Fourth speaker announcement
Francesco Corea
↪ Fractional Head of Data, DataHunt
Francesco is a Fractional Head of Data and he oversees the data strategy and builds data-driven engines to source, screen, and assess new deals. He led Greycroft data effort in California, and prior to that spent three years at Balderton Capital leading the data and research function, working on end-to-end tools, data, and algorithms for the investment team. Previously, he worked at Anthemis Group as a Fellow, and as a post-doc researcher at Ca’ Foscari University. Francesco holds a PhD in Economics from LUISS Guido Carli.
Mark Post
↪ Chief Scientific Officer, Mosa Meat
ADr Mark Post, MD/PhD, has had several academic appointments at Utrecht University, Harvard University, Dartmouth college, Eindhoven University of Technology and Maastricht University. He currently is professor of Sustainable Industrial Tissue Engineering at Maastricht University. He is visiting professor at Harvard, University of Modena and faculty at Singularity University. His main research interest is the engineering of tissues for various applications. Tissue engineering for Food has led to the development of cultured beef from bovine skeletal muscle stem cells. The same technology is used to culture leather. Dr Post co-authored more than 200 papers in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals and coordinated several national consortia with funding and awards from different sources including government, charity and industry. He is a frequent speaker at international events on innovation in the agrifood sector. He presented the world’s first hamburger from cultured beef in the August 2013 for which he received the World Technology Award from AAAS/Times/Forbes. Dr Post is CSO and co-founder of Mosa Meat and of Qorium, two companies that aim to commercialize meat and leather applications of tissue engineering. Together, these companies have 120 employees, including 50 scientists.
Björn Örvar
↪ Co-Founder, Chief Scientific Officer, and EVP of Business Development, ORF Genetics
Björn holds a PhD in plant molecular genetics from the University of British Columbia and completed postdoctoral research at McGill University in Montréal, focusing on plant molecular biology. His scientific expertise is the foundation of ORF's core platform — producing recombinant human and animal growth factors in bioengineered barley. This technology is the basis for various product lines, including MESOkine, a portfolio of growth factors designed to enable the production of cultivated meat at scale.
Elina Zheleva
↪ Managing Partner and Director, launchlabs Sofia
I am the founder of launchlabs Sofia - an international studio with offices in Sofia, Berlin and Basel. We co-create with leaders, innovation teams and ecosystem partners for a better future.
Paul Hourican
↪ Head of Creative Industries, Namier Capital
Paul Hourican is the Head of Namier Creative Industries, leading its strategy and investments across music, technology, and the creator economy.
Formerly Global Head of Music Operations at TikTok, Paul played a central role in scaling the platform into one of the most influential forces in global music and culture. He built and led cross-functional teams responsible for partnerships, strategy, and go-to-market execution, driving TikTok’s engagement with users, artists, labels, and the wider creative ecosystem.
Under his leadership, TikTok launched several industry-defining initiatives, including In The Mix (the platform’s first live music experience and largest-ever livestream, the rollout of SoundOn, its artist distribution service, and multiple Cannes Lions-winning campaigns. He was recognised by Billboard among its Global Power Players for outstanding impact on the modern music business.
Before TikTok, Paul held senior international roles at YouTube (Head of International Artist Marketing) and MTV Networks (Head of Talent & Music). He holds a degree in Business, Marketing & E-Commerce from the University of Westminster.
Chef Stéphanie Baryluk
↪ Co-Founder, Red Seal Indigenous Chef, Nihkhah
Chef Stéphanie Baryluk is a proud Teetl'it Gwich'in from Teetl'it Zheh (Fort McPherson) in Canada's Arctic. As Co-Founder of Nihkhah — an Indigenous- and women-majority-owned social enterprise — Chef Steph's work is guided by four pillars: Gather. Learn. Grow. Connect. Reconnecting communities to land and culture, transferring culinary knowledge across generations, advancing Indigenous food sovereignty and entrepreneurship, and bridging Indigenous wisdom with institutions, procurement systems, and global food policy.Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women (2024), Chef Steph has spoken and delivered programming everywhere from UN platforms and diplomatic engagements at G7 to community kitchens and small gatherings across the indigenous communities across the country.
“We belong in these spaces. From the Arctic to Rome, Indigenous food holds the power to heal, connect, and transform."- Chef Steph.
Laura Sinisalo
↪ Brand & Marketing Director, Solar Foods
Laura Sinisalo is a strategic corporate communications and brand leader with a cross-industry track record of strengthening reputation, credibility and influence in complex, high-visibility environments. She operates at the intersection of business strategy, brand and transformation, helping organisations articulate their value, build stakeholder trust and establish coherent positioning during periods of growth and change.
At Solar Foods, she leads the company’s brand and communications, having built the platform from the ground up to create a unified corporate narrative and external positioning that support international scale-up and long-term value creation.
