Speakers
Hear from inspiring panelists and speakers influencing the technology industry
Keynote Speakers
Roxane Zand began a career in museum and arts administration after three years in UNESCO. She left Iran after the Revolution to resume professional activities in London in the field of education and the arts, and as one of the founding members of the Harvard Club of London.
Ms Zand was an officer of the Iran Heritage Foundation before moving to Asia House, as well as a freelance consultant for numerous projects for the British Museum and elsewhere in the art world before joining Sotheby’s in 2006 where she is now Deputy Chairman for the Middle East. Currently she sits on the Advisory Council of the Pictet Art Prize, the Development Board of the University of the Arts London, and has been appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant for Greater London for her services to Middle Eastern art and culture. She is also arts editor for the Encyclopedia Islamica.
At Sotheby’s she has played an instrumental role in developing and contributing to sales of Arab and Iranian art, and has conducted a number of charity auctions to benefit causes in the MENA region.
Tara Sharifi, 11 years old
Maths and technology lover. Bronze & Silver award winner of The Duke of York Inspiring Digital Enterprise. Swimmer, Dancer and Guitarist. Year 7 Student at Aylesbury High School. Scored highest possible mark of 162 at Mensa UK IQ test.
Fun Facts: Came 5th in the UK in rock & roll dance at the age of 7.
Tara Sharifi
Maths and technology lover
Scored highest possible IQ mark
Dr Ali Parsa is a British-Iranian healthcare entrepreneur and engineer. He’s the founder and CEO of Babylon, the revolutionary artificial intelligence and digital health company. Babylon’s mission is to put an accessible and affordable health service in the hands of every person on earth.
Dr Parsa was listed in The Times 100 people to watch. The Health Service Journal recognised him as one of the ‘50 most influential people in UK healthcare’. He was featured in the Maserati 100, a list that recognises game-changing entrepreneurs who are disrupting the world of business. The Independent Healthcare Awards presented Dr Parsa with an Entrepreneurial Achievement award. He is also a UK Cabinet Office Ambassador for Mutuals and has a PhD in Engineering Physics.
Speakers
Sepideh (“Sepi”) Nasiri is an award winning serial Entrepreneur with 16 years of experience working in the Tech Industry, the Founder of Persian Women In Tech, the former Vice President at Women 2.0 and a life-time advocate for women, diversity and inclusion. Mrs. Nasiri started her career as a Co-founder and Managing Editor of a digital and print Los Angeles Magazine and later joined a number of successful startups in Silicon Valley.
In 2014, she was recognized by San Francisco Business Times/Journal “40under40” and Diversity Journal’s 2014 “Women Worth Watching”. Currently, Mrs. Nasiri advises early stage startups including at global initiatives such as WeMENA (a program by the World Bank) and mentors globally many female entrepreneurs and founders in technology serving as an advisor to initiatives such as TechWomen, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
Rana Alqrenwai
"As a senior software engineer, Rana Alqrenwai has global responsibility for the tech and entrepreneurship field. She is passionate about building new commercial tech companies that tackle the biggest social challenges in the developed world. Excited by technology, Rana is driven by the desire to use her skills, experience, and energy to have a personal impact on the social issues that really.
She used to be the Product Development and Women’s Inclusivity Manager at Mercy Corps in Gaza. Rana has global responsibility for the attraction, engagement, development, and experience of Mercy Corps most important asset - its people. She championed Mercy Corps’ mission ‘helping people build secure, productive and just communities.’ playing a critical role in enabling the organization ‘to commit to achieving demonstrable impact for stakeholders, using their feedback to innovate, learn and improve.’ With a growing employee base, Rana enabled Mercy Corps to scale, while working on the very elements that have made the organization so successful in gender equality to date.
Rana brings 8 years of people leadership experience across multiple industries, geographies, and scale of businesses. Prior to joining Mercy Corps, Rana served as Product Manager of Microsoft first lab in Palestine, a leader in the outsourcing industry in different Saudi Companies and GGateWay, a social enterprise that has a hybrid business model aiming to build ICT graduates capacity to employ them in outsourcing projects.
Rana has been working as a backend developer since 2010 and has experience in establishing two startups one for artificial intelligence software applications and the other for business organizations software environments. She established and led the Palestine Code Academy at Gaza Sky Geeks in partnership with Founders and Coders, she is also the founder of the first women-only coding club in the area.
As a youth programs’ lead, Rana’s passion is around culture. She has the opportunity to work alongside Angel Hack, Iridescent, PCRF and Christian Aid, all is non-profit youth empowerment and culture space. She is an advisor to a number of young girls, as well as a mentor to a number of startups in system analysis and product development.
