This is a strange blog post, so please bear with me until I get going.
RAW2010, brain child of Mike Perls, the man known simply as “Perls of Wisdom” or the man who would bare all for a publicity stunt, or simply the CEO of MC2, was interested in adding few more speakers of my choice to his celebrity A-list to be heard by the North West’s top 350 entrepreneurs on 20th January 2010.
Further to my ramblings on Twitter today, I thought of blogging my top 10 choices. Before that, here is a brief about the event.
20 January 2010 will change the face of business in the North West forever. RAW 2010 will bring together the region’s top 350 entrepreneurs with 15 of the world’s best speakers. Open and frank discussion and debate will challenge received opinion on the issues that matter. The event marks the beginning of an ambitious and bold concept to create the most powerful entrepreneurial community in the UK to grow together over the following 12 months. RAW has already garnered the support of a number of key speakers including Theo Paphitis, Kanya King, Doug Richards, Shaa Wasmund and Imran Hakim. RAW is about a change in thinking, there will be no professional advisers, no hidden agenda and no tired opinions. The event will be held on 20 January 2010 at the Lowry, Salford Quays from 9:00am.
Here goes (not in any particular order, and locals and confirmed speakers excluded):
1. Michael Birch – Michael knows the ups and downs of tech entrepreneurship and I was inspired by his knowledge and experience gained through setting up and selling Bebo. Michael spent 8 hours with us at Tech Mission London 09 I organised in June 2009 and is the brain child behind ProFounders Capital.
2. Brent Hoberman – I am yet to meet Brent face to face, but have met regularly through twitter and emails. Brent is also an investment partner at ProFounders Capital and successfully exited from lastminute.com. ProFounders first investment is TweetDeck, a great product used by me and many thousands every day. Brent is well experienced in commercialisation of internet businesses and would be a valuable speaker to listen to.
3. Saul Klein – Saul has been instrumental in changing access to venture capital in the UK (and Europe). He has found the perfect filtration system through OpenCoffee and then through SeedCamp, which ensure that he has access to latest innovation without having to spend money looking for it. A clever guy indeed!
4. JP Rangaswami – As the head of BT Design, JP is well travelled and spoken at many key events and has accessed to latest innovation through BT Design.
5. Marc Benioff – Marc setup Salesforce.com and has driven it to become a key service platform for many technologies. Marc probably knows more than anyone else in commercialising Software-as-a-Service model right now.
6. John Chambers – As the CEO of Cisco, John is a well respected individual in Mergers & Acquisitions and have grown Cisco to become a commercial giant, touching everyone today through broadband revolution.
7. Larry Ellison – No one perhaps knows how better to crush the competition better than Larry. Founded and still leading Oracle to be No.1 in any market they operate is a mammoth achievment.
8. Biz Stone/Jack Dorsey – Founders of Twitter for creating a tool that makes a difference every day! The greatest internet product right now!
9. Reid Hoffman – As the founder of LinkedIn, Reid has created a product that break barriers in reaching executives of any organisation. Those who know, can find out emai addresses of anyone if they have a profile on LinkedIn. A great becoming bit fuzzy right now, but certainly will be there tomorrow forming part of the productivity suit.
10. Tony Blair – Irrespective of Gulf War, Tony was a great charismatic leader.
I am sure there are few others I would like to squeeze into the top 10. Do share who your top 10 is and let us know whether you plan to attend RAW2010
