impulse Team
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Yupar has more than 16 years of experience in building up entrepreneurship programmes and international collaborations. She has been involved in developing the IECT Hermann Hauser Summer School in Austria and serves as a programme director and mentor since 2015. Yupar worked previously at CfEL, Judge Business School where she led Ignite for over 11 years. During her leadership Ignite generated over 250 business ventures; more than £200 million in funding was raised and approximately 4,300 jobs were created by the alumni ventures. Previously 2008-2013, she served as a programme director at EFER in the Netherlands, which trains European professors to teach entrepreneurship. Yupar completed her MBA at Cambridge Judge Business School in 2002 and her research interest includes understanding the social capital effect in entrepreneurial development and trainings. Read more about Yupar's social capital research here. |
Linh Richardson, Programme Manager Linh is the Programme Manager for the impulse programme. Before joining impulse, Linh worked as an independent consultant helping startups in a range of areas including conducting customer and market research, implementing systems and processes, and with financial modelling and budgeting. Prior to this, she worked in Corporate Finance at KPMG, and at Pragma Consulting, a retail-focused management consulting firm. At Pragma she worked on some of the most iconic European retail brands on consumer-based strategy projects, as well as Commercial Due Diligence for Private Equity firms. She has also been engaged as a contractor in financial and fund reporting roles at Private Equity firms Terra Firma and Triton Partners. Finally, she has lived the founder and entrepreneur experience, having started and run a Boston-based subscription-based kids meal delivery service, Yumma Meals LLC.
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Beth Warmington, Programme Coordinator Beth is the Programme Coordinator for the impulse programme. Beth holds a Master of Science in International Social Welfare and Social Policy and previously worked for Greater Cambridge Partnership. She is also the founder of Landlark, a charity creating a ground up, community response to domestic abuse, sexual violence and harassment. |
impulse Advisory Board
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Matthew Bullock Matthew was Master of St Edmund's College, Cambridge until Sept 2019. He served for many years as a member of the University's Audit Committee and of the Advisory Boards of the Judge and the Centre for Business Research. As a local bank manager in Cambridge in the late 1970's, he was the first to finance the technology companies then emerging around the University, and from there went on to create the bank's international technology financing team. |
Dr David Cleevely David Cleevely is an entrepreneur who has founded a series of companies including Abcam, Analysys and the award-winning restaurant Bocca di Lupo. He has invested in more than 50 companies. He co-founded and is chair of Chemify, and is chair of Focal Point Positioning. He was Chairman of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, founding Chairman of the Cambridge Science Centre, Founding Director of the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge, and Chair of the Enterprise Committee at the Royal Academy of Engineering. He also co-founded Cambridge Network, Cambridge Wireless, Cambridge Angels and Cambridge Ahead. |
Prof Anne Ferguson-Smith Anne is the interim Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and the Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at the University of Cambridge. Formally she was the Universities’ Head of the Department of Genetics until December 2020. She is a mammalian developmental geneticist and epigeneticist. An expert on genomic imprinting. She was elected to EMBO in 2006, to the UK Academy of Medical Sciences in 2012 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2017. |
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Prof Sir Richard Friend Richard is the Cavendish Professor of Physics, Fellow of St. John's College, Director of the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability and Founding Director of the Maxwell Centre. He is a co-founder of Cambridge Display Technology Ltd, Plastic Logic and Eight19. Richard is a highly renowned materials physicist with over 900 publications and more than 60 patents. He won several awards in science and engineering. In 2003 he received a knighthood for his services to physics. |
Dr Deborah Harland Deborah joined SR One in 2005. She leads the investment team in Europe and represents SR One’s interest as a non-executive Director on the Boards of several biotech companies (Asceneuron, Mission Therapeutics, Bicycle Therapeutics, f-star, VH Squared). Prior, Deborah gained extensive operational, drug development and licensing experience through numerous roles held in clinical development, medical affairs and business development at Merrell Dow, SmithKline Beecham and GSK. |
Dr Hermann Hauser Hermann is Fellow of the Institutes of Physics at Royal Academy of Engineering and honorary fellow of the King’s College, is a well-known and successful serial entrepreneur in a wide range of technology sectors (e.g. Acorn Computers, ARM, Virata, CDT and many others) as well as venture capitalist (Amadeus Capital Partners). He founded the Hauser Forum in West Cambridge to create a successful environment for the venture of entrepreneurs. |
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Dr Elaine Loukes Elaine is an Investment Manager at Cambridge Enterprise with a focus on physical sciences investments. She has worked as an early-stage tech investment manager since 2001. Elaine has extensive experience in all stages of the investment process including due diligence, financial modelling, deal negotiation and investment management. Elaine sits on the board of several University spin-outs including PervasID, Cambridge Touch Technologies, Fluidic Analytic and Intellegens. |
