Alisée De Tonnac

Co-Founder & Partner, Seedstars

After traveling for a year around the world to set up the first edition of the Seedstars World startup competition back in 2013, Alisée is now managing the company and taking it to the next level. The competition is now present in 85+ cities and by next year Seedstars will be launching 15 strategic hubs (seedspace co-working activities, acceleration programs and academy centres) around the world. She has accumulated deep knowledge of trends in technology, social media & consumer behavior in Emerging Markets.

Alisée is a board member of the School of Management of Fribourg and a member of the Swiss National Innovation Council. She was nominated Social Entrepreneur Forbes 30 under 30, Innovation Fellow of Wired UK, 50: Europe’s most influential women in the startup and venture capital space and the 29 Powerful Women by Refinery29.

Dr. Lara Srivastava

Digital Development Consultant, World Bank

Dr. Lara Srivastava is a policy advisor, lawyer, futurist, and strategic foresight expert with over 25 years of experience working for and advising governments, industry, internet start-ups and international organizations. She has lived in over 16 different cities across 9 countries and has a keen insight into long-term developments and volutions from both a multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural perspective - ranging from key technical developments (such as AI or IoT) to legal frameworks and techno-social interdependence.

Her background is multi-disciplinary: she holds graduate degrees in French literature (with a focus on gender), in law (with a specialization in technology law) and in science/technology policy (with a focus on FinTech) as well as a Ph.D. in Innovation (with a focus on Smart Homes and IoT).

In the early 2000s, she managed the UN’s first ICT technology foresight programme, during which she initiated and led work on the landmark ITU Internet Report 2005: Internet of Things (IoT), the first report of its kind in the field, and similar groundbreaking work on digital identity (2006), before such developments hit the mainstream. Later in her career, she headed up the ITU’s Bridging the Gap programme, for which she designed and delivered strategic training programmes on innovation and standardization for developing countries across five regions of the world. Lara has also been an entrepreneur and has worked in national utilities regulation, technical standardization, human rights, and management consultancy. Lara is currently working with The World Bank on start-up tech accelerator initiatives and on programs relating to digital development and digital regulation. She is a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a business coach and mentor.

Amy Lin

Director, USAID’s center for Innovation and Impact (CII)

Amy Lin leads USAID’s Center for Innovation and Impact (CII), which applies innovative, market-based, and digital health approaches to global health challenges. Previously, Amy was based in Mumbai with Monitor Inclusive Markets, developing social enterprise models to meet needs in low-resource settings, such as for clean drinking water in slums. Prior to this role, she served as the HIV/AIDS Program Director for the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) in Liberia. Before CHAI, Amy was at the World Bank’s Development Marketplace, which focused on funding new approaches to serving the poor. Amy also worked with TechnoServe in Peru, creating growth strategies for microbusinesses. Earlier, she was with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), advising multinational companies in the pharmaceutical, financial services, and consumer goods industries.

Amy holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a BA with Distinction in Political Science from Yale University.

Dr. Rose Mwebaza

Director, UN Climate Technology Centre & Network

Dr. Rose Mwebaza (PhD) is the Director of the CTCN which is the implementation arm of the UN Climate Change Technology Mechanism. She has over 20 years’ experience providing policy advice on a wide range of climate change, environment, and sustainable development issues. She has previously served as Chief Natural Resources Officer at the African Development Bank and held leadership positions within the UN Development Programme. Dr. Mwebaza was a Lecturer at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, for 10 years, serving as the Head of Department for Commercial Law and Deputy Dean of the Law School. Ms. Mwebaza holds a PhD in Environment and Natural Resource Governance from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; a Master’s Degree in International Comparative Law (With a Certificate of Academic Excellence) from the University of Florida, U.S.A and a Bachelor of Law Degree (LL.B, Hons.) from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.

Daniel Taras

Head of Global Sector programmes for sustainable economic development & Climate Economy, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

Daniel is Head of Global Sector Programmes for Sustainable Economic Development & Climate Economy at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Germany’s international cooperation agency.

