Press

Following on from the success of the Contemporary FD Summit in March, we will be co-hosting the Contemporary NED event in May alongside Smith & Williamson and NEDA. This year’s theme is:

Robots in the Boardroom – Fact or Fiction

AI (artificial intelligence) is a hot topic at the moment in and out of the boardroom. Whilst there has been a great deal of discussion about robots taking the jobs of humans in manufacturing and automated industries, should board directors be worried about the security of their roles? In May 2014 there was a lot written about a robot called Vital being appointed to the board of directors of a Hong Kong based venture capital firm, Deep Knowledge Ventures. In reality, it was a computer algorithm sifting through large amounts of data including financial information, clinical trials for particular drugs and previous funding to assist the human partners in their investment decisions. So is the imminent replacement of human workers by AI fact or fiction?

During the course of this afternoon we will hear from experts in the area of Artificial Intelligence who can shed light on the threats and opportunities available to us via AI. It is sure to be a very interesting afternoon.

Sarah has been asked by the BVCA to present at their CFO and FD training course on 4th October 2018.

Sarah is attending the Women in Private Equity & Venture Capital Breakfast on Tuesday 20th March 2018 at Dartmouth House.

On 6th March, to celebrate International Women’s Day, The Supper Club is bringing together female founders within The Supper Club to discuss challenges related to ‘Funding Ambition’. FinnCap’s CEO, Sam Smith, a pioneering female founder in growth capital will be there. She is a thought leader on funding growth for female entrepreneurs and has convened several events looking at access to finance, associated support, and mentoring for women. She also commissioned research which found that male entrepreneurs are 86% more likely to raise from VC! Sarah is attending.

On July 19th Cindy is speaking at Women on Boards/FTSE NED Breakfast sponsored by Apax Private Equity.

Sarah is attending the Jazz Shapers Recording and The Leap Founders Panel - The Power of Creativity in Business - on Thursday 15th March 2018.

We are very excited about our upcoming CFO Summit on 15th March at St Paul’s Etc Venue in Aldersgate Street in the City. This is the third year we have run this event (with our strategic partners Smith and Williamson). It is designed to get FDs and CFOs and those on that journey, together with their peers, to spend the day considering their wider role in an organisation and the influence they have as well as hopefully challenging themselves a little! For the 2018 Summit we have taken as the focus, culture, with reference to business. We shall be considering how this has changed and is changing and the role of the CFO in all of this. We are delighted that for our lunchtime keynote we have Rt Hon Harriet Harman QC, MP and our closing speaker, Sean Fitzpatrick – former captain of the All Blacks. In between we have sessions on such wide ranging topics as ‘Leadership Behaviours - the FD and Board as role models ‘and a brainstorm session entitled ‘Business Resilience – innovation and the value of diversity’. For more information on this event contact Sarah.

Sarah is attending Foresight: The Future of Finance On 27th March 2017

Sarah has recently joined The Supper Club And will be attending her first two events in January and February which are: Overcoming Obstacles to Scale Wednesday 17 January, 6.30pm Ladies Lunch Friday 9 February, 12.30pm

Sarah is attending Mishcon De Reyas ‘Apres Ski' Evening on 7th December 2017