Georgie Hazell | Augmentum Fintech
Georgie has worked in a number of startups across people, strategy and growth positions and now leads engagement at fintech-focused VC fund Augmentum.
Following her MBA and a consultancy project with Crowdcube, Georgie moved into venture capital. Passionate about diversity and inclusion, particularly in VC and entrepreneurship, Georgie founded women in tech network Elevate, led on UK expansion for Her Campus Media, mentors with The Girls Network, is an Investwell Community member, volunteers with Diversity VC and is training to be a coach. She has brought together thousands of women over the years through hosting diversity initiatives, including women in fintech speed mentoring sessions and monthly women in tech breakfasts.
At 29 years old, she now heads up engagement at Augmentum Fintech, the UK’s only publicly listed fintech venture capital fund. This involves supporting portfolio company growth, engaging with investors and the wider fintech ecosystem (including marketing, partnerships and diversity initiatives), and supporting the team internally. Georgie has worked hard to put Augmentum 'on the map' and the fund has won numerous awards, including AIC Shareholder Communications Awards for 'Best use of social media', AltFi Awards 'VC Investor of the Year' Finalists, Growth Investor Awards 'Growth Investor of the Year, One to Watch' and Investor Allstars 'Venture Capital Fund of the Year' Finalist. Georgie puts innovation and supporting individuals to fulfil their potential at the heart of her work.
Alexandra Jorden | Octopus Investments
I started my career in 2009 as an audit trainee at Nyman Libson Paul in London, working across a range of clients including theatres, film production companies, charities and other small to medium sized business.
After obtaining my ACA qualification in 2012, I spent four months travelling in South America, before joining St George Plc (a division of Berkeley Group), initially as a Management Accountant and later as a Senior Management Accountant.
I joined Octopus Investments in March 2016 as the Finance Manager on the Octopus Inheritance Tax Service. My role expanded along with the underlying portfolio, and I became involved in a number of projects, including acquisitions of renewable energy assets and a start-up fibre business, raising additional debt financing and preparation for a listing on the NEX exchange.
I moved into my current role as Financial Controller for the institutional care home and retirement living funds managed by Octopus Real Estate in August 2019. Since joining the Real Estate team I’ve established financial procedures and policies for the new retirement living fund and led my team through the merger of the two largest care home funds.
Marina Gordon | J.P. Morgan
Originally born and raised in Moscow Marina moved to the UK to complete International Baccalaureate Program at Sevenoaks.
Upon graduating from the University of Edinburgh with a First Class Masters of Arts in Economics, Marina started her career in the Private Banking business in 2011 at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management. From there Marina moved to UBS London in 2014 working as an Investment Advisor covering CEE clients.
Marina joined JPM Private Bank in the autumn of 2015 as an Investor on the Emerging Markets team in London. While at JPM Private Bank Marina was promoted to Vice President in January 2018.
Marina is a mother to a highly energetic and highly entertaining baby girl. Having taken a full year for maternity leave she returned back to work in March 2019 and has been an active working parents champion upon her return.
Marina is fluent in Russian and speaks intermediate French.
Her interests include fashion, fashion history and period buildings.
Taslima Khan | Taslima K
I am Taslima Khan, a social entrepreneur, founder of TASLIMA K; a conscious fashion label, fashion designer, an activist and public speaker.
My fashion label is a way of showcasing my activism. We engage fashion and politics to create awareness on different social issues. We travel to the source of our inspiration with different charities/organisations and learn about the situation within these countries. We tell the stories with our collection to share with the rest of the world, creating acknowledgement and build support. We give back to the source of our inspiration from the sales made. All ethically designed and handmade by me.
I graduated in fashion design and marketing and I am very creative. Yet very much into politics, campaigning and charity work.
I started volunteering and campaigning from the age of 16, and through out my life I have always spoken out about injustice and what I believe in (HUMAN RIGHTS), I would volunteer when I can and would take things into my own hands to campaign.
