Team

Dr. Hommels is the Founder and Chairman of venture capital firm Lakestar, one of Europe's leading technology investors. He is the current Chair of InvestEurope, the association representing European Private Equity and Venture Capital, and a member of the UK Capital Markets Industry Taskforce. He serves on a number of digital boards and think tanks, such as the Security Innovation Board for the Munich Security Conference. Klaus is a frequent voice on the European ecosystem promoting the need for greater sovereignty in financing and technology. Klaus has been recognized numerous times by the Midas List for his investment track record in companies such as Spotify, Klarna, Revolut and AirBnB.

Dame Fiona is the Associate Dean of Innovation and Inclusion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) School of Management and the William Porter (1967) Professor of Entrepreneurship. She is the Co-Director of MIT’s Innovation Initiative and Faculty Director of the MIT Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship and Development. Dame Fiona is an associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and serves on British Prime Minister’s Council on Science and Technology. She received her BA ’89 and MA ‘90 from the University of Oxford in chemistry. She subsequently moved to the United States and earned an AM ’92 and PhD ’96 from Harvard University in applied sciences.

Dr. Cingolani is the former Italian Minister for the Ecological Transition and founded the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, which he also led as Scientific Director. Dr. Cingolani currently serves as Leonardo’s Chief Executive Officer and General Manager. He was a staff member at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart and a Visiting Professor at Tokyo University and Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Cingolani founded the National Nanotechnology Laboratory of the Italian Institute for the Physics of Matter. He has served as an Advisor for the Ministry of Research and University as well as for the European Commission.

Mr. Agerup is a global partner at early stage VC firm Antler from January 2020. Previously CEO of Oslotech AS from 2010-2020, co-founder and General partner of Northzone Ventures from 1997–2009, co-founder and CEO of Hugin ASA and project manager in McKinsey & Company. Mr. Agerup has extensive board experience, including from companies such as DNB ASA, Zalaris ASA and Startuplab AS (chair). He is currently the Board Chair of leading Nordic media company Schibsted and has since 2010 been an alternate board member in the Tinius Trust. Mr. Agerup is a graduate of Copenhagen Business School and holds a Master of Science in Management from MIT.

Ebru Dorman is an accomplished VC investor with 20+ years experience in corporate venture capital and angel investing with a deep appreciation for adaption challenges. Her career began at McKinsey & Co. She has been an investment manager with Morgan Stanley Strategic Ventures and Orange Ventures, based in London, followed by senior executive roles in marketing, strategy, M&A and P&L management in the telecommunications and healthcare sectors in Europe and Asia. She has served as founding chair of an accelerator and micro-VC, and LPAC member of VC and PE funds. Currently, she is an investor in a VC fund with deep tech focus. She is an angel investor and mentors founders globally. Ebru has been chairwoman and director since 2015 on a diverse range of boards including large corporates, technology companies and NGOs. She currently serves as an independent board member at HSBC Bank Turkiye and Saran Media Group. She has an MBA degree from Harvard Business School and a MS degree in Industrial Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Jónsson is the CEO of AwareGO and the Chair of Videntifier Technologies. Over the last 15 years, he has worked on various projects related to innovation and entrepreneurship in Iceland. Dr. Jónsson has been board member of high-tech startup companies and involved in strategy and policy development for the government. In 2007, he joined Reykjavik University and in 2010 he was appointed president of the university. Dr. Jónsson worked previously for 10 years at NASA as a senior research scientist and a manager. He graduated with a PhD from Stanford University in 1997, with focus on artificial intelligence.

Mr. Salm has served as the permanent secretary of Ministry of Defence of Estonia since May 2021. He was previously director general of the Estonian Centre of Defence Investment. Mr. Salm joined the Ministry of Defence of Estonia in 2007, working as an advisor for EU defence policy. He later moved on to other positions, including armaments cooperation counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Estonia to NATO (2011-15) and director of the defence investments department (2016-19). In 2017, Mr Salm was the chief negotiator and chairman of the EU working group on the European Defence Industrial Development Programme. Kusti Salm is a graduate of Political Science from the University of Tartu, as improved himself professionally in the field of business management, in Holland, and through armament cooperation courses, in France.

Prince Constantijn is co-founder of TechLeap.NL and serves as ‘Special Envoy’, as previously at StartupDelta. He is board member of the €20Bn National Growth Fund, investing in frontier technologies in The Netherlands. Prince Constantijn is an independent adviser on corporate innovation and jointly initiated Startup Fest Europe. He is also Director of Digital Technology and Macro Strategy at Macro Advisory Partners in London and Edge Fellow at Deloitte Center for the Edge. The Prince was member of a 15-strong High Level Group of Innovators that advised the European Commission on establishing the European Innovation Council. The ambition being to improve Europe's performance in breakthrough, market-creating innovation. In 2017, Prince Constantijn and Princess Laurentien set up the Number 5 Foundation, a charity that is currently developing various innovative initiatives to address a range of social issues. Previously, he worked as a management consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton in London, as adviser on EU communications at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and set up and lead the Brussels office of the RAND Corporation. He gained his master's degree in law from Leiden University where he specialised in civil law and studied business economics at the European Institute of Business Administration in Fontainebleau (INSEAD).

Mr. Raj Shah is currently the Managing Partner of Shield Capital, a venture fund based in San Francisco. He is also the Co-Founder and Chairman of Resilience. Previously, he was the founding Director of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx now DIU), reporting directly to the Secretary of Defense. Mr. Shah led DIUx in its efforts to strengthen the U.S. Armed Forces through accelerating commercial technology into the Pentagon. Before that he was senior director of strategy at Palo Alto Networks, which acquired Morta Security, where he was CEO. Mr. Shah began his business career as a consultant with McKinsey & Co. He serves as an F-16 pilot in the Air National Guard and has completed multiple combat tours. Mr. Shah also founded the Nanubhai Education Foundation, which provides higher education to financially vulnerable women in India. He holds an AB from Princeton University and an MBA from The Wharton School.

David van Weel is NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges. He is the Secretary General’s primary advisor on emerging security challenges and their implications for the security of the Alliance and a member of the Secretary General’s senior management team. Prior to joining NATO, David van Weel was the Foreign Policy and Defense Advisor for the Prime Minister of The Netherlands (2016-2020). This position followed a long career in The Netherlands Ministry of Defence, where he ended as Director for International Affairs and Operations/ Policy Director (2014-2016) after serving as the Chief of Cabinet for the Minister of Defence and the Permanent Secretary (2012-2014) and as the senior policy officer for amongst others operations in Afghanistan and Libya, NATO, nuclear policy and disarmament, special operations and the preparation of the Defence Budget. David started his career in the Royal Netherlands Navy, where, upon completion of the Naval Academy (1994-1999), he served on different frigates, served in the British Royal Navy as an exchange officer, worked as a Staff Officer for Middle and Eastern European countries in the Defence Staff and ended as a Primary Warfare officer and Navigation Officer.