Northern Tech Awards 2025

At Apprentify, we pride ourselves on our Digital and Technical apprenticeship offerings. We have a unique approach to finding, recruiting, and training the best apprenticeship talent from start to finish. We have taken our time to develop specialist programmes to advance careers and develop teams.

Not only do we offer apprenticeships, but we also have a variety of short courses ranging from coding and data analytics, all the way to Leadership Training. www.apprentify.com

Serial Entrepreneur

Serial entrepreneur, three-time founder and public board member. Presently Operating Partner at Exponent PE, Chair of GoCity and a NED at Flutter PLC. Formerly in Executive roles at Carlsberg Group until May 2021, where she was also Chief Digital Officer.”

Managing Director, HSBC Innovation Banking

Richard Faulkner is a managing director with HSBC Innovation Banking, where he is responsible for growth in the north of England and Scotland. Richard has more than 15 years of experience in technology banking, and he supports clients that include Matillion, Darktrace plc and Castore. Richard is committed to supporting HSBC Innovation Banking’s growth in the vibrant innovation sector and entrepreneurs leading high-growth, disruptive technology businesses.

CEO, Apprentify Group

Jonathan Fitchew is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor with over 30 years of experience in the training and education sector. He is the founder and former CEO of Pareto Law, the UK’s largest sales training and recruitment company, which he grew from a start-up to a £30 million turnover business. He is also a founder shareholder of Venn Digital, a digital marketing agency, and Next Connex, a cloud hosting provider.
Currently, Jonathan is the group CEO of Apprentify Group, a leading training provider that offers apprenticeships and bootcamps in digital and sales skills. He joined the group in 2022 as executive chairman and became CEO in 2022. He is passionate about supporting future talent and helping businesses grow through learning and development. He is also involved in various charitable causes, such as raising funds for cancer research and supporting local communities.

Serial Investor

He is also a Non Executive Director of Ladbible Group plc and Flutter Entertainment plc, and an angel investor in a number of other start up and scale ups.

Richard was Chief Executive of Leeds based Sky Betting and Gaming from 2006 to 2018, during which time he grew the company from around 100 employees to over 1700. He led the company through its £800m spin out from Sky, and then on to its acquisition by The Stars Group for £3.4bn last year, before The Stars Group was in turn acquired by Flutter Entertainment plc.

Richard was Glassdoors Chief Executive of the Year for 2018. He holds an Engineering Degree from Oxford and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Co-founder, MPP Global

Paul is the co-founder of MPP Global and was CEO for 20 years until its acquisition by AIM-listed Aptitude Software in October 2021. MPP Global is the award-winning international provider of the cloud-based subscription management and billing SaaS platform, eSuite. Paul led the business from cradle to sale; including its angel funding and bootstrapped early growth phase, various strategy pivots, a series B fundraise and international expansion before its recent trade sale.

At exit, MPP Global had grown to over 100 employees plus offshore development teams and £9m ARR. As CEO, Paul became an all-rounder with an entrepreneurial spirit and a strong background in all areas of growing an international software company, including finance and metrics, sales, marketing, product and software engineering. Paul continues to work with passionate and entrepreneurial founders of exciting and high growth SaaS, Software and Fintech companies.

Head of Investments, University of Strathclyde

Dr Poonam Malik is an entrepreneurial business strategist, Life Sciences leader and an investor in Innovation. Dr Malik is Head of Investments at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow – accountable for strategic leadership of University’s enhanced Investment ambition into new ventures and its portfolio of start-ups, spinouts and spinin companies.

A GlobalScot, Poonam, is a Scottish Enterprise (SE) Board member and is also the Sustainability, NetZero, Climate Transformation and equitable opportunities Champion on the SE board. She is Chairperson and Co-Founder, Board Director of Microplate Dx Ltd, a multi-award winning MedTech Company. Poonam brings 25+ years expertise from technology, enterprise, research & innovation, governance, health industry and business sectors, globally.

Dr Malik was recently appointed Co-Chair, by Scottish Government, to lead on First Minister’s ‘New Deal for Business Group (NDBG)’ representing business and industry- co-sharing the role with the ScotGov, Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy.

Poonam is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) and the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB). She sits on many National Committees, advises policymakers and is recipient of several awards. She holds a PhD in Biomedical Sciences/Virology from the University of Glasgow, UK, an MBA (with Distinction) in ‘Strategy and Leadership’ from the University of Edinburgh Business School, a Masters (MSc) degree in Biotechnology and a Bachelors (BSc) in Chemistry & Zoology from India.

Portfolio Director, Regional Head – North of England, Cazenove Capital

With over 30 years of experience in financial services, Simon has been helping high-net-worth and ultra-high net-worth families to achieve their long-term financial objectives for many years. He continues to do so in his current role as Portfolio Director at Cazenove Capital, and Heads up the offices across the Northern regions.

He joined Cazenove Capital from UBS where he was the Regional Head for North West of England. Before that Simon spent most of his working life at Lloyds Banking Group in a range of wealth management roles. He is a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments (CISI).

Executive Director, Turing Innovation Catalyst

Liz is a long time tech ecosystem supporter, advisor and advocate. She has supported businesses large and small, nationally and internationally to grow, innovate and evolve for over 20 years. As Executive Director at the newly established Turing Innovation Catalyst Manchester (TIC), Liz is focused on building a new not for profit that will catalyse an AI ecosystem across Greater Manchester, and will use AI to grow careers, businesses and the city economy. Over the next 2 years TIC will be delivering AI accelerators, Venture Builders, Skills programmes as well as a whole host of events and activities to drive the AI ecosystem forward.

Prior to TIC Liz was part of the Executive Board at Tech Nation, responsible for supporting a National Community of 4500+ scaleups; delivery of international programmes; the Global Tech Talent Visa programme; all non-grant revenue; and strategic partnerships. In her Non-Exec Director and Advisory board roles Liz works with a number of tech sector focused organisations.

Partner and Head of Inflexion’s Manchester Office

Chris is a Partner and Head of Inflexion’s Manchester Office where he is responsible for originating, evaluating and managing majority and minority investments, principally across the North of England. Chris led the investments in CMSPI and Detectortesters. He sits on the boards of CMSPI, Detectortesters and Granite.

Chris has fifteen years of experience in working with businesses across the North at board level, assisting in strategic development, acquisitions, international growth and managing successful exits to both trade and private equity

He is a Chartered Accountant having trained at KPMG and has a degree in Economics from Manchester University.

Partner, Squire Patton Boggs
Mae Salem is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group in Leeds. Mae has experience in private acquisitions and disposals, private equity investments, corporate restructuring and generally advising clients in a corporate setting.

Associate, GP Bullhound
Joe is an Associate at GP Bullhound. Post joining in 2022, he has worked on a range of buy-side and sell-side transactions, whilst actively working in the Northern tech ecosystem to help earlier stage start-ups and entrepreneurs.
Joe is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales, having previously worked at BDO LLP & Mazars LLP in both audit and corporate finance practices, respectively.

Associate, GP Bullhound

Evgeny serves as an Associate at GP Bullhound. Over the span of his tenure, Evgeny successfully executed global M&A and Fundraising transactions valued at over £1bn.
Prior to joining GP Bullhound, Evgeny was a successful entrepreneur in retail & hospitality sectors.
Evgeny holds an MSc in Analytics and Decision Sciences from the University of Leeds.