Speakers 2019(Copy) — Women of MENA in Technology

Women of MENA in Tech:

“Entrepreneurship 2020: Rethinking Purpose, People and Profit

London, June 2019

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 th…

Roxane Zand

Deputy Chairman

Tara Sharifi, 11 years oldMaths 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 M…

Tara Sharifi

Maths and technology lover

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 servic…

Dr. Ali Parsa

Founder and CEO

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 …

Sepideh (Sepi) Nasiri

Founder & CEO

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…

Zara Riahi

CEO & Founder

Sepideh Dundon, Channel Lead EMEA, LinkedInSepideh 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…

Sepideh Dundon

Channel Lead EMEA

Faranak Farahmand PourCurrently 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.Fara…

Faranak Farahmand Pour

Global Strategic Initiatives

Paria GhorashiAfter 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. F…

Paria Ghorashi

Founder

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 bo…

Sara Ahmadi

CEO and Co-founder

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 …

Kate Nowrouzi

Senior Vice President

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 sa…

Radin Rahimzadeh

Connected & Autonomous & Smart City Specialist

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…

Khashayar shahmiri

Director

Maryam DaryabegiAs 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…

Maryam Daryabegi

Founder

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 s…

Asma Bashir

Chairman

Nona Keyhani, Associate (IP, Tech & Data), Reed SmithNona 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…

Nona Keyhani

Privacy Lawyer

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…

Rana Alqrenawi

M2 Founder

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 c…

Cansu Deniz Bayrak

Partner, Head of Fundraising

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 k…

Tara Shirvani

Project Manager

Ash AliAn 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 w…

Ash Ali

Author, Speaker & Co-Founder

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 practic…

Founder

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 …

May Samali

COO, New Ventures

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 Vir…

Mahtab Ghamsari

AI Scientist

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 ye…

Xanyar Kamangar

Founding Partner

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, M…

Alireza Sadeghi

Commercial Manager

Rehana Nanji, People Engagement, Programme Manager - Expedia

Rehana Nanji

People Engagement, Programme Manager

Mentors