Rana holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering and an MBA from Islamic University of Gaza, Palestine. She is working now as a founder in the second mission of Zinc Ventures Limited to “Unlock new opportunities for people in hard-hit places by globalization and automation” exploring new markets to start her business in England. She is exploring new opportunities to give the women in minority communities in the UK access to tech jobs by upskilling them to be qualified data engineers."
May Samali is passionate about investing in people and ideas that can change the world.
As Chief Operating Officer, New Ventures at High Resolves, May is responsible for building and spinning out a new technology platform for citizenship education across the US. She is also a Venture Partner at NextGen Venture Partners, a network-driven venture capital firm. May's primary areas of interest include venture financing, tech policy, social entrepreneurship and adaptive leadership. She is published on these topics in multiple outlets, including TechCrunch, Forbes, VentureBeat, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and San Francisco Chronicle. She is also a regular speaker at conferences and industry events.
May holds a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, and Bachelors of Laws and Economic & Social Sciences (First Class Honors & University Medal) from Sydney University. She is a John Monash Scholar and an Australian American Young Leadership Dialogue Fellow. She was a Gleitsman Leadership Fellow and a Social Enterprise Fellow at Harvard's Center for Public Leadership.
May has extensive experience advising startups across the US and Australia. She was formerly an investor at the Urban Innovation Fund, a venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs shaping the future of cities. Prior to that, she was a Director at Tumml, an urban ventures accelerator in San Francisco. She has also worked as a strategy consultant at a boutique venture firm and as an attorney in Sydney.
In addition, May has worked for the President of the Court of Appeal of the New South Wales Supreme Court. She has also provided strategic advice to Australian governments on innovation and startup policy.
May also has non-profit management experience. She serves as a Member of the Board of Advisors for Persian Women in Tech, an organization supporting Persian & MENA women in STEM. She was previously Deputy CEO at 180 Degrees Consulting, the world's largest volunteer consultancy.
Zara Riahi is the CEO and founder of Contilio, a cutting-edge analytics startup that uses 3D computer vision and big data analytics to turn site data into real-time and intelligent insights for the 12Trn construction industry.
Zara brings 12 years of global management, commercial, entrepreneurial and engineering experience driving growth and productivity for startups and multi-nationals in North America, Europe and Australia.
Prior to Contilio, she has executed multiple tech investments at UBS, London and Westpac, Australia and was lead engineer and project director for billion-dollar construction projects in North America. She sits on the board of the early stage VC fund Alchemy, has advised many CEOs and boards on growth, digital transformation and operation initiatives and was head of business development for a round-A Silicon Valley startup.
Zara holds an MBA from London Business School and a MASc in Earthquake Engineering from the University of British Columbia.
Ash Ali
An award-winning serial tech entrepreneur and angel investor, Ash sold his first internet business at the age of just 19 (and most recently his Dubai-based on-demand mobile app startup in 2018).As the first marketing director of Just Eat UK which IPO’d for £1.5 billion, he was included in the Top 250 Growth Hackers, as well as Top 100 Asian Tech Stars in the UK.
With over 20 years of hands-on experience creating and growing startups, he has consulted, advised, and invested in hundreds of startups at various funding stages.
Ash is a highly sought-after international speaker and expert on digital disruption and tech transformation, and has spoken at numerous global organisations and conferences including Salesforce, Ernst & Young and TEDx. His new book The Unfair Advantage – Boost Your Chances of Tech Startup Success (co-authored with Hasan Kubba) is coming soon.
Radin Rahimzadeh is a Connected and Autonomous & Smart City Specialist with Advanced Mobility Group (AMG) where she supports private and public sector visionaries with technology facilitation and implementation to redefine mobility to advance safety, expand accessibility, reduce congestion, and encourage mode shift through adoption of electric and shared modes of transportation. Radin wrote the first Master Plan for the GoMentum Station, a Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) proving grounds and is a part of the team that brought the first Shared Autonomous Vehicle to California, now approved to test on public roads.
Radin’s approach to introducing new ideas and technology has been by way of systems thinking to make sure that challenges are addressed at their ROOT, solutions are co-created WITH community and positive impacts are enjoyed by ALL community members. Radin uses data to elevate missing stories, build resilient cities, and empower civic spaces.
