John Holden

Foresight Group, Fund Principal

John joined Foresight in November 2016 to work on deploying the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund and is a specialist investor in technology.

John is the Fund Principal at Foresight Group for the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund.

John joined Foresight Group specifically to work on deploying the Fund; which is a collaboration between Foresight and Williams Advanced Engineering, a part of the Williams F1 Group based in Oxfordshire. The Fund invests in ambitious UK companies with early stage disruptive technologies primarily in the manufacturing, materials and engineering sectors, and in Seed and Series A investment rounds.

John began his career in the City, joining stockbrokers Hoare Govett and then as a founder employee of advisory firm European Capital, now part of Investec. Following an MBA he started in venture capital in 1995 with 3i in Bristol, working on a full range of products. In 1999 he took over primary responsibility for the entire South West investment portfolio valued then at over £250m, and in 2000 he joined the technology group, moving to the London and Thames Valley offices and focusing on the UK technology portfolio and leading for 3i on a London main market IPO.

Since then he has worked for a number of technology investors, including ANGLE Technology where he was joint head of the UK investment team, and then as a Director in the Investment team.at Imperial Innovations, now Touchstone.

John has a BA in Politics and Economics from Durham University and a MBA (with Distinction) from Cranfield School of Management. He lives in West Oxfordshire where he currently spends his weekends mowing and taking his son to mini-tennis and mini-rugby.

Speaker sessions

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09:30 - 10:45

Pitching for Success – Morning Session

John Henry Brookes Lecture Theatre

Pitching for Success will be to an audience that includes investors, support organisations and individuals.

Each session will include a panel made up of professional funding organisations; including speakers from crowd investment (Peer2Peer, equity, loans), venture capital and public sector funding. Each investor panel speaker will give an overview of what they look for when investing or funding a company followed by Q&A with the audience.

As well as the live pitches and investor panels, the companies from both sessions will be available in the foyer of the John Henry Brookes Lecture Theatre for networking.

Panellists: David Ford – Arrowfield Capital, John Holden – Foresight Group, Evie Mulberry – Astia Angels and Adam Workman – Oxford University Innovation
Chaired by Eileen Modral – OION

VIEW THE FULL PROGRAMME