 when she learned of the challenges women and girls face in not having access to underwear. From that, she set up Y.O.U Underwear as a social enterprise, with a mission to change lives one pair of pants at a time.

Sarah’s previous experience includes more than 25 years in senior leadership roles across the not-for-profit, commercial and education sectors, as well as leading her own strategic digital consultancy business. She is a qualified NLP practitioner and coach, Trustee of the charities Smalls for All and The Beam Foundation, and has run BOLD, a positive change agency helping women achieve success in all areas of their lives, since 2013.

Y.O.U Underwear is an award-winning Social Enterprise making stylish, organic cotton underwear for men, women & girls. They have a fully circular business; using 100% Fairtrade & GOTS certified organic cotton, recycling more items than they produce each year to prevent them going to landfill, and having a buy-one give-one model, where every purchase provides underwear to people in need. Y.O.U stands for Your Own Underwear as they believe everyone deserves exactly that & so far, they’ve donated over 55,000 pairs. Y.O.U certified as the top-scoring B Corp in the SWAGϼ in 2021 & are the highest-scoring fashion B Corp in the world.

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Past sessions