Experience
Our speakers
Thought Leaders and Innovators from around the world have spoken at BTF. Learn from the best as they share their journeys, challenges and wins.
Nominate a speaker
09 Oct 2025
Drumsheds London
Drumsheds London
Thought Leaders and Innovators from around the world have spoken at BTF. Learn from the best as they share their journeys, challenges and wins.
Nominate a speaker
My name is Amber Clifford. I've been working in tech since the early days of Uber (2014). Since 2016 I've specialized as an International Expansion Strategist for Uber Eats and Disney+ where I've launched the respective products in more than a combined 120 markets across the globe throughout Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia, Latin America + The Caribbean. From on-the-ground operations set up, go-to-market strategy, pre-market assessments to product strategy and everything in between, I've worn many hats. I’ve led strategy and been hands on in execution in a role and industry where you don’t see many BIPOC, especially women. During my time at Uber in EMEA I also co-founded and led the Black ERG, UberHue.
I’ve contributed to and keynoted at various product summits, ERG sessions for Fortune 500 companies, cultural events across Europe to audiences of up to 2,000 people. Every time a line of people queue up after to chat and ask me to speak at other events, as I truly believe the journey and unique experiences resonate with people and provide so much inspiration to the places and things one can do within tech.
I know Black Tech Fest is in the final stages of planning but I’d love to be considered as a speaker or panelist where it makes sense. Topics on operations, international (esp Africa, Europe and Middle East), product, scale, and/or women all make lots of sense for my experience.
Engineering Manager, BloombergFemi Popoola is an Engineering Manager at Bloomberg, where he leads teams responsible for building Metadata infrastructure focused on Entity Identity, Classifications and Relationships. A Bloomberg veteran with over 20 years experience, Femi is an accomplished leader who has built applications, infrastructure platforms and teams across multiple product areas. Femi holds a BSc in Software Engineering and an Executive MBA from Bayes Business School
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Kevin is a multi-award-winning social entrepreneur and founder of Bridging Barriers, a social mobility charity focused on helping young people aged 14-25 from ethnically diverse backgrounds access employment through mentoring. In the last three years, Bridging Barriers has supported over 600 young people through their tailored 1-1 mentoring scheme, empowering young people with the soft and hard skills needed to thrive, whilst building employment networks to strengthen access to opportunity. Kevin appeared on Good Morning Britain in August 2023 off the back of the work he does with Bridging Barriers, and he has won multiple awards including a Social Mobility Award and Black Excellence Award, and was featured in the Turning Point magazine as an "Unsung Hero", which was showcased at the Oscar's Award Ceremony in 2022. Kevin is passionate about ensuring that employers do more to support young people from black and other disadvantaged groups by providing employment opportunities to enhance their career prospects.
Shelina is Director of Consumer Equality at Ogilvy Consulting. In this first-of-its-kind role, she is pioneering an industry paradigm shift to tackling 'consumer inequality' facing Minority Ethnic groups, in order to drive business growth. An award-winning brand and business leader, she is also Ogilvy's Vice President of Islamic Marketing, and has worked to engage Muslim audiences with some of the world's biggest and best known brands such as Unilever, Coca-Cola and ASOS as well as its most exciting start ups. Shelina is a passionate advocate for businesses and brands to reclaim their creative and commercial superpowers for business growth and societal impact. She is a bestselling non-fiction as well as a children's author, including her most recent kids' book about the British Empire. Alongside all this, as a podcaster, op-ed writer, marketeer and sandwich generation carer, she is working hard as a polymath-in-progress to create social and cultural change.
Viv Ahmun, co-founder and President of the Aspire Education Group is a Partner at Open Africa and Coltan Security, companies based in Uganda. He has founded and been the Co-Director of many businesses, civil society organisations and networks in recruitment, enterprise development, primary healthcare, tech-based coms, and impact investment. Viv is a qualified and seasoned social policy veteran, corporate governance and leadership advisor. He is also a former Home Office and Mayoral strategic advisor to the first two London Mayors, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson. He is a Governor of the East London Foundation Trust, which covers East London, Luton and Bedfordshire. In 2022, he was honoured by the African Achievers Awards, held at Kensington Palace, for services to enterprise (Africa-based start-ups and the popularisation of technology-based business solutions in East Africa). In service to his community during the Covid-19 lockdown, he and his colleagues established the Baobab Foundation which is a multimillion-pound philanthropy brand which gives £3 million annually to Black micro organisations in the UK. During lockdown he also co-created and launched Future Boss with Courtney Brown, which invested £100,000 in UK start-ups in its first year, and is actively facilitating access to social and technical/human capital and partnerships and international trade opportunities across Africa, Europe and North America for UK Black African Caribbeans. Most recently, Viv used his experience to set out the wire frame for the F100 BEO £1 million founder programme. He currently spends an increasing amount of his time on brokering inward investment from North America and Europe into Africa, whilst working with others to build Africa’s infrastructure from the inside out……
Wendy Mars is President of Cisco’s Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia region (EMEAR).
Wendy is responsible for Cisco’s growth, business and operations across the EMEAR region. Her focus is on
driving strategies which deliver on customers’ digital and sustainability transformation requirements and which help to close the digital divide. The region delivers over $12bn annually and represents more than a quarter of Cisco’s revenue.
In her previous roles at Cisco, Wendy has led the Partner, Enterprise and Technology teams for EMEAR.
Wendy is a passionate supporter of greater diversity in business. She specialises in creating high-performing teams that are grounded in a strong sense of common purpose, a focus on results and holding each other accountable. She is driving initiatives that promote greater inclusion and is the Executive Sponsor of Cisco’s
Connected Women community. She understands the talent and skills challenges facing the technology industry and firmly believes in promoting education in digital skills as a driver of transformation and differentiation.
Prior to joining Cisco, Wendy was the Global CTO at ThruPoint for 11 years, working primarily with its enterprise and service provider customers. She began her career at Morgan Stanley, where she lived abroad working on a variety of IT programmes in Europe, the US and Asia.
Originally from the North of England, Wendy now lives in London and in her spare time loves walking, wildlife and nature. She has a BEng(H) in Electronic Engineering from York University and an MSc in Operational Research from Lancaster University.
