Leadership

Leadership

LWIN’s Board and an Advisory Group steer the direction of the London West Innovation Network (LWIN).  Implementation is delivered by the Operational Team.   LWIN is building our capacity and impact through collaboration with a wider UK/ International ecosystem of innovation clusters & districts.

 
THE BOARD

LWIN approach follows the ‘quintuple innovation helix’ framework and incorporates insights from the academia-industry-government-public sector-environment interactions.  Hence, we have representatives from each helix on the board. 

Steve Armitage is the head of Technology Design and Innovation at Heathrow with expertise in innovation and Intelligent Automation. He has a passion for business change combining people, process and new Technology.

Neil Impiazzi is the head of UK Public Affairs and Stakeholder Engagement at SEGRO, managing sustainable industrial spaces across the globe, with 15+ years of experience. 

Geoff Rodgers is the Pro Vice Chancellor for Enterprise and Employment at Brunel University, London. Having worked almost 20 years at Brunel, his research areas have been applying statistical mechanics to solve problems in social science economics and finance. 

Robyn Owen is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurial Finance at Middlesex University with an experience of 28+ years. She also cofounded GreenFin Research Hub, specialising in SME green finance and related early-stage Cleantech, Climate and Biodiversity innovation research, data and policy.

Seema Malhotra (Co-chair)is a Labour and Cooperative Member of Parliament (MP), Feltham and Heston, London Shadow Minister of Employment, the Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups – UK Parliament on the Future of Aviation, and an executive member of the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.  Her main policy interests are the economy, business, technology, and inequality.

Niall Bolger is the Chief Executive of the London Borough of Hounslow. Prior to his current role, he was the Chief Executive of the London Borough of Sutton for nearly eight years.  This followed a career in local government in London and the South East over more than 30 years. Niall is a qualified town planner and his professional background has been in planning, development, regeneration and environmental sustainability.

Conner McDonagh has over 15 years’ experience of regeneration, planning and development working in London local authorities and with the Greater London Authority.  This included securing multi-million pound investments to enable housing and employment growth and infrastructure projects. At Ealing Council he manages a multidisciplinary service that integrates climate action with growth and regeneration functions and is currently leading on the council’s economic recovery and renewal strategy.

Richard Templer has worked at the Imperial College for over 34 years specialising in sustainability and is currently the Director of Innovation at the Grantham Institute. He is the co-founder of Undaunted, to catalyse ‘clean’ innovation across business, industry and policy and help to drive a zero carbon and climate resilient future.

Andrew Dakers (Co-chair) is Chief Executive of West London Business.  He is a life-long resident of West London. Andrew has twenty years of experience working on corporate responsibility initiatives and is a tireless campaigner on local and global issues.

Toby Kress is the Programme Director at Plux X, working with innovators and industry to develop and scale innovative solutions to big challenges. Toby works with startups to design and develop innovation programmes and accelerators for corporations, startups and scaleups.

OPERATIONAL TEAM

Andrew Dakers: Co-Chair, West London Innovation Network

Amelia Grant: Head of Member Services/ Better Futures Development Manager, West London Business

Toby Kress: Programme Director, Plus X

Seema Malhotra: Co-Chair, West London Innovation Network

Farah Vallooran: LWIN Project Coordinator, West London Business