The Business School's Advisory Board is comprised of high-level outside representatives of business.
Mary Meaney (interim chair)
Mary serves on the Board of GBL (Groupe Bruxelles Lambert), Syensqo (the specialty chemicals company) and Beamery (an HR Tech company helping the world's largest companies to attract, engage and retain talent at a global scale).
Prior to this, Mary was a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company where she served on McKinsey's global Board (the Shareholder's Council), led the global Organization Practice, and published a book with co-author Scott Keller entitled: Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths. Mary was a co-founder of the McKinsey Women’s Initiative, which aims to promote women leaders in business, is running a Remarkable Women's Program with TeachFirst to support women in education and co-hosts Imperial Council's senior women's network. She is also the Founder and President of Solidarite Ukraine, a French NGO supporting Ukrainian displaced people in France.
Cindy Rose OBE
Cindy is Chief Operating Officer of Global Enterprise at Microsoft. This team sets enterprise strategy, and oversees sales execution and strategic deals globally, across industry, geography, segment, and solution area.
Prior to her current role, Cindy was President of Microsoft Western Europe, responsible for Microsoft’s commercial business in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Western Europe is the largest business area in the world, outside of the United States.
Cindy’s career at Microsoft began when she was appointed CEO of Microsoft UK, where she oversaw Microsoft’s commercial business across the United Kingdom.
Before Microsoft, Cindy led Vodafone’s Consumer division, managing the expansion of their retail store estate from 350 stores to over 500 stores. Prior to Vodafone, she was Executive Director of Digital Entertainment at Virgin Media.
Previously, Cindy worked at the Walt Disney Company in a variety of roles including General Counsel for Disney EMEA and Senior Vice President & Managing Director of the Disney Interactive Media Group.
Dalya Almuthanna
Dalya Al Muthanna, Managing Director & CEO of Alstom in the Gulf region has held numerous executive and leadership positions across multiple industries throughout her career. In her role she is responsible for overseeing the company's operations in the region, which includes developing and executing on successful strategies aimed at driving sustainable and profitable business growth. Additionally, she ensures that Alstom's customers receive the highest levels of quality and service while maintaining operational excellence.
Before joining Alstom, Dalya held executive leadership positions at General Electric (GE) for over a decade. As President of GE in the UAE and global Chief of Strategy & Operations, she played an instrumental role in driving growth and optimizing business operations, where she spearheaded initiatives focused on enhancing business performance and driving operational effectiveness. At GE, she was also President & CEO of the Gulf region for 7 years, driving business strategies for GE’s industrial verticals (Aviation, Power, Healthcare, O&G), overlooking regional investments and increasing pipeline orders. Dalya started off her career as an entrepreneur where she founded her own company in apparel retail and imported European franchises into the UAE.
Dalya holds a Ph.D. degree from Imperial College London in Environmental Policy & Business model innovation and an MBA degree from the American University in Dubai.
Don Hoang
Don is a Partner at Atomico and leads investments across Venture and Growth stages, leveraging 21 years of experience as an operator and investor across startups, growth, and pre-IPO/public companies. Notable roles include VP at Revolut, orchestrating its growth to a $33bn valuation, and contributions to Uber's international expansion, raising $3.5bn in growth capital, and overseeing a $100m+ P&L. An active angel investor and former scout for Sequoia Capital, Don holds an MBA from Stanford GSB, a BA from UCLA.
Joanne Linder
Joanne is the co-chair of Imperial College Business School Alumni Advisory Board and is an active member of the alumni community.
Joanne started her career at BAE Systems and had a largely blue-chip career until her MBA, including at Granada and ABN AMRO. She set up her first business when she graduated, having specialised in entrepreneurship, and was a pioneer in personalised web content during the dot-com boom.
Through her current business, Joanne focusses her time on advising and investing in early-stage businesses across the globe that are looking to scale, with an increasing emphasis on social enterprises.
Michael Shepherd
Mike co-founded GrowthPoint, a Silicon Valley based Investment Bank focused on Technology and StealthPoint a US Venture Capital firm, which partners with GrowthPoint focused on Technology in National Security and Intelligence. He is a software engineer and entrepreneur, who is based in Silicon Valley and now advises technology companies with investments and exits. Mike serves on several boards and will often serve as Finance Committee Chair.
