Our Alumni Spotlight event series shines a light on talented and passionate alumni from our global community. Each event features an exceptional Imperial alumnus – or in this case, two alumni – who will share their career journeys, expertise in their sector and thoughts on leadership and making an impact. They’ll also share their passions and motivations and take questions from the audience.
The next alumni in the Spotlight will be the winners of this year’s Alumni Entrepreneur Awards, Dr Ali Baghdadi and Dr Paul Atherton.
Dr Ali Baghdadi (MSc Computing 1977, PhD 1979) has always been a keen learner. As a child, he liked building model aeroplanes and rockets and making films. This curiosity drove him to study Computing at Imperial where he founded his first company, Aptec. He continues to serve the company today, while being the Senior Vice President & CEO of the META region at Ingram Micro, a Fortune 100 business with revenues of $50 billion.
Dr Paul Atherton (PhD Physics 1978) co-founded his first company, Queensgate Instruments, while studying at Imperial in 1978. He planned on pursuing an academic career, but that all changed when he got a call from NASA, who wanted to use the Queensgate technology. After turning Queensgate Instruments into an optical fibre business in the 90s and selling the company in 2000, he continues to help start-ups at UK universities.
In this online event hosted by Imperial’s Director of Entrepreneurship, Ben Mumby-Croft, our guests will explore themes of leadership and business, drawing comparisons on their varied careers and lessons they have learnt along the way. Both now eager to share their experiences for the benefit of young entrepreneurs, we’ll leave plenty of time for questions from the audience.
Join the conversation and have your questions ready!