Joanna Shields, Chief Executive of Tech City Investment Organisation, has been confirmed as the latest name to headline ACCELERATE 2013, bringing a wealth of experience in digital and technology industries to the festival in June.
Shields will speak alongside Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Lastminute.com co-founder Martha Lane Fox, AKQA founder Ajaz Ahmed, the Prime Minister’s Enterprise Adviser Lord Young and General Sir Mike Jackson, former Chief of the General Staff, among many others.
Gathering more than 1,000 business leaders in Liverpool, Accelerate 2013 will provide a unique accelerator for growth, motivating high potential businesses to become world-beating organisations that will lead the economic fight-back in Britain.
At the heart of the festival, created by the city’s economic development company, Liverpool Vision, will be the inaugural meeting of the Accelerate 250, the UK’s ‘vital six per cent’ of businesses which create more than half of the nation’s new jobs and have the greatest growth potential.
Each has been nominated by leading business figures and organizations and been personally invited to take part in the festival by Sir Terry Leahy, former Chief Executive of Tesco PLC and Lord Green, Trade Minister, patrons of Accelerate 2013.
A fringe programme will take place in the three days leading up to the main summit day, with scores of events being hosted in the Liverpool city region.
In her role with Tech City Investment Organisation, Joanna Shields is responsible for the British Government’s mission to boost the capital’s tech cluster, using her 27-years of experience to create an environment where technology companies can flourish.
After starting her career with Deloitte, Shields joined Google in 2005 as its Managing Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, before going on to run social networking site Bebo two years later.
She was instrumental in transforming Bebo into what was then the largest social network in Europe, returning to the US in 2008 after the company was bought by AOL.
Shields was hired in 2010 by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg as Managing Director in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, before leaving last October to take on her role at Tech City Investment Organisation.