Before co-founding GrowthPoint Technology Partners, Mike was a principal at SVB Alliant conducting software mergers and acquisitions transactions. Prior to joining Alliant, he was Managing Director of the Nextera Interactive division of Nextera through to its IPO. Mike has been deeply involved with many start-ups, two of which went to IPO and several others have been acquired. Early in his career, Mike worked at Accenture and Booz Allen.
Miguel Veiga Pestana
“With over 30 years in major global corporations and ‘not-for-profit’ organisations Miguel focuses on building and protecting reputation, enabling a purpose-led organisation, and embedding sustainability into core strategy.
Contribution and experience
Bringing a blend of commercial and not for profit international experience, Miguel provides strategic insight and advice to the Executive Committee and the Board, fully integrating sustainability and reputation building into organisational strategy. With great global connections he can reach and bring a wide range of stakeholders to Drax. His international reputation enables him to work at the highest levels with country leaders, investors, CEOs of global businesses and global not-for profit organisations.
Prior to coming to Drax Miguel has most recently held the ExCom role of Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of Corporate Affairs at Reckitt Benckiser. He has also been Chief Communications Officer at the Executive Leadership level for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropic organisation, and worked for 11 years at Unilever where he was Vice President of Global External Affairs and Sustainability.”
Natasha Foong
Natasha is an alumna of the Imperial College Business School. She is an experienced startup investor and mentor.
Natasha began her career at the Singapore Economic Development Board where she became Head of the Venture Capital Group and Vice President of EDB Investments. She was co-founder of Valuair, the first budget airline in Singapore and also co-founder of IncuVest, a technology investment platform.
Naveed Sultan
Naveed Sultan is a professor of practice and co-director of center for financial technology at Imperial college business school. He is also advisor to boards, CEOs, senior business leaders, policy makers on strategy, digital transformation, leadership. Additionally, he is an entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and mentor. He co-founded center for financial technology and center for responsible leadership at Imperial college business school and serves on the advisory board of the school.
Prior to his current role, Naveed Sultan served as Chairman of Citi’s Institutional Clients Group (ICG) up to June,2022. With over 30 years of institutional banking experience, Mr. Sultan as Chairman of ICG architected and led digital policy, strategy, and advisory practice. This practice advised governments in their development of policies to digitize their economies including their financial systems. It also provided guidance and thought leadership to corporates and financial institutions to transform their businesses and operating models to stay relevant in an increasingly digital world. In this role, he also engaged in driving the developing markets strategy for Citi. The Institutional Clients Group at Citi is its largest business franchise with revenues of (2022) $ 41bn.
Prior to his appointment as Chairman, Mr. Sultan was CEO and Global Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) group. This multi-billion-dollar business (2022 rev., $12bn) is one of the largest and most global businesses in Citi and in the industry.
Coupled with Mr. Sultan’s proven strategic, business, and operating skills, he has a keen sense of anticipating market, economic and societal shifts, and transitions. This has enabled him to create economic value by building new businesses, repositioning businesses, and turning around marginal businesses throughout his career.
Mr. Sultan has wide-ranging experience covering Corporate Finance, Corporate Banking, Transaction Banking, Consumer Banking, Operations & Technology and is a regular speaker and author on such topics.
Mr. Sultan holds an M.S. in Management from M.I.T Sloan School of Management as well as an M.B.A. from the Institute of Business Administration, Lahore
Sanjay Bahadur
Sanjay Bahadur serves as Member of the Executive Board, Deputy Executive Vice President, Head - Group Strategy and Business Development of Nestle.
Sanjay heads the Group Strategy and Business Development function, which will support Nestlé in identifying internal and external strategic growth opportunities.
The function manages Mergers & Acquisitions, external partnerships and licensing agreements for the Nestlé Group and oversees the company’s corporate venture capital activities. Sanjay joined Nestlé in June 1982. He has extensive market experience having worked in India, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Turkey and China. He was CFO for the Greater China Region prior to assuming his role as Head of Acquisitions and Business Development