In 2016, Radin closed her tech empowered nonprofit to support and advise a like-minded leader, Sepideh Nasiri and Persian Women in Tech, an organization creating profound waves of change to empower, elevate and advance Iranian and MENA women in Tech. In addition to PWIT, Radin also advises early-stage startups. In between all of the excitement, Radin unwinds by playing piano, boxing and traveling to connect, converse, and build community around beautiful global cities rich in heart, culture, and history. She speaks fluent Persian, Spanish and English.
Paria Ghorashi
After an education in Oslo, Paria Ghorashi spent 8 year with Varner-Gruppen, as buyer and managerial roles, before transferring to Floyd by Smith, spending the next decade leading their international expansion across the MENA region. Following the birth of her first child, Paria founded blowout&go order to fulfil a clear gap in the market for a professional yet affordable mobile hair styling service in Dubai. Under her leadership as CEO the group has expanded to be regarded as one of the leading beauty brands in the region. Her distinct style and personality has led Paria to become one of the most talked about social and cultural influencers in the region, regularly working in partnership with major brands to assist in their marketing campaigns. Her remit has now expanded as blowout&go goes global with its beauty tech platform bgX. A groundbreaking new service delivering professional salon stylists to the customers via a global partnership with Uber. It has launched in London, Paris and Dubai and will move to the US in 2018.
Faranak Farahmand Pour
Currently Faranak lives in Dubai and works at SAP’s Global Strategic Initiatives, a high performing sales organization responsible for the strategy, structure and negotiation of highly complex partnership and opportunities.
Faranak joined GSI in 2015 initially located in The Netherlands focusing on SAP EMEA North region (Great Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and the Baltic countries) and moved to Dubai in August 2016 focusing on SAP EMEA South region (Africa, Middle East, South Europe: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey). Faranak is a key member of the GSI team successfully leading the strategy, structuring and negotiation of large complex opportunities with our customers in EMEA. Faranak has demonstrated the ability to engage with customers in various countries and cultures. Faranak is also the Chapter Lead for the SAP Business Women’s Network in the United Arab Emirates.
The business women’s network (BWN) is an employee-driven network at SAP to help women advance their careers and the company’s business. By sharing professional insights, best practices, education and experience, we help one another develop skills and career advancing opportunities to drive SAP’s
success. More information can be found on https://news.sap.com/2017/07/ten-years-business-womens-network-sap/ Between August 2013 and July 2015, Faranak headed the Legal Department for SAP in The Netherlands, managing all legal matters for SAP Nederland B.V. including drafting and negotiating agreements (software licensing, Cloud Services, Consulting Services, (IT) outsourcing, purchasing and sales). Prior to joining SAP, Faranak was part of the Legal Depart of Philips International B.V. providing legal support for the divisions of Philips IP&S, “Philips Corporate IT”, “Philips Forwarding and Distribution”, “Philips Group Purchasing” and “FINOPS”(Finance Operations) worldwide. Faranak has a Master of Law in International Business Law and a Bachelor of International & European Law from Tilburg University in The Netherlands, both graduated Cum Laude.
Mahtab Ghamsari is an entrepreneur and music/arts enthusiast currently working on transforming how we can interact with the digital world through every day objects. Her previous project VRSUS is a creative application for capturing live music in Virtual Reality and re-creating the concert experience. Her other projects have involved pipelines for machine learning, concert recommendation tools, integrations for online advertising and various small web projects. She studied Systems Design and HCI in the context of music. Her MA thesis presented methods and studies used in mapping live performance (human) gestures to sound in digital musical instruments.
Kate Nowrouzi is the Senior Vice President of Global Email Delivery & Business Strategy at Sparkpost. She built the Deliverability Operation from the ground up and lead all the initial monitoring, alerting and automation efforts. Her team helps Sparkpost enterprise customers achieve a high inbox rate through following email marketing best practices. A recognized authority on email and anti-spam practices, Kate worked as an anti-abuse engineer at AOL anti-spam operation. Before that, she was a Network Engineer at the pioneering ISP, UUNET/ Verizon. Kate continues to be an active voice in the worldwide messaging and anti-spam community.
She is an advocate for diversity and inclusion, mentors young engineers in tech and serves as an adviser to PersianWomen in Tech, a non-profit dedicated to supporting Iranian women inthe STEM fields.
In her free time, she enjoys helping her local high school robotics team as a mentor, promoting Norooz (Persian New Year) celebration at her local schools, senior centers and libraries in Springtime.
She holds a B.S. in Network Engineering and an M.S. in Telecommunication Technologies from Strayer University in Washington D.C. and Leadership and Decision Making Certificate from Stanford University.