I have worked on various human rights campaigns such as female empowerment, cyber bullying, racism, genocide, anti-knife crime, general election on encouraging young people to vote, started my own movement on mental health awareness in St Lucia. Written reports for the United Nations on immigration, Kenny Report 3 on gender inequality. I am a Prince's Trust ambassador. Fellow and have done ambassador work for Uprising Uk, o2 Think Big, Yunus and Youth fellowship, Envision. I have facilitated workshops and mentored young people from year 10 to university students for their next steps.
Through my work I have the power to relate to young people that look like me and work with people in power within the parliament and big corporations who need our help to make a change in the world we live in.
I know my purpose in this world is to create a positive change.
Salena Lee | Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets
Determined from a young age to work in Washington DC, Salena graduated from high school early at the age of 17 to pursue a bachelors and then a Masters degree in Politics which she finished at the age of 21.
Instead of DC, she ended up in a foreign direct investment role in state government managing inbound investments from Germany, France, and Italy in automotive, racing, orthopedics, and advanced manufacturing.
Unexpectedly drawn to the business side of her role, Salena decided to pursue a Masters in Advanced Finance at IE University in Madrid, the world's 3rd ranked finance program in 2016, her year of graduation. During that time she participated in a microfinance consulting project in Ghana, sparking her passion for sustainability and responsible investing.
This passion led her to a revenue-generating role in renewable energy principal investing at Macquarie Capital in 2017, the year of Macquarie's landmark privatization of the Green Investment Bank. In 2018 she pivoted again to a role in Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, the largest infrastructure manager in the world, to facilitate the merger integration of GLL, a Munich-based real estate investment platform.
Salena is passionate about D&I and equal opportunity and has sat on the steering committee for Fusion, Macquarie EMEA's Ethnic, Religious, and Cultural diversity employee network group, for most of her time with the firm. She has facilitated programming around connecting colleagues of differing background (the Know Your Colleague series of panel discussions, roundtables, and 1:1 coffee chats) as well as cultural events such as performances and programming for Black History Month, Eid, Diwali, Chanukkah, and others. She currently mentors four young women embarking on their careers: one in tech, two in front-office financial services roles, and one in politics.
Hasmeen Deol | Capital Dynamics
Hasmeen Deol is a Clean Energy Infrastructure Product Specialist at Capital Dynamics and is a member of the Responsible Investment Committee and Diversity & Inclusion Committee.
She has over 7 years of experience working in alternative investments. Within her role she has raised funds for renewable energy projects in Europe and has promoted firmwide responsible investment initiatives. She has led key initiatives including the issuance of the first firmwide diversity survey and the issuance of a statement placing increased focus on labour practices throughout the supply chain. She also led a project to create the firm’s Environmental Benefits ticker, which illustrates carbon offset by renewable energy projects on the website. Hasmeen enjoys working in a role that is assisting the goal of combating climate change and is dedicated to responsible investment.
Hasmeen also founded the online bespoke womenswear company, Drapery London, promoting body confidence through the concept of ‘size you’. She is passionate about helping others and serves as a Board Trustee for Homestart UK and has previously served as a mentor for the Prince’s Trust. She subsequently co founded the local mentoring program, H squared, which encourages female students to broaden their horizons and learn about various career opportunities.
Prior to joining Capital Dynamics, she worked in investment management, managing a portfolio of investments across renewable energy, regulated utilities, ports and transport infrastructure. Earlier in her career, she worked as an Alternative Investment Funds Relationship Manager at Citigroup. Hasmeen holds a First Class Honors bachelor’s degree in Mathematics with Management & Finance from King’s College London.
Carolina Escudero | Vattenfall
I'm an electrical engineer with a masters in sustainable technology and work for Vattenfall which is a Swedish Energy company.
I currently work in the Networks department which is a new business unit set up in the UK for electricity distribution networks. We work to own, operate and maintain distribution networks (both private and independent) on behalf of customers.
