A community built for innovators, by innovators

Claire is Founder & CEO of Plexal with expertise in tech clusters, innovation services and startup ecosystems. She founded ENTIQ, an innovation advisory and delivery firm, responsible for running world-leading innovation programmes for companies such as EY, Euroclear, Dassault Systemes and many more. ENTIQ also designed and delivered Cognicity, a smart city technology pilot programme in Canary Wharf which resulted in job creation, investment, awards, international exposure and client contracts for the participating SMEs.

Having designed and developed the Level39 Technology Accelerator in its first two years, Claire was responsible for building the brand of Fintech not only for Canary Wharf but more broadly for the UK, working closely with fintech businesses and large banks alike to understand the challenges and opportunities for innovation and growth in new finance.

Claire was founding Director and CEO of Innovate Finance (IF), a City of London and Canary Wharf Group-backed movement for a more diverse, resilient, accessible and consumer-centric financial services sector. Launched by ENTIQ, 54 fintech Founders and the Chancellor, Innovate Finance’s vision was to radically transform every aspect of banking to deliver more choice, better products and services, and benefit to society. Claire’s work since the very inception resulted in favourable policy change for fintech businesses, a regional outreach strategy, trade missions to New York and Singapore, historic events (such as the inaugural IF global summit), 100-plus members, and a strong, recognised brand with a powerful mission at its heart.

An Imperial College MBA alumna, specialising in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Design, her distinguished thesis explored incubators, tech transfer and accelerator models from around the world. She helped establish the Branson Centre for Entrepreneurship in Johannesburg, South Africa and she advised the Guardian Media Group on their ‘Digital First’ transformation strategy. During her time at The Guardian, she helped implement a company-wide change programme resulting in the launch of their world-class apps, dynamic web content and social media penetration.

Prior to coming to the UK in 2009, Claire founded, grew and sold Aesthetic Earthworks, a multi-million dollar sustainable architecture firm which pioneered environmentally friendly property development and care, based in Toronto, Canada.

Claire is an active member of the Guild of Entrepreneurs, The Mayor of London’s Tech Ambassador Group, Tech London Advocates, Women in Tech and is a fellow at the Royal Society of the Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce.

Tom has worked at major tech companies including Microsoft alongside a number of tech startups. He is available every month to talk marketing with our members.

Brandon is an experienced CFO who can help Plexal members understand cash flow, business model issues and any other financial questions.

Cara makes sure we’re putting on great events, meetups and bringing in great partners that benefit our whole community.

Need to organise a tour of the space or find out more about our membership options, talk to Kelsey

Lydia Ragoonanan is the programme lead for the London Cyber Innovation Centre. She caught the bug to support collaboration between startups and large organisations during her four years at Nesta, where she designed and ran programmes to test and scale new social innovations.

Before working at Nesta, Lydia was the principal strategist at the New Zealand Transport agency where she wove behavioural insights approaches and user design into the fabric of the organisation. While at the Transport Agency, she was the Australasian representative on the World Road Forum’s funding and finance committee. And in past professional lives, she’s also been an internal auditor and a private secretary in the civil service.

In her spare time, Lydia enjoys the great outdoors, geeking out on podcasts and having adventures with her six-year-old daughter.

Need to recruit staff or retain the team you have, it’s about much more than money, Meryl can help you build a winning team and culture

Our programme of events, from female-founder accelerators to sport tech hackathons are managed by Phil and his capable team. Get in touch to learn more about our event programme.

Tommy has a genuine passion for the startup way of innovating. Before Joining Plexal he assisted Australian venture capital fund and accelerator BlueChilli in founding a satellite office in Brisbane . He has acted as an advisor to businesses across Australia, and has been part of multiple journeys that have transformed ideas into million-dollar startups.

He is an ambassador for Angelhack, the world’s largest hackathon organization, and a university guest lecturer on entrepreneurship.

Part mad professor (he holds degrees in Engineering Physics and Medicine and has a Masters in Psychology) and part business growth specialist, Swedish-born Markovski has business acumen, creativity and a genuine love of people in spades.

After spending 15 years spearheading change at Google, Adobe, Bazaarvoice and WPP, he’s helping Plexal’s clients transform their businesses and build purpose-driven teams that ultimately results in measurable growth. A believer in the power of behavioural insights and good old-fashioned empathy, he understands that innovation is carried out by people first and foremost.

In short, the sort of person you want holding your hand as you propel forwards into the next industrial revolution.

When he’s not regaling us with piano concertos, Hunt delivers innovation programmes for clients and helps bridge connections between startups, scaleups, corporates and academia.

Before joining Plexal, Hunt designed and delivered workshops for Capgemini and helped shape its emerging tech and innovation capability in the UK.