Ailish McLaughlin
↪ Head of Solutions, UnlikelyAI
Ailish is Head of Solutions at Unlikely AI, a London-based company building trustworthy AI for regulated industries like banking, insurance, and accounting. UnlikelyAI combines large language models with symbolic AI to deliver outcomes that are not just fast, but reliably right and explainable and they work with some of the UK's biggest financial institutions, helping them adopt AI without compromising on compliance or accuracy. Ailish is also the creator and host of Trust Issues, a show designed to make AI genuinely accessible, breaking down barriers for people who want to understand what this technology means for their work and their lives. Whether it's building AI that businesses can rely on or helping individuals understand it well enough to use it wisely, her mission is the same: making sure trust sits at the centre of how we build, adopt, and live with AI.
Dr. Ari Kristinn Jónsson
↪ President, NATO Innovation Fund
Dr. Jónsson is the President of the NATO Innovation Fund. As President, he drives operational excellence in meeting the Fund’s commercial, adoption and capacity building goals. He also serves as an advocate for the NIF and its portfolio companies across the 24 nations backing the Fund. Dr. Jónsson joins the NIF from Icelandic tech company Videntifier, where he has been serving as CEO. He previously served as President of one of Iceland’s largest universities. Before that, he was a senior research scientist and manager at NASA for 10 years. He graduated with a PhD from Stanford University in 1997, with focus on artificial intelligence.
Sif Björnsdóttir
↪ Head of Community & Growth, Merantix AI Campus
Sif Björnsdóttiris Head of Community & Growth and a founding team member of the Merantix AI Campus in Berlin, an initiative by the Merantix Group and Europe’s leading hub for applied artificial intelligence. As the first hire at the Campus, she has played a key role in building and scaling its ecosystem, connecting founders, engineers, researchers, investors, and industry leaders to accelerate the development and adoption of AI. Before joining Merantix, she held community and operations roles at international technology companies including WeWork and Medigo, where she focused on building high-impact communities around innovation and technology. Originally from Iceland and now based in Berlin, she works at the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, and ecosystem building.
Ingvar Helgason
↪ CEO, Stratis
Ingvar Helgason is the CEO of Stratis and a veteran startup builder. Before founding Stratis, he spent a decade in the biotech industry. He now focuses on building technology that helps decision-makers make sense of complex real-world situations.
Anna Kristín Pálsdóttir
↪ Chief Development Officer, atNorth
Anna joined atNorth in 2024, bringing a wealth of experience in business strategy and global leadership to the team. As Chief Development Officer, Anna leads the strategic management of atNorth‘s development and property portfolio, with specific focus on site selection, expansion of existing sites, plus new facilities across the Nordics.
Prior to atNorth, Anna spent eight years at Marel in director and executive level positions. An experienced board member and frequent speaker, she has served as an executive leader for numerous years, leading cross-organizational operations and strategy implementation globally.
Vala Valþórsdóttir
↪ CEO, Aurora Abalone
Vala Valþórsdóttir is the CEO of Aurora Abalone, an Icelandic aquaculture company pioneering geothermal-powered, land-based farming of premium abalone. With a background in law, energy, and international business development, she has worked at the intersection of infrastructure, sustainability, and innovation throughout her career. She is leading the scale-up of Aurora Abalone towards 1,000 tons of premium abalone production, building a scalable model for high-quality, sustainable seafood.
Alicja Lei
↪ Head of B2B, Digido
After more than a decade in marketing, Alicja has developed a soft spot for what she insists is the sexy side of the industry: B2B. She believes brand matters (even when you can’t prove it in a dashboard), design supports, but messaging does the real work. What keeps her on her toes is how quickly the field evolves...because in B2B marketing, staying relevant often means letting go of yesterday’s “best practices.”
Stella Stoyanova
↪ Head of Data and Modeling, Crowberry Capital
Stella Stoyanova is an investment professional at Crowberry Capital, where she has spent the past three years working across data and systems, LP reporting, and portfolio management — including board roles at several portfolio companies. She brings over two decades of Wall Street experience to the role, having built her career as a Managing Director in Fixed Income Sales at JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and RBS.
Shruthi Basappa
↪ Founding Partner, SEI Studio
A multi-disciplinary creative, Shruthi is an architect from 9-5 and a food writer from 5-9. Founder of award-winning practice Sei Studio based in Reykjavik, Iceland, her work spans the spectrum of old timber vernacular revival from the 1850’s to modern icons like the Bolafjall viewing platform, from master plans for towns to material research like Leirur - the first of it’s kind Icelandic clay as a building material. As a food writer, she is the resident food critic at The Reykjavik Grapevine for over a decade, with bylines in TimeOut magazine, Fæða, and the Nordic White Guide amongst others. People and communities are at the core of Shruthi’s practice and this intersectionality guides both her design and gastronomic projects.