Speakers

Lisa is an award-winning investor and CEO of Midlands Mindforge, a university founded co-investment company, established to invest & scale world-leading science & technology spinouts in the Midlands .

Lisa has over 25 years global investment experience including 8 years at Unilever Ventures leading sustainable investment, and Unilever’s IP-Spinouts.
Prior to her venturing career, Dr Smith was the first female Chief Engineer in Africa; at McKinsey she practiced lean operations across the consumer goods and tertiary care sectors in North America, UK, and Europe.

Dr Smith is passionate about people and planet; she created and launched a Pan-African green bond to address food security paired with a novel Agri-MBA for adoption of best practice.

Dr Smith is also an advisor and guest faculty for CISL (Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership).