Our Board

Paul is at the helm of Scotland’s leading college and is responsible for developing a new £228M world class twin campus in the heart of Glasgow’s Learning Quarter and along the River Clyde. Paul has successfully led and transformed five UK colleges and has earned a national reputation as one of the education sector’s leading reformers. He has studied with leading European business schools and is a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. As a qualified yacht skipper, Paul served as a HM Coastguard Officer for 30 years and completed tours of duty with the US Coastguard.

Robert is CEO and President of Manufacturing at the BMW US Plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, which employs 11,000 people on an 8 million square foot campus. Before this role, Robert was head of manufacturing at BMW Munich. From 2014 to 2018, he worked in China and was responsible for production and purchasing in the joint venture with Brilliance Automotive. In this role, he also managed two vehicle plants and one engine plant of the BMW Group in Dadong and Tiexi, respectively.

After having completed the studies of industrial engineering and management at the Technichal University of Graz, Hans started his career in the family business Kostwein Maschinenbau KG. Today, he is managing director of the Kostwein Group which incorporates 4 sites in Carinthia (Austria), one site in Croatia (founded in 2001) and one site in India (founded in 2010). In 2014, he was nominated to become a member of the EFQM-Board where he represents the small and medium enterprises of the machine industry.

Daniel is the Chief Growth/Commercial Officer of LMIS AG, an IT company based in Germany specialising in software development, managed applications, and AI. He is an accomplished senior executive with over two decades of experience in the B2B sales and services industry. Before assuming his present position, Daniel was the EMEA Sector Leader for Telco/Media/Digital at Meta/Facebook. Before that, he spent three years as the Managing Director of a division within Bertelsmann (Arvato Bertelsmann). Daniel has also worked internationally, encompassing the Middle East, LATAM, and Asia. In addition to his corporate responsibilities, Daniel actively contributes to the entrepreneurial ecosystem as an independent mentor, collaborating with the WHU Otto-Beisheim School of Management Chair of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Technological Transformation. He is particularly dedicated to supporting startups, leveraging his affiliation with Germany’s top business school.

Markus is Managing Partner at Valerna. Valerna provides succession solutions for family-owned businesses to help them grow faster, perform better, and reinforce the legacy of the current shareholder. Previously, Markus was Managing Director of Mayfair Equity Partners and an investor at L-GAM and Volpi Capital. As a private equity investor, he has acquired, supported, and exited several businesses across continental Europe and the UK. He is currently on the board of Jonckers Translation & Engineering. In his earlier career, Markus was a management consultant with Bain & Company in their London, Johannesburg, San Francisco, and Dubai offices. He focused on advising private equity fund clients on the commercial merits of potential acquisitions and technology clients on their corporate strategy, go-to-market, and growth.

Shweta is a successful global, experienced CEO and product leader with over twenty years of experience in product development, growth, and strategy and is currently the Founder and CEO of AI Gizmo. She has strong functional expertise in building technology businesses and scaling them. Previously, as CEO of MachineMax (currently a subsidiary of and being di-vested from Shell), she had grown the company from scratch and organically scaled it globally in North America, the UK, Europe, India and Saudi Arabia. Prior to MachineMax, Shweta was an early member of BCG—Digital Ventures, London’s senior team. She led the product development and launch of new ventures for companies like Lego, Celine handbags, and Shell, driving the company’s tremendous growth in the UK. Prior to BCG-Digital Ventures, Shweta helped scale two data-based startups and saw them through successful exits. She also held leading product roles at Dell Computers, Thomas Cook, and Standard Chartered Bank. Shweta was born and raised in India and graduated with a degree in Mathematics and a Master’s in Business Administration.