Bayile Adeoti FRSA
CEO Dechomai Ltd and BobbyAI
Bayile Adeoti is a leading voice in social investment and inclusive entrepreneurship in the UK. As the founder of Dechomai Ltd, she has dedicated her career to breaking down barriers to business success for Black and Minority Ethnic individuals, ensuring that entrepreneurship is an accessible pathway to economic empowerment.
With a strong presence in business leadership and policy development, Bayile has held key roles, including President of Scottish Women in Business and Women’s Enterprise Scotland Ambassador, advocating for female-led businesses and sustainable growth. She also co-chairs the Social Enterprise Equalities Group within the Scottish Government Steering Committee, helping shape inclusive policies that support social enterprises and underrepresented founders. Bayile has been Entrepreneur in Residence at Glasgow Clyde College since March 2024.
In September 2024, Bayile cofounded an AI startup ,BobbAI, in response to a CivTech challenge.
BobbAI is your AI-powered assistant for growth. Whether you’re dreaming up your next side hustle, launching your start-up, or scaling an existing business, BobbAI connects you with the right support at the right time—no jargon, no overwhelm, just real value.
Her contributions have earned her widespread recognition, including being named a WISE100 Leading Woman in Social Enterprise and securing a place on The Telegraph NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch. Bayile’s work continues to drive systemic change, ensuring that social investment and entrepreneurship are equitable and inclusive for all.
Gillian Docherty CBE FRSE
Chief Commercial Officer at University of Strathclyde
Gillian Docherty is Chief Commercial Officer at the University of Strathclyde. Gillian has responsibility for Innovation & Industry Engagement, Research & Knowledge Exchange Services, Campus Services and Marketing & Development. As a Senior Officer and member of the Executive Team, she works across the institution to drive forward the University’s strategy.
As a leading international technological University, we are extremely proud of our network of partners across business and industry in the UK and globally. Our approach to collaboration is accelerating the development of new technologies, helping companies compete internationally, informing public policy and supporting the economy.
Prior to joining the University in 2022, Gillian was the Chief Executive of The Data Lab,
Scotland’s innovation centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence with a mission to help Scotland maximise value from data.
Gillian was appointed a CBE in the Kings New Years Honours 2025 for Services to Business and Technology. Gillian was appointed an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2019 for Services to Information Technology and Business. Gillian was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2024.
Gillian is Chair of CodeBase, an ecosystem builder, building better startup ecosystems. We connect founders and their teams with governments, local authorities, corporates, investors and academia to increase the number of successful businesses.
Gillian is a member of the Scottish Governments National Strategy for Economic Transformation Delivery Board.
Gillian is Past-President of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, a trustee of two charities and an Industry advisor to several Startups.
Formerly of IBM, Gillian is a TED speaker and was named Digital Leader 2018 for the UK, she received an Outstanding Achievement Award at Scotland’s Women in Technology Awards in 2019. Gillian was named CEO of the year at the Digital Technology Awards 2017 and was also in the UK’s top ten most influential people in data according to DataIQ.
Gillian has a degree in Computing Science from the University of Glasgow, an Honorary Doctorate from Robert Gordon University and is married with a daughter.
Professor Jillian Gordon
Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of Glasgow
Jillian is an experienced entrepreneurship educator delivering entrepreneurship education across UG, PGT, PGR levels including MBA. Throughout her 20-year career in H. E. she has worked closely with industry stakeholders through her research, knowledge exchange activities and learning and teaching.
Her research examines emerging and scaling entrepreneurial ventures, fluid ethics, digital and tech entrepreneurship trends and wealth recycling. She is particularly interested in how the practice and logics of entrepreneurship translate across other contexts. Her research has been published in leading international journals, including Harvard Business History Review, Business History, and FT 50 ranked journals including the Journal of Business Ethics and Human Relations.
Alisdair Gunn BEng (Hons), EUR ING, CEng, MIET
Director: Glasgow City Innovation District
Alisdair is recognised by his peers as one of Scotland’s prominent professional advisers amongst Scotland’s technology, digital, creative and engineering sectors. Alisdair leads the development of Glasgow City Innovation District, Scotland’s first Innovation District and was the founder of Framewire, Scotland’s first advisory practice focused on developing Scotland’s Digital and Tech Ecosystem. Alisdair dedicates his time to supporting founders create, develop, invest, and scale their tech, digital, engineering or deep tech business and through Glasgow City Innovation District is securing investment into Glasgow’s Tech Sector and developing Glasgow as Scotland’s leading Innovation Hub. Alisdair led the creation of the first tech week for a Scottish City – Glasgow Tech Week, the first industry led Venture Studio aligned to creating deep tech ventures and is the co-founder of the internationally acclaimed Turing Festival (now Turing Fest). At the inaugural Scottish Tech Startup Awards, Alisdair was awarded Scotland’s first Tech Ecosystem award where his peers independently recognised his expertise and commitment to developing Scotland’s Tech Ecosystem. Alisdair has also been awarded the Principal’s Special Award for his outstanding contribution to the success of the University of Strathclyde and was a Barclays Entrepreneur of the Year finalist for Scotland. Alisdair was previously an Independent board advisor to Barclays Eagle Labs and is currently a strategic advisor to Amiqus and VeryConnect and member of Johnston Carmichael’s Tech Advisory Board.
Sir Tom Hunter
Serial Entrepreneur and Philanthropist
Tom exited his first business in 1998 for £290m having built Sports Division from the back of a van to becomes Europe’s largest independent sports retailer.
In 2001 he established the family investment arm – West Coast Capital (“WCC”) and philanthropy, The Hunter Foundation (“THF”) neither accepting outside capital but co-investing with likeminded entities sharing the same values of trust, respect, support and patient capital.
