Top 0 Asian Stars in UK Tech - JOOMAG version Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech 2015 | Page 7

Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech 2015

Lopa Patel
Founder & CEO - Diversity UK
Lopa Patel is a digital entrepreneur who founded the popular online South Asian Lifestyle portal
Redhotcurry.com in 2001, ecommerce website TheRedhotshop.com in 2005 and she also publishes the
annual Asian Power Couples Hot 100 list. After attaining a BTec in Computer Science followed by a BSc in
Biochemistry from the University of Manchester, she started her career at Imperial Chemical Industries,
before leaving to set up DMS Direct Ltd, a direct marketing business, in 1991. The advent of the internet encouraged her to set
up Redhotcurry.com, initially as a means of sharing curry recipes, before it grew to cover the wider South Asian lifestyle sector.
Lopa is also the Founder & CEO of equality and inclusion think tank Diversity UK and a Technology Ambassador for STEMNET,
helping to encourage girls to take up science careers. She was honoured with an MBE in 2009 for services to the Creative
Industries and received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion in 2015.

Neeta Patel
CEO - New Entrepreneurs Foundation
Neeta Patel is Chief Executive of the New Entrepreneurs Foundation (NEF), a charity that aims to
develop the next generation of UK entrepreneurs. Before joining the NEF, Neeta worked in private
equity, matching technology entrepreneurs to investors. She has also worked at the British Council, the
Financial Times, Legal & General - where she launched the first personal finance website in Europe – and
Thomson Financial (Reuters).
She has an MBA from City University Cass Business School; a Sloan fellowship in strategy and leadership from London
Business School, where she was an entrepreneur-mentor in residence and a Masters from the University of Oxford. She
completed the Senior Management Programme at Harvard University and co-authored the business book ‘Creative Business
- The Making of Addictive Stories’ in 2003. An acknowledged leader in entrepreneurship development in the UK and a regular
contributor to The Huffington Post and Real Business Magazine, she is also a non-executive director at Go City Girl, a fashion
e-commerce business and a trustee at the Young Women’s Trust.

Sarah Turner
Founder - Angel Academe
Sarah Turner is a technologist, consultant, startup advisor and angel investor who has been working in
and around digital technology for the last 20 years. She set up Angel Academe to activate more women
as angel investors in technology startups. Over half of the angels in the group are women and are new
to investing and we invest in technology businesses with a woman on the founding team. Sarah is also a
Director at Turner Hopkins, a consultancy that help clients create their digital strategy. She is a Dealmaker for the UTKI Global
Entrepreneur Programme, the GEP team consists of a network of internationally successful entrepreneurs who are able to
offer their insight, networks and experience to help selected early stage technology ventures relocate to the UK and grow
their businesses from here.
Sarah is also a mentor at BBCWLabs, the BBC Worldwide’s digital media startup accelerator providing outstanding
entrepreneurs with mentors, infrastructure and partnerships, at TechStars London and StartUpYard. She has a Bachelor’s
degree from the University of East Anglia and a Masters in Information Systems from the University of Brighton.

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