Meet your startup hit squad.

Nic has 18 years experience in the venture capital industry and prior to founding Forward Partners in June 2013, was a Partner at leading venture capital firm Draper Esprit.

He has worked and invested in London and Silicon Valley, leading over 25 investments and enjoying a number of successful exits including buy.at (acquired by AOL for $125m) and Zeus Technology (acquired by Riverbed for $140m).

What Nic loves about FP: "I don't know whether to be prouder of our team or of the partners we've helped"

Jasel runs the team delivering value-added services to our partner companies, from early-stage idea through to launch and anywhere in between. This includes product strategy, customer experience, brand development, technology services, growth marketing, talent, PR and more (breathe). He has a background in building and running teams developing innovative products and experiences for some of the world’s most celebrated brands. This included 13 years at AKQA on clients including Audi, Coca Cola, Nike and Nissan.

When not working, J’s a proud father of two, loves to travel and watching his favourite football team.

What J loves about FP:  “Being part of a sufficiently crazy, yet talented, team that help ambitious entrepreneurs create and shape great businesses.”

Matthew used to work on trading floors at Lloyds and BarCap before seeing the light. Following an MBA at SDA Bocconi and before joining us he became an entrepreneur and investor in his own right. 

Matt splits his time between investments and working across the portfolio. 

What Matthew loves about FP: "There is huge ambition here and the team to realise it. We have to be the best partner for entrepreneurs and that's something which is at the heart of everything that we do."

Dharmesh has been with Forward Partners since inception helping all our portfolio build great products to create valuable businesses. Prior to FP, he founded 2 tech startups in the loyalty and virtual pet spaces. He sold one and has the scars from both. Since the early dot com days Dharmesh has worked across a number of high profile tech companies in the UK from early stage AI companies, high growth gaming companies like Mind Candy, and with larger organisations like the BBC running product for their social software platforms. He is a regular speaker and writer on Product Management. 

What Dharmesh loves about FP: "We give a shit, we are honest, we share what we know and have the time to help founders execute on their vision.

Leonidas has over fifteen years of experience in software and product development, specializing in full stack development, scalable infrastructures, data engineering and lean development practices. He has founded two startups and is an advisor to others.

Leo has a strong engineering background, he works closely with our early-stage startups on all their technology-oriented needs. He’s an open source advocate and a frequent speaker at tech events on infrastructure, scalability, data engineering, and application performance.

What Leo loves most about FP: "I enjoy working in a fast-paced, data-driven environment across many different companies, ideas and people.”

Will spent nearly 10 years working as a business consultant with Accenture before pivoting his training in project management towards finance and operations leadership roles within the world of startup. He made the move with Hassle.com  as their Finance Director & Head of Business Operations, where he went on their journey of significant growth and exit.

His background means that he is passionate about making sure that finance and business operations are in a state of utter control whilst within a culture of continuous improvement.

What Will loves about FP: “I’m massively excited to be part of a high performing team made up of outstanding individuals with a mission to empower the next generation of game-changing businesses and entrepreneurs.”

Seth brings 7 years of design experience from around the world including Washington DC, Cleveland, Ohio and Malta having won awards for his print and packaging designs.

He has a strong passion for all things branding and helped maintain brand standards for world-wide corporations (Nestle, Nokia, John Deere, Kimberly Clark and Sherwin Williams) while also creating new and engaging brands for start-ups, city organisations and charities while his ability to transition his layout and branding skills to the digital world has resulted in clean, intuitive and modern web designs.

What Seth loves about FP: "I really love the challenge of working on different projects at the same time while educating our founders on how design and branding can positively impact their business."

Ginni has worked in people functions for nearly ten years and is passionate about building, retaining and developing high-impact, high-performing teams.

From identifying core values, to designing performance-enhancing strategies, to running the best interview processes in the business, Ginni brings her expertise to Forward Partners following hands-on experience of fast-paced team growth at VC backed FinTech startup, DueDil.

Ginni has a MSc in Human Resources and Organisational Analysis, and Level 7 Associate CIPD qualification.

What Ginni loves about FP: "I am so excited to be part of this amazing team; Forward Partners really set the bar for what excellence looks like! Also helping our founders to bring into their businesses truly entrepreneurial and game-changing talent, at such an early stage of their journey, is just the most fulfilling and rewarding experience."

Fiona’s love of consumer psychology, behavioural economics, and future technologies led her to the world of user experience design. She helps early stage start-ups to uncover customer insights, explore radical solutions and test ideas.

What Fiona loves about FP : "Joining founders at the beginning of their journey; helping to bring their idea to life, build a product and watch it grow!"

Martin is a full stack developer who helps build the right product. He has a passion for development best practices, lean solutions and user-focused products. His background is working with digital media and Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) brands.

When Martin is not at work he likes long walks on the beach and other cliches.

What Martin loves about FP: "Working day in, day out with passionate founders with huge ambition to take their vision and turn it into reality."

Before joining Forward Partners, Tara worked in Operations across various Start Ups and SME’s. Most recently coming from events based start up Hire Space. She’s also spent the last 5 years as a professional actor, but decided to leave behind the glitz and glamour to focus on her career in Ops.

What Tara loves about FP: "I love that I get to collaborate with people who are not only pioneers in their field, but who feel passionately about making our portfolio companies succeed."

Luke joined Forward Partners from REV Venture Partners, a corporate VC, where he was responsible for deal origination, investment due diligence and portfolio reporting. He was previously a consultant with the strategy consultancy Oliver Wyman, where he worked across the retail, aviation, healthcare and FMCG sectors.

Luke originally planned a career in science and he holds a PhD in biochemistry. His focus at Forward Partners is on sourcing and executing new investments.

What Luke loves about FP: "Working as part of a passionate and fun team with the vision to build the best early stage VC in the UK."

About me: Chris previously founded data science platform growthsquared.io, enabling e-commerce businesses to apply advanced analytics to their data. Before that, as Head of Analytics at Swoon Editions, he championed the "zero stock, zero lead time” model in online furniture retail. He has a PhD in organisational economics from Imperial College London, where he worked with the Grantham Institute to incentivise institutional investment into renewable energy infrastructure.   

He also worked part-time on the London Stock Exchange ELITE programme, supporting UK scale-ups - including brands such as Skyscanner, graze.com, Vision Direct and MedicAnimal - with the exciting nightmare of rapid growth. He has coached early stage tech entrepreneurs and deep science spinouts from Imperial College, and produced a series of case studies on common startup challenges. 

What Chris loves about FP: "Working with super bright people who are passionate about creating value for entrepreneurs, consumers and society."

Louise started out as a medical doctor and has experience in a number of medical and surgical specialties. She has undertaken research in a world class laboratory, is published in an international medical journal and has presented work at multiple national and international conferences.

Following this she joined Entrepreneur First where she developed Zinc, a vertical professional network for the medical profession.

What Louise loves about FP: Super excited to be part of such an experienced and accomplished team and to work with some exceptional founders solving interesting problems.