The Accelerate Cambridge coaching team

Luther’s mission to enable and nurture venture creation out of the University of Cambridge.

Accelerate Cambridge’s strategy is to help teams of entrepreneurs turn an idea into a business, to launch, grow and to scale-up quickly, leading on to a successfully exit. Accelerate Cambridge is part of an ecosystem of support for entrepreneurs in Cambridge, helping the University’s entrepreneurs, faculty, and local residents to navigate their way through the start-up process and find the resources they need.

As Programme Manager, Luther manages several programmes, projects, events, and activities. he has also supported over 350 ventures (around 1,000 entrepreneurs), a growing network of alumni ventures (over 290), an expanding network of associates, mentors (around 100) a team of 10 coaches and VIPs. In addition, he has provided similar support to the Santander Universities Growth Awards, MedTech programme, Barclays Eagle Labs residents, UoC International Student Office, AstraZeneca Mentors and the Royal Society of Chemistry and other department and societies across the University of Cambridge.

Luther is an altruist, social entrepreneur, and an environmental activist at heart. Over the years, he has led many environmental initiatives around the river Cam, combining volunteering and a social enterprising approach to organise many successful region wide river and beach clean-ups events, attracting over 1,200 volunteers.

Babita Devi is an experienced coach and mentor with over 30 years of expertise in driving growth across various business domains, such as business development, strategic marketing, and commercialisation. Her extensive interaction with numerous business owners and founders is the foundation of her program, The Alignment Accelerator. This program is based on the idea that personal and business growth are interconnected, leading to inevitable success when they align.

Early in her career, Babita excelled in Enterprise Resource Planning, constructing pipelines for average sales of £1 million through well-defined strategies with measurable outcomes. She quickly progressed into management in her early 20s and went on to join the world’s largest optics company. There, she played a pivotal role in European Marketing, focusing on brand strategy, communications development, and implementation planning. Babita believes that effective marketing acts as the driving force behind all business areas.

Founding bStrategic in Australia in 2003, Babita’s focus on strategic marketing led to her transition into a Coach and Mentor role. Returning to the UK in 2006, she continued supporting large corporates and early-stage ventures across various sectors, including games, party, licensing, gaming, health and med tech, software, and education. Her tech venture in 2015 contributed to shaping The Alignment Accelerator, which helps founders understand the relationship between personal growth and business success.

Babita collaborates with multiple organisations as a Coach and Mentor, including Barclays Eagle Labs, Raising Starts, and Oxford Innovation Space. Alongside her business efforts, she has shared insights through lectures on entrepreneurial marketing for MBA and Business Studies students. Babita mentors the Masters in Entrepreneurship students at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, advises early-stage companies in Edtech and Games, and serves as an Advisor to a Venture Capital fund.

She’s also a Non-Executive Director for the Global Entrepreneurs Network UK, connecting entrepreneurs from 200 countries.

Babita’s enthusiasm lies in connecting people, fostering strategic partnerships, and cultivating networks of innovators, thinkers, and change-makers.

Tony Kypreos is an entrepreneur, corporate innovator, and investor with 30 years leadership experience and an authority on entrepreneurship, innovation corporate venturing, M&A and developing high performing teams. His focus is on interdisciplinary innovation for health, social and environmental challenges.

He is currently on the Advisory Council and a Venture Partner for the world’s leading UN Sustainable Development Goals innovation accelerator, Accelerate2030 in Geneva, operating in 33 countries in partnership with the UNDP, Impact Hub, and Pfizer. As an entrepreneur in residence with the UK Programme, he scouts, selects, and mentors high Government’s Global Entrepreneur potential technology scaleup ventures in healthcare and sustainability and is a partner at VC Reload Ventures focussed on MedTech and ClimateTech.

As an entrepreneur he was a co-founder of Springboard Accelerator (exit TechStars), Founder of Healthtech venture Dupl (exit Optima Health) and in the senior leadership team for the $800m Nasdaq IPO of agency.com. He is an active investor and board advisor with several M&A exits including Oracle, Piksel, Nokia, Opentext and AML RightSource. In corporate innovation he is a former member of the Executive Board of T-Mobile International & Deutsche Telekom’s corporate VC, T-Venture, he was Group Managing Director for Bauer Digital for the post-merger integration of EMAP Plc. He also has international leadership experience in consumer brands at Nestlé and Diageo.

Emily joined Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) and Cambridge University Health Partners as the Business Engagement and Clinical Innovation Lead in April 2022.
Emily’s role is to translate research and innovation into the NHS. Prior to this, Emily worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cambridge in organic chemistry and machine learning. She previously obtained a Master’s from the University of York and a PhD from the University of Leeds. Emily has also held a European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) fellowship and conducted research into rare forms of cancer at pharmaceutical charity LifeArc.

Visit Emily’s LinkedIn profile

Jack works as a programme administrator within the Entrepreneurship Centre, offering administrative support on several the Centre’s programmes with a primary focus on the Accelerate Cambridge programme.

Jack joined the Entrepreneurship Centre team in January 2022 with a background in administrative roles within the Education sector in and around Cambridge.

Sam Ofori is a mentor and consultant specialising in venture creation, fundraising and sustainability. He works with recent graduates, academics and business schools to develop and deliver global brands and programmes. Sam is a mentor on Accelerate Cambridge, and a business supervisor on the EnterpriseTECH programme, both at Cambridge Judge Business School. He was also invited to mentor on the CRoSS programme at Cambridge Enterprise earlier in 2023. Sam also mentors at LSE Generate, and on the MSc Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

He is a mentor-in-residence on the MSc Entrepreneurship at Bayes Business School, and a principal mentor at UCL Hatchery, University College London. He has previously mentored on incubator programmes at Queen Mary University of London and at City, University of London. Sam has been invited to sit on judging panels at Bayes Business School and Queen Mary. His recent and current assignments include developing knowledge exchange and business engagement platforms at Brunel University London, consulting on the startup and growth of a global venture capital services company, consulting on commercialising a women’s entrepreneurship and empowerment research project, and the re-structuring of the Museum of Entrepreneurship, a groundbreaking spinout at Bayes Business School. Sam holds a Master of Laws degree in Venture Capital.