My role as a Business Development Manager is to find technical and commercial solutions to enable the decarbonization of heavy transport via electrification. I'm particularly interested in electrification of marine transport and I am very proud of the impact we can make to slow down climate change. I have worked in transmission and distribution most of my career both in Colombia (where I'm from) and here in the UK.
I'm also a keen volunteer and council member of the Women's Engineering Society and actively organise events to promote women in engineering.
Alero Abe | Shell
Alero Abe is a Front End Development Manager with Shell, responsible for managing multidiscipline teams and engaging with internal and external stakeholders, to achieve project goals and objectives.
Born in Lancaster, England to working parents, who instilled in her the values of hardwork, resilience under pressure, pursuing her dreams and embracing opportunities to develop herself, she decided to pursue a career in Engineering.
After completing a first degree in Chemical Engineering and a master’s degree in Petroleum Engineering at Imperial College London, she started her career as a Process Engineer. Alero has worked in the oil and gas industry for 19 years in several project management roles, across several locations which include; United Kingdom, Netherlands, Kazakhstan, United Arab Emirates and Iraq. She has used her international exposure to share her knowledge across geographical boundaries and has always been conscious of the opportunities to be a role model at these locations.
Alero is motivated by developing solutions to complex problems and is passionate about mentoring and developing others. She is committed to her continuous professional development and has recently commenced an MBA Programme at Warwick Business School to further develop and enhance her business skills.
She is married with two children and enjoys travel and culture.
Laure Vernier | Bloomberg L.P.
When joining Bloomberg New Energy Finance (now BloombergNEF) 8 years ago, the only thing I knew about clean energy was that it was expensive but had real potential to get cheaper very quickly and change the energy landscape we had known for decades.
I was very attracted to the idea of working with a group a people similarly minded as I was – our research could help the world transition to clean energy faster – I was sold.
Moving forward to today, organising major conferences for one of the top providers of insight, data and analysis on how the world can sustainably transition to a low carbon economy is more fulfilling than I ever imagined – and I did learn a few more things about clean energy and transport along the way!
After starting my career in marketing and almost 8 years in business development and account management, I decided to challenge myself by taking on a completely different role when coming back from a year of maternity leave (becoming a full time working mum didn’t seem like a challenge big enough!) I now co-lead 6 major summits for BloombergNEF world-wide involving hundreds of stakeholders internally and externally, and allowing thousands of leaders in the fields of energy, industry, transport, technology, finance and the public space to meet, exchange and formulate ideas and strategies to shape a cleaner more competitive future.
Part of my role is to put together the agenda and recruit speakers for each event and I have naturally become over the last 2 years our gender diversity lead. We set a 30% female speakers target that we have reached in London and New York for the last 2 years and for the first time in San Francisco this year.
Aside from my job, I am a dedicated mum to a 3 year-old boy and avid cook and baker. I worked as a freelance advisor for Thermomix while on maternity leave and co-created a baking club within our department 7 years ago. I am also a Reformer Pilates enthusiast, and part of a French parents group in South East London. Both the French language and culture have a prominent place in my life and I have been mentoring GCSE-level students in French through the Best of Bloomberg corporate volunteer program for the last 6 years. I love reading about child psychology and how to raise bilingual children.
Susan Robson | National Grid
Following eight years in Management Consulting at PwC, Susan moved to National Grid where she has held a number of roles across the business.
She currently works as a Principal Consultant in the Internal Consultancy, delivering strategic projects across the business.
As a voluntary role, Susan leads Women in National Grid: a gender diversity employee resource group, which promotes the professional development of women and operates to attract and support a network of talent that enables National Grid to deliver its strategic priorities.
Susan was named as the #1 Future Leader on the 2018 Financial Times and HERoes Global Top 50 Champions of Women in Business for her work in gender diversity, with a personal interview appearing in the Financial Times. She has represented National Grid externally on inclusion and diversity, including UN Global Compact, Westminster Briefings and most recently on the final episode of BBC TV's The Apprentice.
She has also mentored two sixth-formers through the TeachFirst Futures Mentoring scheme.