Impulse Team

Yupar Myint
Head of Impulse

Yupar has 20+ years' experience leading entrepreneurship programmes. She founded and leads Cambridge's Impulse Programme, previously led Ignite at Judge Business School, and co-directs Austria's IECT Summer School. Her research focuses on social capital in entrepreneurship.

Neil Baxter
Programme Manager

Neil is an experienced entrepreneur who has founded and run tech and professional development ventures, including an early social networking site and one of the UK’s first virtual training providers. He is a published author and holds a PhD is sociology.

Jo Roberts
Programme Coordinator

Jo is a seasoned innovation professional who specialises in supporting founders of science-led startups to develop ambitious ideas into scalable ventures. She brings expertise in communication and community building, with deep experience of the Cambridge ecosystem.

Matthew Bullock

Former Master of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, and member of key University boards. A pioneer in technology finance, Matthew funded emerging Cambridge tech firms in the 1970s before creating his bank’s international technology financing team.

Dr David Cleevely

Serial entrepreneur and investor, David founded Abcam, Analysys and Cambridge Angels, and has invested in 50+ companies. He co-founded and chairs Chemify and has held senior roles with Raspberry Pi Foundation, Cambridge Science Centre and the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Prof Sir Richard Friend

Cavendish Professor of Physics and founding Director of the Maxwell Centre, Richard co-founded Cambridge Display Technology, Plastic Logic and Eight19. A renowned materials physicist with 900+ publications and 60+ patents, he was knighted for services to physics.

Dr Deborah Harland

Deborah leads SR One’s European investment team and serves on the boards of several biotech companies. She brings extensive operational, drug development, licensing and business development experience from senior roles at Merrell Dow, SmithKline Beecham and GSK.

Dr Hermann Hauser

Renowned serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Hermann was involved in the creation of Acorn, ARM, Virata and CDT, and is also co-founded of Amadeus Capital Partners. A Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, he founded Cambridge’s Hauser Forum to support entrepreneurship.

Dr Agnieszka (Aga) Iwasiewicz-Wabnig FRSA 

Director of the Maxwell Centre and physicist, Aga leads academia-industry collaboration and advises Cambridge tech ventures. She is Blue Sky Lead for Cambridge NeuroWorks, Industrial Strategy Lead for Cambridge Zero, and a Senior Associate of CISL.

Dr Elaine Loukes

Investment Manager at Cambridge Enterprise specialising in physical sciences, Elaine has invested in early-stage tech since 2001. She has experience across the investment process and sits on the boards of several University spin-outs, including including PervasID and Intellegens.

Prof Chris Lowe

Professor Emeritus of Biotechnology and former Director of Cambridge’s Institute of Biotechnology, Chris has worked across pure and applied science with significant commercial impact. He drove the creation of 10 spin-out companies and has received numerous international awards.

Prof Florin Udrea

Professor of Semiconductor Engineering and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Florin has co-founded five technology companies, including CamSemi and Flusso. He holds 80+ patents, has 450+ publications and received the RAEng Silver Medal.

Pilgrim Beart FEIT

A deep-tech entrepreneur with 40 years’ experience, Pilgrim has founded multiple companies, raised $10m+ and achieved a $100m exit. He has scaled technologies from lab to millions of customers and built a £1m+ ARR business at Pod Point in 18 months.

Paul Beastall

Technology commercialisation leader and engineer, Paul was Strategy Director at Cambridge Consultants, helped build HutanBio from research project to a 20-person company, chaired Evonetix, and serves on the board of the Medicines Discovery Catapult.

Simon Bransfield-Garth

Serial entrepreneur and World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, Simon is founder and CEO of Akili AI and Azuri Technologies, which has provided off-grid solar power to 250,000 African households. His ventures span AI, renewable energy, automotive software and mobile tech.

Martin Dinnage

An innovation and design strategy consultant specialising in MedTech, life sciences and advanced technology, Martin founded Frameshift Strategy after 15+ years at Cambridge Consultants. He advises early-stage ventures on user insight, product strategy and commercialisation.

Richard Green

Serial entrepreneur, investor and NED, Richard co-founded and led Ubisense to a 2011 LSE listing and co-founded Smallworld, which listed on Nasdaq before acquisition by GE. He was EY Science & Technology Entrepreneur of the Year 2010.

Julian Hildersley

A technology entrepreneur and business leader, Julian led the design of the world’s first 1800MHz mobile phone and developed silicon products used in hundreds of millions of phones. He has worked with numerous start-ups as founder, investor, executive and board member.

Peter McPartland

A life sciences investor with a 45-year career, he co-founded and was General Partner at SV Health Investors and held roles at Cambridge Enterprise and Martlet Capital. He has been involved with 50+ start-ups, spin-outs and commercialisation projects, mostly at board level.

Jackie Macritchie

Life sciences leader with 35 years’ experience, Jackie led Charles River Laboratories’ Early Discovery division across nine international sites and later served as COO of a virtual biotech. She now works as a consultant, board adviser and executive coach.

Fiona Nielsen

Launch Programme Director at Pioneer Group, Fiona has 15+ years’ entrepreneurial experience across genomics, biotech and data. A four-time CEO, she has mentored 50+ start-ups and brings expertise in venture building, fundraising, drug discovery and genomics.

Uday Phadke

Founder and CEO of Cartezia, Uday has helped build 100+ tech companies over 20 years. He also co-founded Triple Chasm and advises technology ventures globally. A former Entrepreneur in Residence at Cambridge Judge, he is an author and specialist in scaling innovation.

David Sade

David helps early-stage technology companies scale operations, finance and product strategy. He co-founded and grew a venture investment firm and led finance and operations for an AI fintech that scaled to $25m in assets. He now works with DeepTech, healthcare and AI start-ups.

Shai Vyakarnam

CEO of deep-tech venture TerraWaste, Shai is building technology to convert mixed waste plastics into sustainable petrochemical feedstock. He serves on the board of CorrosionRadar and brings 30+ years’ experience teaching and mentoring entrepreneurs and founders.