Sepideh Dundon, Channel Lead EMEA, LinkedIn
Sepideh Dundon is a digital marketing strategist and tech enthusiast who has worked with startups and Fortune 500 companies. She currently leads LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions Channel business across growth markets in EMEA, where she works with local partners to cultivate LinkedIn across the region. She has a wealth of experience in working with numerous industries including Technology, Telco, Education and Finance.
At LinkedIn she is also responsible for the Environmental Sustainability Group, Go Green and is a People and Culture Ambassador. Sepideh holds a Masters in International Business from The European Business School, Regent’s College and a BA in Business Management and Mandarin from Kingston University.
Alireza Sadeghi is a Chartered Engineer with a PhD in Polymer Science. Over the past ten years he has worked on projects in various industries such as Oil and Gas, Renewable Energies, Pharmaceuticals, Polyolefins and Leather Chemicals in Iran, UK, Mexico, Germany, Italy, USA, Brazil and China.
In 2013, he joined the University of Northampton as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership Associate to
collaborate with Xeros Ltd on developing a sustainable technology to enable tanneries to reduce their water usage and carbon footprint. The outcome of the project was awarded with the highest grade of "Outstanding" by UK's Technology Strategy Board (AKA Innovate UK) and following its conclusion, Alireza was offered a position at Xeros to work with their team on R&D, customer validation and supply chain management of the newly developed process.
In his current role, as the Commercial Manager of Qualus (the leather technologies division of Xeros), Alireza works with the company’s clients and suppliers to ensure the adoption of the technology in tanneries is executed with minimum disruption to sites’ day-to-day activities and, in a timely and cost-efficient manner.
BSc Chemical Engineering – Sharif University of Technology, 2008
MSc Environmental and Energy Engineering – University of Sheffield, 2010
PhD Polymer Science – University of Sheffield, 2013
Khashayar Shahmiri is a Director of GQR, an award-winning search specialist organisation uniting the most talented people from STEM backgrounds with pioneering organisations throughout Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific.
After graduating from the University of Sur rey with honours in Management, Khashayar joined GQR in London where he leads their EMEA practice and is responsible for GQR’s global growth strategy across the Banking & Finance, Life Science, Technology, and Energy & Engineering sectors.
Born in London to a third-generation Iranian family in the UK, he has maintained a passionate connection to Iran and the success of the community across the globe.
He is a Tech enthusiast having previously studying Software Design & Development and is now involved with some crowdsourcing platforms focusing on technology start-ups.
Maryam Daryabegi
As a highly energetic strategy & innovation executive, Maryam Daryabegi has spent her life propelling change and creating purposeful impact. She has gained her experience from living in seven cities, three continents, and working with Fortune 500 firms, startups, non-profit organizations & universities.
She brings a global vision on business, culture and share a unique perspective in strategy, innovation and design thinking. Maryam is passionate about building a collaborative community of global leaders via workshops, events, advisory and mentoring services.
She thinks out of the box and likes connecting the dots. She inspires her clients to connect, learn and share experiences. Empathy, positivity and transparent collaborations is in her DNA. She has the pleasure of working with clients across multiple sectors in Banking, Luxury Retail, Fashion, Beauty, Art, Non-profit, Education, and Tech.
Maryam is the founder of " Innovation Bazar" a boutique consulting firm based in NYC, providing creative problem solving solutions through leveraging Design Thinking methodologies & disruptive technologies.
In addition to her consulting practice, she is an educator and facilitates an online executive course in digital business strategy offered by MIT Sloan School of Management. She is also a member of the Marketing Committee of UN WOMEN METRO New York Chapter, she advises the organization in creating compelling solutions for advancing equality and empowering women in the workplace.
Nona Keyhani, Associate (IP, Tech & Data), Reed Smith
Nona grew up in Sweden and came to the UK aged 9 with her family. In 2012, Nona graduated with a Masters in Law from UCL in London and upon completing law school, she commenced her training as a lawyer with the international law firm, Reed Smith LLP. During her training, Nona undertook two in-house secondments; the first with a global media and broadcasting organisation. She assisted on a variety of matters across the business, supporting the commercial and online businesses. Nona also completed an in-house of an investment bank headquartered in New York, before qualifying in 2018. Since qualification, Nona specialises in privacy, data protection and technology law. She advises clients across a diverse range of industry sectors and also works in Barclays Bank in Canary Wharf (which is London’s financial district) on her part time secondment.
