Professor Mandy Parkinson, chair in business innovation at the University of Salford Business School, will join the breakfast panel at FUEL Manchester this month.

TechBlast’s two-part event on 20th September is aimed at startups and scaleups and begins with a business breakfast discussion.

Part two of FUEL Manchester is a series of exclusive masterclass sessions, where a select group of businesses will gain direct access to panels of experts.

Parkinson is a Professor of business innovation at Salford Business School and is focused on the development of innovation clusters that span the digital ecosystem.

A former programme director of the national Help to Grow Management and Made Smarter Leadership programme, Professor Parkinson’s research and enterprise interests focus on digital skills and the impact of digital technology adoption on productivity within micro and small businesses.

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FUEL Manchester is being hosted at KPMG’s Manchester office in St Peter’s Square. KPMG and Salford Business School are its first confirmed sponsors.

Professor Parkinson joins a stellar line-up of speakers confirmed for FUEL Manchester.

Paul Gouge, co-founder of Playdemic, Richard Potter, CEO of Manchester-based artificial intelligence scaleup Peak; and Amy Whitell, co-founder and CEO of Collctiv will join other entrepreneurs in the  initial breakfast discussion.

It will be followed by part two of FUEL Manchester, which consists of a series of exclusive masterclass sessions where a select group of businesses will gain direct access to panels of experts.

The session will be split into dedicated pods and involve a deep dive on the subjects raised in the morning session with respected names from the world of business.

FUEL Manchester

Ed Prior, associate director – corporate finance at KPMG; Patrick Molyneux, partner at KPMG Acceleris; and David Foreman, co-founder and managing partner of Praetura Ventures will be taking part in the funding session.

Christy Foster, founder and MD of Online4baby; Susanna Lawson, founder of OneFile; and Guy Remond, founder of thestartupfactory.tech and former MD of Cake Solutions, will make up the expert panel for the growth planning pod.

Richard Fallon, founder and outgoing CTO of Naimuri and Andrew Avanessian, CEO or AppLearn will form the people pod, discussing issues like recruitment and culture.

The final masterclass pod will cover branding and marketing and the panel will be made up of Kimberley Waldron, founder of SkyParlour; Amman Ahmed, co-founder of MusicForPets; and Richard West, co-founder and MD of Red Flag Alert. More speakers will be confirmed.

Sponsorship opportunities are still available for companies from the investment, legal, recruitment and PR & marketing sectors. For more information contact commercial director Gary Williams at this email address to discuss involvement.

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