Professor Robin May is currently a Lister Fellow and Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham. He is the Deputy Director for the Institute of Microbiology & Infection and also holds a Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society. His early training was in Plant Sciences (University of Oxford) followed by a PhD on mammalian cell biology. In 2005 Professor May obtained a Research Council UK Fellowship to establish his own group at the University of Birmingham.

Professor Kiran Trehan is a leading expert on enterprise and diversity in ethnic minority entrepreneurship, shaping policy on supply chain relationships, access to finance and access to markets in ethnic minority businesses. Through a series of projects, her research has led to high quality outputs casting new light on academic debates on diversity and entrepreneurship amongst disadvantaged groups and is having impact on business policy and knowledge transfer.

Professor Tim Softley is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Transfer. As such his responsibilities are to lead the University’s research performance within the aim of positioning the University firmly among the leading research universities in the UK. He takes the lead role on preparing and the delivery of actions to enhance Birmingham’s position in the next Research Excellence Framework REF, and on working to improve the University’s grant capture, including research funding from business and industry.

Robert (Bob) Stone holds a Chair in Interactive Multimedia Systems within the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Birmingham, where he is also Director of the Human Interface Technologies (HIT) Team. Bob’s work has received numerous national and international awards for his Virtual Reality and Telepresence efforts, including, uniquely, three from the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, and, in 2011, the MoD Chief Scientific Advisor’s Commendation for his contribution to Defence Science and Technology.

Paul is the Rolls-Royce Associate Engineering Fellow in Casting, which makes him the Corporate expert in this field. Paul has been working in single crystal casting for over twenty years and for many of these has been involved in the industrial commissioning and supervision of university research. His current role ranges from short term problem solving in one of the six Rolls-Royce foundries world-wide to long term research in the casting arena. Paul is a Visiting Professor at The University of Birmingham and an Honorary Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Professor Nick Green is the Director of the High Temperature Research Centre (HTRC), the £60m joint collaboration between the University of Birmingham and Rolls-Royce. Nick joined the HTRC from Doncasters Ltd where he held the position of Head of Technical Centre. Prior to this Nick held the EPSRC Star Chair in Casting Technology at The University of Birmingham and was co-Director of the Casting Partnership with Rolls-Royce. He has extensive experience in manufacturing acquired during appointments as Technical Director of Cosworth Technology Ltd and Group Competence Leader for Process Development across VAW’s foundries.

Professor Tim Jones joined the University as provost and Vice-Principal on 1st September 2016. As a member of the University Executive Board, Tim provides the leadership to deliver the University Strategy. Amongst others, Tim chairs the Budget Oversight Group, is a member of the Strategy, Planning and Resources Committee, Council, Senate, and is the University’s champion for Athena Swan and equality of opportunity initiatives.

Mark Saunders is Professor of Business Research Methods. He joined the Birmingham Business School in October 2015. Mark began his career in academia after a variety of research posts in UK local government. His research interests include research methods, human resource aspects of the management of change and, small and medium sized enterprise success.

Raghu Narula has responsibility for the UK Branch Network, Contact Centres and Complaint Handling Teams. In his career with HSBC over the past 17 years‎, Raghu has worked across the Group in seven different markets in Commercial and Retail Bank across a number of roles in Channels, Strategy and Customer Propositions. He has also served as Retail Chief Operating Officer in Turkey and Head of Retail Banking in Poland. In 2014, he became Director for the London Region where he was instrumental in leading front line service and staff engagement in branches before taking up his current position in September 2016. Raghu has an MBA from Columbia and London Business Schools and a Masters in Finance from BITS Pilani in India. He has also recently completed a FinTech Future Commerce course with MIT.

Angela Maxwell achieved prominence as one of the region’s most dynamic entrepreneurs after she powered Fracino, the UK’s only manufacturer of espresso and cappuccino coffee machines, from a £400,000 turnover into a £3.6 million world-class leading brand. Angela was one of just 200 businesswomen honoured by the Queen, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to UK trade and industry and was awarded an OBE for Services to Business in the Birthday Honours. Angela sits on the West Midlands Enterprise Forum and is Chair of Capsule UK advisory Board. Angela is a Non-Executive Director of University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust and is on the Birmingham Business School Advisory Board. In 2013, Angela was appointed Chair of the Board of Directors of the Birmingham REP, the first female Chair in the theatre’s 100 year history. Acuwomen, her latest enterprise, is the UK’s first company to bring an all-women group of entrepreneurs under one roof.

Chris Jones is the lead technologist in biosciences for Innovate UK. Responsible for Biosciences in Enabling and Emerging Technologies teams and lead on Synthetic Biology for Innovate UK. His role involves managing relationships with industry and academic innovators across a wide range of bio-industry sectors including agri/food, industrial biotechnology, biopharmaceuticals, therapeutics, diagnostics, fine chemicals, genomics and bioinformatics. He is a member of the Synthetic Biology Leadership Council.

Keith Noronha is Managing Director of Reynolds Technology, supplier of steel tubing to many of the world’s frame manufacturers. The company works actively with the University of Birmingham to develop new high-performance materials and processes. It has celebrated its 100th anniversary by announcing a complete product range, using steel, aluminium, titanium and carbon fibre.