Baiju Vaidya sits at the nexus of innovation, enterprise development and complex programme delivery. He acted as subject matter expert for IMC Worldwide, an international development consultancy. Notably, he and David Irwin led Connect to Grow, a highly successful £3.3m innovation and partnership programme between small growth businesses (SGB) in Asia and Africa for UK DFID (now FCDO). More recently, Baiju helped build industries in East Africa for Gatsby Foundation, using systems thinking. Over the past two years, Baiju has deepened his understanding of the psychotherapy, coaching and behaviour change spaces, whilst he consults with organisations on their SGB growth programmes. He has independently supported a range of enterprises to grow from start-up to growth stage, for example, a high-end fashion brand, Amu, which generated almost $100k revenue in its first two development years. In all, Baiju has worked with close to 100 ventures as advisor, counsellor, assessor or financier. He is a Certified Manager and Expert in SME Finance.

David Irwin is a social entrepreneur and has vast and global experience across all aspects of economic and enterprise development. He started by launching one of the UK’s first enterprise agencies growing it to £4m turnover and 95 staff. He then took the position of CEO of the UK government’s Small Business Service managing a budget of £350m. David has directly supported many SGBs, carried out assessments of SGBs, designed and led highly successful SGB growth programmes, monitored and evaluated SGB initiatives, and helped build the wider SGB ecosystem, including with policy development. David has also set up, and helped others set-up, enterprise agencies, as well as debt, quasi-equity and equity funds. David has written books on running small and growing businesses, prepared and published factsheets and written numerous papers published in academic journals. He is chair of a small business – Cobweb Information Ltd – that researches, publishes and markets business information. He has an MBA and PhD and is a visiting fellow at the Department of Politics at Newcastle University. He holds the Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion and has worked with Baiju over the past seven years.

Esther Mwihaki is a seasoned business leader with over 20 years’ experience across Africa at senior management level, with SMEs and corporates, as well as in venture capital and private equity. Over the two decades, she has held positions such as Managing Director, consultant CEO, turnaround / fundraising consultant, innovations manager, or branding and strategy consultant, for organisations like BOMU Hospital, Midlands Limited, Eldoville Dairies, Prochem East Africa and Coca Cola. In early 2011, Esther was Partner at Fanisi Capital a $50m Venture Capital Fund investing in East African SMEs. Esther is a Certified Professional Coach (CPC), and a member of International Coaching Federation (ICF) and has coached several leaders and high achieving individuals to accelerate their careers and transform their lives. Esther has been pushing the envelope with new support techniques such as emotional intelligence development.