Since graduating with a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering Peter’s career has been inextricably linked with both: the delivery of industrial control and instrumentation systems across the Oil and Gas, Power, Process, Water and Aerospace industries; as well as the management of power and process facilities and companies.

Until 2017 Peter worked as a specialist consultant providing expertise in support of C&I (control and instrumentation) and safety critical technologies – a role that expanded in the late 1990’s to include Operational Technology (OT) security.

Peter holds an MBA and a master’s degree in Information Security (specialising in industrial control systems) and now works for Yorkshire Water as their Cyber-Physical Security Manager – a role that recognises the distinction between traditional Information Security and the needs of protecting cyber physical equipment from cyber-attack.

See Peter’s LinkedIn profile here.

Wendy Jephson is Head of Research and Ideation for Market Technology Products at Nasdaq. Wendy is responsible for leading a unique team of experts that combines behavioural science, financial domain knowledge, and advanced analytics to bring diverse thinking and cross-industry experience to designing and delivering technology that solves some of the biggest challenges in financial services.

Dual qualified as a commercial lawyer and Business Psychologist with domain expertise in healthcare and financial services, in her role as Co-Founder Wendy was instrumental in the original vision, growth phase and acquisition of Sybenetix by Nasdaq.

As Head of Research and Ideation at Nasdaq Wendy and her team work closely with clients using behavioural science methodology to dive deeply into complex challenges facing the financial industry. Together they are designing innovative technology for Conduct Risk, Financial Crime and Marketplace operations that can deliver efficiency, consistency and greater resilience to our organisations.

Recognised as a leader in her field, Wendy regularly delivers keynotes to Regulators, Buy and Sell-side organisations, and leading universities around the world on topics as diverse as AI, Surveillance, Technology Design, Cognitive Engineering, Organisational Resilience and Conduct and Culture. Wendy also sits as a Board member for the Copenhagen, Helsinki, Iceland and Oslo Nasdaq Exchanges and acts as an Advisor to AIR, the Alliance for Innovative Regulation and Chairs the UCL’s Doctoral Research Programme, Ecobrain.

See Wendy’s LinkedIn profile here.

Rob was appointed CEO of Inogesis in September 2018, and has had a career that spans frontline military defence, corporate, start-ups and consulting roles across the US and Europe. He has experienced the corporate innovation challenge whilst creating and leading the Personal and Business Banking Innovation team at RBS. Rob has always connected to new technology by mentoring start-ups through various accelerators and is an accomplished international speaker/writer on the topic of business strategy and innovation. He graduated from Villanova University with a degree in Mathematics and has an MBA from San Diego State University.

See Rob’s LinkedIn profile here.

• Know your product and market, clearly articulate the benefits for stakeholders e.g., costs, commercial benefit etc.
• Attend relevant industry events to meet potential contacts and collaborators.
• When attending evens/conferences, work the room, seek out decision makers and split your time between people you have met before and those who you’ve not met previously.
• Avoid using events as a sounding board, work out a clear message before engagement.
• Communicate appropriately, the language of industry is different to academia. Keep key messages short and simple and avoid the use of extraneous infomation e.g. references.

See Peter’s slides in full here.

• For elevator pitch presentations make sure you connect with something that matters to your audience in a simple way that they can understand. Practice delivering your elevator pitch to others and ask them to repeat it back to you in their own words. Make changes based on their feedback.
• Businesses want things to happen fast and bring value. You will be competing for time, budget, and attention, so your story should be understandable and clearly articulate the benefits for stakehokders to get involved.
• Communicate with others continuously about your idea/project – things change and fail, but you may discover new directions. This will keep your story evolving.

See Wendy’s slides in full here.

• The most valuable thing for industry is time, especially for senior people. Be clear and effective in your communication and clearly articulate the benefits of your work in a way that’s easy to understand.
• Businesses use very different language compared to academia: value for money, return on investment, etc. – get used to business speak.
• Businesses will constantly think about outcomes, and much less about the process. Make sure you explain how your research adds value to their business.
• Checklist: understand your audience and their needs; be clear about benefits to your audience; and be confident about what you bring – the rigour, the brilliance.

• Think about how to partner with potential collaborators. Big companies are used to working with big companies, not with individual researchers. Small ideas may not be of interest to big companies, approach companies which could benefit from your ideas.
• Business managers want benefits and speed. Proof of Concept (PoC) should come live fast (months, not years).
• Build your story. For instance, if you want to sell a book, think about how long it will take from the idea of a book to selling the first copy. For a book selling PoC – set up a company and sell a single copy of a book in a single country. You can use that story to develop your PoC further by e.g., automating some of the processes for book selling. The scaled-up picture may be overwhelming (many moving parts), so keep your story simple, and keep repeating your story to potential new partners.

• Just ask them! People are generally helpful. Call people up and ask for a little bit of help. Find similar people if you cannot reach the target person – use phone, social media.
• Use business conferences to meet people and listen to what they have to say.
• Do as much work as you can for them – ask only for little bit of help, do not ask to e.g., recommend something.

• Social media is fine (LinkedIn). Follow up with a compliment – a public acknowledgement for something they’ve done when you met them is a good way to do that (e.g., “heard a brilliant talk by person X at conference Y”).
• Do a write-up about the event, mention people whom you met there. Attendees may share your write-up within their own networks, extending your reach.

• A good way to see the difference is LinkedIn vs. Facebook.
• Academia is less formal, but business is a bit more conservative.

• Do the work for them. Set up a meeting or call at a convenient time for the business person.
• Use time wisely and remember that the business person may not be available for months after you first met them.

• Tech Nation is growth platform for tech companies and leaders. They have various programmes to support technical innovators.
• The Department for Culture, Media and Sport have various events/programmes to facilitate this transition. The Cyber ASAP (Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme) initiative is a great example – it’s a pre-seed accelerator programme. Also see https://ktn-uk.org/about/.

• The content will be much the same but there are differences in the approach. It’s important to understand the cultural dynamics and research the country’s recent history, government, and regulatory environment.
• Consider finding a partner in a new country first and work with them to learn about the culture and context before going any further.

• From the industry side, we often get contacted by researchers and it would be helpful if draft support letters would also be provided here with clear expectations of involvement and possibility to amend/delete points as necessary.

• There is a language of business which works across e.g., large corporates. There are also specific languages per industry and per function.
• Be careful with the language that you use – you need to understand the terms before you use them.
• Business speak is not difficult, the basics will suffice, the rest you can ask.

• Approach each like a salesperson: do your research before making a call. Ask your audiences what they want to hear first, and tailor your presentation accordingly.
• Bring someone else if it helps and line up respective people: e.g., Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) with CFOs, etc.
• Overprepare, and do not expect any immediate follow up.
• Tailor your pitches to your audiences, e.g., end-users vs. investors. Bigger companies’ decision makers are hard to get to – you will probably talk to someone else – you’ll need to tailor your delivery to them, their boss, and their boss’ boss. In general, SMEs’ decision-makers are easier to approach.
• Ask what the person you are speaking to would need to sell your pitch internally to others.

• You should make them look good if they are to support your project.
• Ask them what they need: what is the most critical thing that they are thinking about with respect to your project (e.g., risk, cost, time, etc.)?
• Allow VIPs headspace to think through your project and figure out what they want.