WCC backs exceptional individuals leading entrepreneurial businesses and is sector agnostic. The investment arm has a diverse portfolio across oncology, property, finance/AI, retail and hospitality.
Notable investments currently held include THG plc where Tom has supported the founder and business for over ten years; Fintern AI a world class financial services disrupter; Ellipses Pharma an oncology focussed drug discovery business and Winchburgh Village the largest ‘new town’ development in the UK.
THF has committed £150m to date investing across a broad, interconnected portfolio backing exceptional individuals disrupting in education, poverty reduction, public sector reform and entrepreneurship all underpinned by leadership development. THF fundamentally believes without exceptional leadership positive change cannot happen.
On leadership three years ago THF purchased www.blairestate.co.uk to house all of its leadership programmes including a series of programmes to support scaling businesses www.scaleupscotland.co.uk
THF was the first philanthropy to partner with former President Clinton, establishing the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative investing in hospitals, education and economic development for over ten years in Rwanda and Malawi.
As well as being Knighted, Tom has been honoured with multiple Doctorates but his most prized honour is that of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy. He is happily married with three adult children.
Evelyn McDonald
CEO of Scottish EDGE
Evelyn McDonald is the CEO of Scottish EDGE, a competition aimed at identifying and supporting Scotland’s early-stage, innovative, high-growth potential, entrepreneurial talent. To date Scottish EDGE has invested over £29.5 million in 712 businesses, is currently in its 26th round and recently introduced a new competition, Regional EDGE.In addition, the small team of seven have introduced relationship management, alumni events, training and a business support package to winners as well as the innovative EDGE Pledge.
Supported by the Hunter Foundation, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise and a host of corporate and individual donors Scottish EDGE now has over £4.5 million out on loan and awards £3.4 million in grants and loans every year to 90 winners across the length and breadth of Scotland.
Prior to joining Scottish EDGE, Evelyn had a long career at the Prince’s Scottish Youth Business Trust, and latterly the Prince’s Trust, firstly in Operations and then running a Growth Fund which invested loans of up to £25,000 in businesses which had previously been supported by the Trust. Evelyn is also the Chair of the Scottish Design Exchange, a social enterprise supporting creative talent, and an assessor of the Small Business Charter Award.
She recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Women’s Enterprise Scotland recognizing her work in supporting women entrepreneurs.
Dr Susie Mitchell
Head of Glasgow Riverside Innovation District, University of Glasgow
Susie came to Glasgow in 1996 to undertake a PhD in cancer research at the University of Glasgow’s Beatson Institute for Cancer Research where she was awarded the John Paul Award for research excellence. She would then become an R&D manager within the NHS, a public policy practitioner (specialising in health and equality) for local and national government, and Accessibility and Inclusion lead for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee. For over a decade, Susie was Programme Director for Glasgow City of Science and Innovation – a regional innovation partnership focussed on positioning and strengthening Glasgow City Region (GCR) as a distinctive and thriving place for innovation-enabled growth. In this role, she co-authored GCR’s £33M Innovation Accelerator Plan and was one of three selected regional assessors tasked with shortlisting the final projects.
Susie was named as an “Unsung Hero in the Scottish Start-up scene” in 2022 and in 2024, she became Head of GRID. One of Scotland’s largest innovation districts, the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District (GRID) is anchored by the University of Glasgow and run in partnership with Glasgow City Council and Scottish Enterprise. Susie is a champion of diversity in STEM and in 2016 was recognised by Equate Scotland as a Leading Woman of Scotland for her contributions to STEM, equality, and Scotland’s advancement. She is an active Non-Exec on a range of Boards across Scotland and the UK, and is Chair of the Glasgow Jazz Festival – Glasgow’s longest running music festival. Outside work she is a session musician and a presenter and contributor for the BBC.
Professor Eleanor Shaw, OBE, FAcSS, FRSA, PhD, MA
Associate Principal and Distinguished Professor of International Entrepreneurship, University of Strathclyde
A values-led, inclusive entrepreneurial leader with more than 25 years’ experience of working with entrepreneurs, complemented by a portfolio of entrepreneurship research that has informed the design and delivery of entrepreneurial education, influenced entrepreneurial policy, and guided the development of successful growth interventions which have supported the scale up of numerous Scottish ventures.
Eleanor is a senior leader within the Higher Education sector and is passionate about using her knowledge, expertise, and networks to unlock entrepreneurial potential across Scotland’s economy and she is especially committed to using data and evidence to provide equal access to entrepreneurial opportunities and the resources, including access to finance and networks. She holds an MA and a PhD from the University of Glasgow and was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours List 2022 for her services to Entrepreneurship and Education.
Eleanor holds several board and external appointments including with the Beatson Cancer Charity, Enable, the Chartered Association of Business Schools, and the Gender Index. She is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Royal Society of Arts, and the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Ana Stewart
Tech Entrepreneur, & Investment Partner at investment firm Eos
Chief Entrepreneurship Advisor for the Scottish Government
Ana Stewart is a tech entrepreneur, investment partner at investment firm Eos and Chief Entrepreneurship Advisor for the Scottish Government. Ana founded fintech business i-design, floating it on AIM in 2007 and joined the exec committee of NASDAQ listed Cardtronics in 2013 following the company’s acquisition. In 2017, Ana became the first female board member of the Scottish Football Association in its 145 year history and sits on the board of a number of high growth, early stage scaleups. As co-author of the Pathways report and Chair of Pathways Forward, she is focused on transforming female participation rates in startup and scale up entrepreneurship, and committed to championing the changes required to create a more equitable and vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem and economy.”
