Chantelle Bell
Chantelle is the co-founder of Syrona and has a background in Science and Business. She is a graduate of the M.Phil. Bioscience Enterprise at the University of Cambridge. Her experience at P&G and Philips Healthcare gave her a deep understanding of consumer goods and how healthcare and science can intersect to bring healthcare to the masses. She also has recent experience in Scientific, Pharmaceutical and Medical Device consultancy where she has worked alongside top Pharmaceutical companies and specialists at Addenbrookes hospital.
Manjit Gill
Manjit K. Gill, is CEO and founder of the phenomenal UK registered charity, Binti International.
Binti has a vision to create a world where all women have menstrual dignity.
She has amassed over 20 years of international business expertise and has been involved in 7 startups prior to Binti. It was her role as a volunteer mentor for a young lady in Kenya with the Cherie Blair Foundation that led her to start Binti where she found out that some women do not have access to sanitary products.
Her mission is to create a huge, social impact, whilst generating a sustainable organisation, and providing basic menstrual hygiene solutions and education for girls and women across the world.
Manjit has been nominated and won several awards for her work at Binti including: AWAA Social and Humanitarian award where she was highly commended in association with Nat West. In July she won the Lift effects top 100 star award. Last August she was named Woman of the Year through receiving the Asian Achievers Award in association with EY. In December she was recognised as an inspirational Top Ten Sikh woman in the UK.
She has also been profiled in many notable publications including Marie Claire, The Independent, The Metro, The Times of India, Canary Wharf magazine, Thomson and Reuters Foundation.
Manjit says her faith has led her to believe she can accomplish anything that she puts her mind to and that belief has led her to follow her passion and drive to keep going. She says maybe that is why when she found out some women do not have access to sanitary pads it fuelled her fire to create change - because she knows that without a pad she would not have been able to have done half the things that she has done.
For more information please go to binti.co.uk
Paul Hughes
Paul leads Allia’s “Serious Impact” enterprise support activity, including its accelerators, incubators and Innovation Lab at all Allia locations. Prior to Joining Allia, Paul worked with range of technology businesses (including Agritech, Biopharma, ICT, Cleantech) around the world, primarily in the areas of strategy, fundraising and corporate development. Paul has co-founded a significant biofuels business in the UK and worked in international investment banking in the USA. Paul is on the Advisory Board for a number of exciting ventures and is a Global Judge for the MassChallenge accelerator programme.
Sylvia Lu, FRSA
- Head of Technology Strategy , u-blox UK, Member of Advisory Board, UK5G
A multi-award-winning engineer and inventor, a non-executive director, advisor, start-up mentor and ambassador, Sylvia has over a decade of experience in the Telecom industry for four mobile generations and was recently recognised as UK's Top 50 Women in Engineering.
She offers guidance on impact of emerging technologies on products and strategy, as well as major inter-sector, multi-country projects. She also provides industry-focused, independent advice to the government and policy panels on future plans for 5G development.
Sylvia is an elected Board Director of CW (Cambridge Wireless) and was appointed to the Advisory Board of UK5G in 2018. She was appointed as Vice-chair of UK5G International Working Group in 2019, co-leading development of UK proposition and engagement plan with overseas government and industry bodies. She has initiated and signed an MoU with 5G-ACIA on behalf of UK5G to accelerate the development of 5G in the UK’s manufacturing sector. Sylvia also serves on the IET Digital Policy Panel, helps to raise awareness of societal impacts of emerging technologies and resilience of cross-sector infrastructure.
Sylvia was handpicked as an Ambassador of the Women of the Future programme; inspires and empowers female engineers and future leaders as a role model and through appearances and talks at schools and universities. Sylvia promotes diversity and inclusion, winning several special recognitions for work on empowering future female trailblazers. Sylvia is also an amateur artist.
Abhi has a long heritage with CW having previously founded the CW Handset Special Interest Group (SIG) in 2008, now called Future Devices. Prior to CW, Abhi studied Electronics and Electrical Engineering, has a MBA in International Marketing and, interestingly, was approached by Cambridge University Press (alongside a colleague at the time) to write a book on Mobile Handset Design which was successfully launched in New Delhi. Abhi was the CEO and Founder of Zone V a Cambridge start up backed by Qualcomm and ARM focused on empowering people with aging eyes and visually impaired through inclusively designed smartphones. He held senior management roles at Powermat and Silicon Valley mobile touchscreen technology provider, Synaptics and advisory roles for Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake in the area of mobile user interface technologies. Abhi created and is leading the CW Unplugged programmes in alignment with the UN SDG’s goals of creating Impact Innovators and the ‘Hive’ programmes a new form of co creating and co innovation in digital connectivity with some largest global brands in the world. Abhi is a senior advisor to an autonomous vehicle mobility and smart city infrastructure scale up Conigital and Industry Partner for Arjun Infrastructure Partners AIP with 2 Billion Euros of assets under management for Infrastructure Investment.
Anya Roy
Anya is the co-founder of Syrona and has a background in mathematics and science. She is a graduate of Cambridge University and has diverse experience working in top tier investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and the EIB, the investment banking arm of the EU. She has experience in medical devices and the NHS hospital within General Medicine. She also has recent experience in healthcare venture capital as an Associate and is an advocate for diversity within entrepreneurship.