Prof Chris Lowe Chris is Professor Emeritus of Biotechnology and Past Director of the Institute of Biotechnology at UC. His work is characterised by not only being highly inter- and multi-disciplinary, but also covering the entire range from pure science to strategic applied science, much of which has significant commercial applications. He was the driving force for the establishment of 10 spin-out companies, and has been awarded several national and international prizes and distinctions. |
Prof Florin Udrea Florin is a Professor of Semiconductor Engineering and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering with over 25 years experience in power devices, high voltage and smart technologies, micro-sensors and MEMS. He is co-founder of CamSemi, CCMOSS, Camutronics, Flusso and CamGaNDevices. Florin invented over 80 patents and has over 450 publications. In 2012 he received the Silver Medal from RAEng for his "outstanding contribution to British Engineering". |
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Prof Sir Mark Welland Mark established the Nanoscience Centre at the University of Cambridge, which undertakes a variety of nano-related research programmes of an interdisciplinary nature. From April 2008 until May 2012, Mark was Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government Ministry of Defence. He was Head of Electrical Engineering from October 2015 to September 2018, has been Head of the Nanoscience Centre since 2012, has been Master of St Catharine’s College since October 2016, was elected a Deputy Vice-Chancellor October 2018 and is Special Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor on China. Mark was appointed Director of the Maxwell Centre 1st January 2019. |
impulse Mentors
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Abel Ureta-Vidal Founder of Eagle Genomics, since 2021 Venture Partner at Nina.Capital Abel has over 20 years in the field of bioinformatics, data and knowledge management and a scientific background in molecular biology and immuno-virology (PhD from the Pasteur Institute, France). In 1999, he joined the bioinformatics team at Genoscope (Evry, France) in the ramp up of the human genome project. In 2001, he moved to the European Bioinformatics Institute (Cambridge, UK) where he led the Ensembl comparative genomics team until 2007. He founded Eagle Genomics shortly before graduating from the Cambridge Judge Business School MBA program in 2008. For nearly 12 years, he was one of the driving forces within the executive team at Eagle Genomics, supporting the strategy, funding and partnership activities of the company. In Spring 2020 he exited Eagle Genomics and joined the CMS Ventures fund as well as getting involved more formally in a couple of innovative startups in the Life Sciences. Since 2021 Abel is Venture Partner at Nina.Capital. |
Fiona Nielsen Founder of DNAdigest and Repositive, since 2021 CEO of o2h Technology Fiona Nielsen, founder of DNAdigest and Repositive, is a bioinformatics scientist turned entrepreneur. At Illumina she was developing tools for interpretation of next-generation sequencing data and analysing cancer and FFPE samples sequenced on the latest technology. She founded DNAdigest as a charity to promote best practices for efficient and ethical data sharing - aligning the interests of patients and researchers. In August 2014 Repositive Ltd was spun out of DNAdigest as a commercial entity to develop and provide a novel software tools and mechanisms for sharing of data. Repositive has since grown to the biggest platform for preclinical CROs offering translational oncology models and services. The Repositive Cancer Model Platform is serving the biopharma community worldwide to speed up their sourcing of cancer models and ensuring confidence in selecting the right model for every study. Fiona was nominated for the 2013 WiSE award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Since 2021 Fiona is CEO of o2H Technology. |
Jamie Urquhart Co-founder of ARM Jamie’s career has spanned a number of years and a range of roles, punctuated by some quite fortuitous decisions. Starting with a Philips Electronic Kit at 8 and later choosing a four-year degree with a year’s industrial placement led to starting his career as a chip designer for what was, at that time, one of the leading companies in the field – Plessey Research (Caswell) Limited. The rise in “home computers” led to a move to Acorn Computers to work on the Acorn RISC Machine (ARM), a 32-bit microprocessor, and its support chip set. As challenging market conditions arose, Acorn Computers reset its strategic direction and so the design team responsible for chipset explored ways to spin out the Arm technology. The catalyst was Apple Computers looking for a power-efficient processor for their upcoming Personal Digital Assistant. In a decision that Jamie even now questions just what he must have been thinking at the time, he moved from engineering to take on the responsibility for Sales for the newly founded company Advanced RISC Machines Ltd – later renamed ARM Ltd. After building the worldwide sales organisation he took on the role of Chief Operating Officer when the company floats on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Later he moved to Chief Strategy Officer before retiring from ARM in 2002. He started Angel Investing but moved to Pond Venture Partners Ltd as a Venture Partner to help raise and then invest their third fund. Retired again, Jamie spends his time advising and mentoring start-ups. Jamie is a Fellow of the IET and an Honorary Fellow (Entrepreneurship) of the Judge Business School. He is still fascinated by electronics.
