Speakers
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Charlie Robertson Head of Macro-Strategy, FIM Partners
Charlie worked for 12 years at ING Barings and 12 years at Renaissance Capital before joining the buyside firm FIM Partners. His second book The Time Travelling Economist was published in 2022 and was runner-up in BCA’s Business Book of the Year award. He was the top-rated Frontier Analyst for 2016-20 and top-rated Emerging Europe Analyst from 2007-10. He previously worked in parliament, a defence think-tank and an economic research house.
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Priya Lakhani AI Entrepreneur
After giving up a career in law to pursue a dream of running her own business, Priya built and sold a successful food brand. She then established a social enterprise before starting a tech company that brings together AI and education in order to understand how students learn and provide educators with an insight into how to create personalised education. She tackles themes including what innovation means and how to embed it into a culture, how leaders need to be adaptable especially in times of crisis, and why keeping values at the core of what you do is the best strategy for success. Priya serves as a non-Exec DCMS board member and regularly contributes to BBC News.
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Dr Tim Gregory Planetary Geologist
Dr Tim Gregory works full-time as a nuclear chemist in the heart of the British nuclear industry. He spends his work days in the lab measuring the chemical and isotopic composition of nuclear materials on a variety of different projects. His love for science shines through in his day job, public speaking, and media activities.
Tim’s background is in academia. After completing a PhD at the University of Bristol researching the formation of the Solar System using meteorites, Tim became a postdoctoral researcher at the British Geological Survey in Nottingham. His background on the cutting edge of academic research prepared him perfectly for his sideways career step into the nuclear industry.
In 2020, Tim’s debut book – Meteorite: How Stones from Outer Space Made Our World — was published by John Murray to critical acclaim. In 2017, Tim surpassed thousands of applicants for a place in the six-part BBC2 series Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes?, where he was put through the full rigours of astronaut selection and reached the final three. Since then, he has gone on to present a segment about meteorites on BBC4’s The Sky at Night and has made live television appearances on BBC Breakfast, BBC Look North, and BBC Points West. He frequently features on local and national radio to talk about events in the world of space, science, and nuclear. Tim loves nothing more than sharing his love of science and the wonders of the natural world. Tim completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Manchester where he achieved a first class with honours in Geology with Planetary Science (MEarthSci).
