Jeremy Furniss, Partner - Livingstone Partners LLP

Following graduation from Cambridge University and law school, Jeremy joined Clifford Chance, the international corporate law firm. Since qualifying as a lawyer in 1991 Jeremy has specialised in M&A in the public and private company arenas.

Jeremy joined Livingstone in 1993, he has led deals in a variety of sectors including defence and automotive engineering, printing and packaging, building products and consultancy.

Jeremy is primarily responsible for leading the firm's Business Services sector team but is also active in the Defence and Security sectors. Jeremy has played an active role in developing Livingstone's international M&A capability.

Alan Bristow - Icon CF

Alan Bristow is the Founder and Managing Director of ICON Corporate Finance. ICON is an award winning firm of corporate finance advisers that acts exclusively for companies and management teams in high growth technology sectors, including: IT, CleanTech, MedTech, New Media, Telecoms, Defence, Security, Services, Internet Technologies and e-Commerce.

Alan is recognised as one of the country's leading corporate finance advisers and has over 20 years of combined fund raising and M&A experience. Throughout this period Alan has dealt with some of the world's leading investors and technology companies. He specializes in all aspects of raising venture capital, management buy-outs, acquisitions and corporate sales and has advised on over 200 transactions.

Before establishing ICON, he spent four years in Australia as the Finance Director of an Australian Investment Group and prior to this worked for Price Waterhouse in Melbourne. He holds a degree in Economics and Politics and is a qualified as a Chartered Accountant.

He is a frequent speaker and author on venture capital fundraising.

Roger Parry - Media Square

Roger is Chairman of four publicly quoted media companies: 

• Media Square plc (marketing communications. UK, USA, Asia)
• Future plc (consumer media including Total Film and Digital Camera. UK, USA)
• Mobile Streams plc (mobile media in Europe. USA, Asia)
• YouGov plc (online market research,  Europe. USA)

He is Chairman of Shakespeare's Globe Trust and a Visiting Fellow of Oxford University.

He was CEO of More Group plc (outdoor advertising) and then CEO of Clear Channel International (radio, live events, out-of home media). He was a founder and Deputy Chairman of Clear Media in China, Chairman of Johnston Press (local newspapers), founder of Internet Indirect plc and a director of New Media Spark and iTouch. Roger was a journalist with BBC and ITV, including. He worked with consultants McKinsey, advertising group WCRS and media buying group Aegis.  He was an owner of the radio stations LBC and Jazz FM.

Roger was educated at the universities of Oxford (Jesus College) and Bristol.  He is the author of four books:  The Ascent if Media; Enterprise, Making Cities Work and People Businesses. Roger is 57, married, one son. He lives in London and Hampshire.

Mike Wright - CMBOR

Mike Wright is professor of financial studies at Nottingham University Business School and director of the Centre for Management Buy-out Research, which he founded in 1986. He is a member of the BVCA Research Advisory Board and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Ghent. Mike has published more than 50 books and 300 academic papers on private equity, divestment and related topics. He was recently ranked number one worldwide for publications in entrepreneurship and is the winner of the 2009 Mentor Award of the Academy of Management’s Entrepreneurship Division. Mike has contributed extensively to the media and organised the first conference on management buy-outs and private equity in 1981.

Pete Wilson - 3i

Pete is a Director within 3i's Private Equity team. He focuses on originating, executing and managing investments, primarily within the Business Services sector. He has been involved in a number of 3i's deals in the sector; most recently including the public to private of Inspicio, the sale of Inspectorate to Bureau Veritas and 3i's minority investment into BVG India, one of India's largest independent facilities management service providers.

Prior to joining 3i, Pete worked in the Strategy team at Accenture, where he worked on a number of transactions - conducting commercial due diligence, shareholder value analysis and merger integration planning.