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Miranda Weston-Smith Business Development Consultant, BioBeat Founder Miranda helps early stage biomedical businesses attract investment and develop their business strategy. She is a Coach for the SME Instrument of the European Commission, long standing Mentor for Cambridge Judge Business School’s Entrepreneurship Centre, contributes to the University of Cambridge Masters in Bioscience Enterprise course, and founded and runs BioBeat, an innovation platform for bioentrepreneurs. She has worked with many entrepreneurs on fundraising, business planning and technology transfer. Her experience includes working at Cambridge Enterprise, where she licensed and spun out life science technologies, and the seed capital firm, Cambridge Research and Innovation. Miranda studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and has a Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. She is a Fellow of the Linnean Society, and has edited eight science books. |
Peter McPartland Venture Capital Consultant, Entrepreneur In Residence at Cambridge Enterprise Peter is an experienced life sciences venture capital consultant. He was a co-founder and general partner at SV Life Sciences (now SV Health Investors). For the last ten years Peter has held a variety of independent consulting and and non-executive director roles. In 2014-16 he was a co-founder and full-time interim CEO of a Manchester-based diagnostics start-up. In total Peter has been involved with over 30 life sciences start-ups and other early-stage businesses, with Shire Pharmaceuticals, Chiroscience and Triangle Pharmaceuticals as notable examples. Peter has a BSc in Pharmacology (UCL), and an MSc in Sciences Studies (Open University). |
Richard Green Entrepreneur in Residence, Cambridge Enterprise, Richard is a serial entrepreneur, non-executive director and business mentor. He was co-founder and CEO of Ubisense, the award-winning Industrial Internet of Things pioneer. Under Richard’s leadership, Ubisense listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2011. Richard is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and was the winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2010 in the Science and Technology category. Prior to Ubisense, Richard co-founded Smallworld, and enterprise geospatial software company which listed Nasdaq in 1996 and was acquired by GE in 2000. Richard is engaged with several early-stage companies as a mentor, angel investor and non-executive director principally in the location, industrial IoT, and mobility sectors. |
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Shai Vyakarnam Educator, Mentor and Entrepreneur Shai has been passionate about entrepreneurship education and development for over 30 years. He is a Visiting Professor at the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship at Cranfield University. Previously, for fourteen years, he was founding director of Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the University of Cambridge. Shai has also co-authored several books such as “The Scale-Up Manual”, “Camels, Tigers and Unicorns: Rethinking science and technology enabled innovation” and, “Unlocking the Enterpriser Inside”. In addition to being an educator, author and mentor he has been a co-founder of several companies in software and industrial engineering. He is currently leading a team to “pressure cook” waste plastic into oils as feedstock for the materials industry. He is active in several stages of business development from start-ups (www.qateam.uk) through to scale-ups and growing businesses. Typically involved in strategy, boardroom dynamics, team building and assisting with getting teams ready to pitch to investors. He has worked with hundreds of start-ups and early growth business over a career of 30+ years. |
Uday Phadke Cartezia Uday has spent the last 30 years working actively on science and technology enabled innovation. During this period he has worked with a wide range of companies and technologies, providing guidance on strategy, business plans and the synthesis of new products, as an advisor, investor, and in hands-on operational roles. He currently divides his time between Cartezia, which builds technology companies and AcceleratorIndia, which focuses on cross-border innovation and business building. Uday has been actively involved in the Cambridge technology commercialisation eco-system since the mid-1980s, which fits well with his current role as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Judge Business School at Cambridge University.
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impulse Contributors
In addition to our impulse mentors listed above, our participants also benefit from our extensive network of hundreds of experienced entrepreneurs, service providers and investors, who advise and guide our participants through our one-to-one sessions.