Nona is a member of Persian Women in Tech London Chapter since last summer and helps organise monthly events in the city. She was one of the key member organising our one year anniversary at Google’s headquarters in London last year. She is also part of the planning committee for the inaugural Persian Women in Tech conference on 22 June 2019 in London. Nona assists with the legal and compliance issues which arise in respect of PWIT in the UK.
Cansu Deniz Bayrak is Partner at Bethnal Green Ventures, an early-stage impact investor, where she leads fundraising for their investment vehicles. Previously, she was with the global accelerator Startupbootcamp, first running their MENA branch in conjunction with a $10M micro-fund in Istanbul, then scaling their industrial IoT programme to London and running it. She has been in the tech industry both as a founder and a facilitator for several years. Her background is in international politics and humanitarian law, before going into the tech industry she was with IGOs and NGOs like Amnesty International, the Council of Europe, and the UN in Turkey and France. Currently based in London, she is an alumna of UK Government's Tier 1 Tech Nation Exceptional Talent scheme.
Asma Bashir is a legal professional with over 20 years experience within the legal services industry. Asma started her career within one of the largest Law Firm’s in the world before she became an entrepreneur herself. She grew her business from a start up to a global business within 10 years offering services to multinational companies in over 160 countries. In 2014, Asma’s business was acquired by a US firm, after which she helped grow their business in five other regions including the US, Asia, Middle East and Europe. She worked on acquiring new companies and integrating them into the existing teams before she departed to set up a new entrepreneurial venture at Centuro Global. Asma now helps young founders grow their businesses and scale into other regions across the globe. Asma is part of the Mayor’s International Business Programme in London and a Senator with the World Business Angel Forum (G20 Summit). She also works with Tech London Advocates and the Royal Bank of Scotland/Natwest on various initiatives to help startups grow.
Tara Shirvani is a green infrastructure specialist, investor, speaker and millennial advocate. She is passionate about leveraging technology and finance to drive scalable impact to tackle today’s global trillion dollar infrastructure gap. She is a known expert in the field of green transport and infrastructure solutions, digital and AI strategies for mobility and transport.
Tara manages the green infrastructure investment portfolio at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Prior, she was leading large-scale transport projects, at a total of $1.5bn, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and East Asia whilst at the World Bank in Washington DC.
Tara grew up in Austria and Iran as a vocal advocate for climate change action. She graduated from Cambridge University with a Master’s in Engineering for Sustainable Development and at the age of 25 with a PhD in Chemistry from Oxford University. Dr Shirvani started her career working for the United Nations followed by investment banking at Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.
Tara has received many awards for her work including Times of London Top 100 Rising Star in Science and Engineering, Forbes 30 under 30, Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society Global Female Rising Talent, Future Energy Leader CERA Energy, and WEF Global Shaper.
She has been featured in multiple publications including Forbes, Foreign Affairs, New York Times, Financial Times, New Statesman, Stanford International Press, Harvard International Review and others. Tara is a prominent speaker on climate change and infrastructure finance. She speaks frequently at major international convenings at Harvard University, Stanford University, Fifteenseconds, World Economic Forum and others.
Mia Bennett is a recovering management consultant with a passion for building businesses and products. Companies she founded serve millions today, where she is now a board member. More recently, she set up and led PwC's Emerging Technologies practice and has been the Entrepreneur in Residence at Citi Ventures and Zinc, a mission-driven program.
Xanyar Kamangar is a Founding Partner at Griffon Capital, a frontier market focused Asset Management, Venture Capital and Investment Banking group. Xanyar graduated with an MBA from London Business School. Prior to Griffon Capital, Xanyar spent 8 years as a Director in the Telecom and Technology investment banking team of Deutsche Bank in London advising some of the largest tech players in EMEA. Before that, Xanyar founded Tehran Computer, a leading provider of computer telephony solutions in the Middle East. Xanyar is also an active angel investor in tech companies in the MENA region.
Sara Ahmadi studied Fashion at Central St Martins in London before going on to work internationally for the likes of Calvin Klein, Preen, Target and many other brands before setting up own label in New York. Sara is also part of the Non-Executive board for http://depoint.ai helping their expansion into the UK market and a mentor for the Cherry Blaire Foundation.
Sara holds an MBA from San Diego and was part of the founding team working with the British Council to bring the Wearable Tech Show to Abu Dhabi. Sara was the only female founder for the coveted Techstars Metro program in Berlin. Shopest has been featured in many publications including Cosmopolitan and been awarded top 50 in Retail Tech in Europe.
Rehana Nanji, People Engagement, Programme Manager - Expedia
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