Sara Williams - Vitesse Media

Sara founded Vitesse Media Plc in 1997 and is its executive chairman. Her role includes developing the company’s growth and acquisition strategy. Sara is a well-known business author. Over two million copies of her book, The FT Guide to Business Start Up (formerly the Lloyds TSB Small Business Guide) have been published. Her former roles include accountant and investment analyst.

Mo Merali - Grant Thornton

Mo Merali is Head of Private Equity and a Transaction Advisory Services partner based in London. Mo specialises in providing buy-side advisory and due diligence services to a wide variety of private equity investors, debt providers and corporate buyers and has a particular focus on Media, Healthcare and Financial Services sectors, having led transactions for Lifeways Community Care, Cannon Capital, Oval Group, Reed & Mackay, Incisive Media and Ten Alps. He has been involved in a significant number of cross-border transactions, most notably between the UK and India.

Manish Madhvani - GP Bullhound

Manish is a co-founder and partner at GP Bullhound, the specialist investment bank focused on providing fundraising and mergers & acquisition advice to public and private companies in the technology sector. Manish has worked on a number of high profile fundraising and M&A transactions in the digital media sector. Prior to co-founding the company Manish worked in the venture capital markets working in Europe and Asia working for Barclays Capital's Technology & Media Private Equity team. Manish recently advised the Treasury on Entrepreneurship and Funding and was short-listed for business person of the year in the KPMG London Business Awards.

Peter Hemington - BDO

Peter is the head of BDO’s lead advisory team in the London office specialising in mergers and acquisitions. He focuses on advising on private equity and M&A deals and has also advised on a substantial number of management buy-outs and acquisition advisory assignments. Peter joined BDO’s corporate finance department in 1989 and became a partner in 1994, having trained as a chartered accountant with Deloitte, Haskins and Sells.

Charles Thompson - Inflexion Private Equity Partners

Charles joined Inflexion in 2001 and currently oversees Inflexion’s investments in Aspen Pumps and Pims Group. Previously, he was non-executive Director of HKI, Ilchester Cheese Company and Ster Century Cinemas. Charles is also a member of the Investment Committee.

Charles has worked on several iconic deals during his impressive career, not least Matalan and Massey Ferguson, though his career actually began as a Production Engineer at Dowty Ltd and Production Manager at Mardon Packaging International, before moving to Granville Baird Private Equity in 1987.

Julian Baines - EKF Diagnostics Holdings

Julian was former Group CEO of BBI Holdings plc where he led a £4m MBO in 2000, listed it on AIM in 2004 and sold the business to Alere Inc, one of the world’s largest point of care businesses, for £84m in 2007 having completed 7 acquisitions since IPO. Julian is currently CEO of EKF Diagnostics Holdings plc, formed in July 2010 following the acquisition of EKF-diagnostic GmbH for €14.32m. EKF has since acquired Quotient Diagnostics in October 2010, for a maximum of £5.41m, and Argutus Medical, in December 2010, for £2.18m and last month announced the acquisition of US diagnostics firm Stanbio Laboratory for $25.5m.

Joe McGrath - Vitesse Media

Joe McGrath is editorial director of Vitesse Media and the editor of Business XL magazine. A regular contributor to the national press, Joe has written for the Financial Times, The Independent, The Scotsman and The Times.

He has also written for a variety of professional publications including Investors Chronicle, Money Management, Financial Adviser and New Media Age.

He has completed professional examinations from the Chartered Insurance Institute and the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) and is a graduate of Southampton Solent University.

Leslie Copeland - Vitesse Media

Leslie is the chief executive officer of Vitesse Media and has worked in the media sector for over 12 years in an array of roles, including journalist, analyst, editor and executive director. He joined Vitesse in 1997 as a journalist on Growth Company Investor, ascending to the role of editorial director by 2000, with responsibility for the delivery of Vitesse's products across all platforms – online, events and print. Since mid-2006 Vitesse Media has doubled in size, and Leslie has played a significant part in the integration of What Investment (purchased by the company in December 2006) and Information Age (purchased in December 2007).