Previous assignments included directing a programme on sustainable infrastructure and climate change at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington DC; and setting up and heading GIZ’s Emerging Market Sustainability Dialogues (EMSD), which addresses global sustainability challenges, including economic policy, sustainable finance, and business model innovation. At GIZ, he was also Head of Section in the Global Partnerships and Emerging Economies Unit in Berlin, corporate social responsibility and economic policy advisor in China and Laos respectively, and, before that, worked as strategic management consultant, investment banker and financial sector economist in London, UK.

He holds a BSc in Economics (LSE), an MSc in Development Finance (SOAS), an MPhil (Cambridge), and an Executive Master’s (HEC Paris / Saïd Business School, Oxford University). He is also an alumnus of the German Development Institute and of Peking University, China.

Jon Slade

Chief Commercial Officer, Financial Times

Jon Slade oversees the Financial Times’ subscriptions business, global advertising sales operations, print and digital consumer marketing, customer services and business development. He is the FT’s first CCO, and was appointed to the FT Group executive board in December 2014.

Slade was previously the FT’s BC2 managing director, and before that he was the commercial director for global digital advertising and insight, where he spearheaded the overall strategic direction for the FT’s digital advertising business. In this role he also established the FT’s first Global Commercial Academy to drive L&D for the advertising team. The popular programme is an effort to formalise the development of digital media and advertising skills among staff, and inspire new ideas, initiatives and collaboration. Slade has directed the development of new advertising products for FT.com, the FT’s mobile apps, third party platforms such as Flipboard and Google Newsstand, as well as howtospendit.com.

Most notably, he pioneered the FT’s widely reported initiative to establish a time-based currency for digital advertising, CPH, and advised the IAB on industry standards around ad viewability metrics.

He joined the FT in 2002 as technology client manager working with European technology and telecoms clients. He left the FT in 2005 to join News International, and returned to the FT in 2007 as commercial director for digital advertising. Before that he ran the FT’s strategic sales team – a global creative cross-platform advertising team he built in 2007. Slade has a background in client sales within the advertising technology sector previously working for Fairfax, both in London and Sydney. He is a member and board representative of the IAB in London, an active participant with the DCN in New York, and a spokesperson for the FT on digital strategy in news publishing.

Dr. Ebele Mogo

Strategic Advisor

Dr. Ebele R.I. Mogo’s work focuses on applied research and innovation to improve public health and wellbeing. Her areas of expertise include urban health, behavioural health, non-communicable disease prevention and planetary health in which her work has spanned Africa, Asia, North America and Europe. She has served in a strategic advisory capacity for governments, funds and international organisations including the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Children Fund, and UNHCR Innovation, informing investments and innovation processes for improved health impact. She has worked as an implementation focused researcher at University of Cambridge and McGill University, using cutting edge research to explore health risks and designing initiatives and innovations to address them. She has significant experience working on the design and deployment of technological innovations via work with venture-funded health start-ups. She also leads Engage Africa Foundation, a pan-African network focused on public engagement around the topic of putting health at the centre of Africa’s development.

Virginia Stagni

Head of Business Development & FT Talent Director, Financial Times

Virginia works between London and New York as Head of Business Development in the Commercial Department of the Financial Times.

Her role sees her investigate new business ideas and revenue growth opportunities, ensuring that the Financial Times remains one of the most innovative and disruptive players in the wider news landscape.

Prior to joining the FT, Virginia was a start-up founder and entrepreneur, also working as a freelance reporter for La Stampa - one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. She is the CEO and founder of Logos, a mobile phone blockchain start-up, and previously founded a digital magazine, Revolart, as well as a cultural heritage foundation, Bolognadasballo.

In 2016 she was named Best Italian Entrepreneur Under 25 and in 2019 was one of Digiday’s inaugural Future Leaders.

Virginia holds an MSc in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics and a BSc in Economics and Management for Art, Culture and Communications from Bocconi University. In her spare time she enjoys ‘extreme’ travel.