Invest NI is recognised as a leading economic development agency, instrumental in driving a balanced, sustainable, productive, and prosperous Northern Ireland economy through unlocking the potential of businesses across the region.

Dr Lisa Messina is a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Management at Queen’s Business School. Her expertise and research interests cut across the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation and international business. Specifically, she has explored the creation and internationalisation trajectories of SMEs, high-technology start-ups, academic spin-offs and agri-food SMEs.

Lisa’s teaching experience has drawn on this background, focusing on the modern international business landscape and how large and small businesses develop innovative and entrepreneurial strategies to cope with its rapidly evolving dynamics. She has taught a variety of courses, including Leadership in contexts of change, Global Business Environment, Innovation Management, and Entrepreneurship. Lisa also actively collaborates with industry, both locally and internationally. She has worked with university incubators, Venture Capital funds, and has delivered strategic guidance to help SMEs navigate the uncertain environments stemming from Brexit and Covid-19.

Joann’s is the Chief Executive of HIRANI and provides support to accelerate collaborative health research and innovation from the lab-clinic-patient-home. She connects knowledge with opportunities to drive health and prosperity for the citizens of Northern Ireland, the health services and the wider, global health and life sciences economy. She also holds multiple advisory and board positions and an Exec-MBA from Imperial College

Joann started her career as a cellular pharmacologist and industry fellow at Imperial college developing translational rationale for 4+ novel immunomodulation therapies to reach the clinic. She has sought to facilitate industry-academic partnerships delivering the US-UK Pfizer Rare Diseases Consortium: a collaborative commercialisation of small molecule and gene therapy programmes, and as Chief of Staff at Merck UK R&D Laboratories realised the start-up vision for the new collaborative £1.3B UK R&D labs for Neurodegeneration at The Francis Crick Institute, in London.

Professor Christopher McCabe is a health economist, specialising in the field of health technology assessment.
He is an expert in financially sustainable and equitable market access for innovative health technologies, value-based pricing, early health technology assessment as due diligence in life sciences translation, and the health economics of pandemics.
Professor McCabe has over thirty years’ experience working at the health economics research/policy interface, most notably with National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence in the UK, and Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health in Canada.
He has held professorships at five universities in the UK and Canada, including a Capital Health Endowed Research Chair at the University of Alberta and led multi-disciplinary research networks in both nations. He has also contributed to national and international standard setting documents for the economic evaluation of life sciences technologies.

Dr Gowers-Cromie has 15 years’ experience in designing and delivering executive level education across a wide range of contexts and sectors. Sarah is a programme instructor at the William J. Clinton Leadership Institute contributing on a range of leadership and management courses. Having worked in a range of commercial, academic and public organisations she has hands-on leadership experience in very different organisational settings, in both geographically dispersed and local teams. Sarah has significant experience in small business, business growth, leading a growing team, organisational culture, team development, operating and business model development. Leading a dispersed team across the UK, Africa and South America. Her particular areas of expertise are in leadership and organisational change management. Her dynamic delivery style brings content to life to engage participants in applying learning to real life business problems. She is passionate about individual growth as well as organisational effectiveness.

David is a qualified accountant and has worked as a Senior Consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in a variety of global transformation programmes in Europe, the Middle East, The Caribbean and the USA. David has extensive experience in executive education, working with a range of public, private and third sector organisations at the William J. Clinton Leadership Institute. He joined Axiom Law in 2016 as the Global Head of Learning and Development and in December 2023 completed a secondment as Global Head of L&D for Inizio Engage - a global health and life sciences organisation. He has over 20 years of client management.

Jaspreet Grewal is an accomplished clinician, researcher, and venture partner, bringing nearly 20 years of experience in healthcare, clinical research, regulatory affairs and strategic advisory to companies focused on the life sciences. Her career has allowed her to train and work globally in some of the best healthcare and innovation ecosystems. Jaspreet holds a Master’s in Clinical Vision Sciences from Georgetown University School of Medicine (Ophthalmology), and continued traing at Yale & Harvard University with an Executive MBA from LSE. As Chief Executive and co-founder of AxialBridge, Jaspreet has built the company into a global life sciences advisory firm supporting a variety of stakeholders along the biotech and life sciences value chain. She has successfully merged her expertise and passion for innovation, research and finance to become a dynamic leader nationally and internationally. She is a sought-after speaker who addresses topics related to investment trends, regulatory strategy, international trade and economic development, and emerging areas of innovation. She is passionate about championing innovation, ecosystem development and clinical adoption.

Áine Gallagher is a Lecturer in Finance in Queen’s Business School and Programme Director for the BSc Finance, working at the William J. Clinton Leadership Institute on a range of customised leadership programmes to promote financial acumen in leaders and managers.

Prior to joining Queen’s as a Faculty member in 2015, Áine spent 5 years working for Barclays Corporate Bank on event led debt transactions (acquisitions, M&A, leveraged finance) and laterally in the relationship banking team, working with C-suite executives to deliver financial solutions.

Áine has practical experience with detailed financial statement analysis, valuation methodologies, sensitivity analysis and structuring risk management solutions. Áine has previously taught modules on Corporate Finance and currently teaches the Behavioural Finance modules and Equity Research modules in the Management School. Her research focusses on the historical importance of women investors and their participation in the governance and management of firms. Áine has completed the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) professional qualification and holds an MSc in Finance from Warwick Business School.

Michelle Aitken is a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, Strategy & Innovation at Loughborough University. Michelle’s areas of expertise are international business, strategy and governance. In addition, Michelle complements her University role acting as a management and leadership consultant for a variety of international firms. Michelle leads a number of executive programmes at the William J. Clinton Leadership Institute as an adjunct expert faculty. Having completed a BA honours degree and spent over 20 years working internationally within the airline industry in sales and marketing, latterly as a consultant, Michelle returned to the UK to complete an MBA and moved into part-time lecturing for Loughborough within the International Business, Strategy and Innovation team.

With a PhD in molecular pharmacology and over 20years experience as a senior scientific leader within global mid and large scale pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, UCB and Ipsen, Chris founded Questae Coaching & Consulting in 2017. This is where she combines her professional expertise with formal certification as an MBTI® and Five Behaviors® practitioner, and her passion for people to support academic spin-outs, small start-ups, Biotech and large pharma clients develop transformational change leadership skills. Chris is also an affiliated Consultant at Leading Change UK Ltd and Phetairos Ltd; plus holds multiple board positions at Charnwood Molecular, British Pharmacological Society, ELRIG UK and BPS Assessment Ltd.

Lisa Messina is a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Management at Queen’s Business School. Her expertise and research interests cut across the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation and international business. Specifically, she has explored the creation and internationalisation trajectories of SMEs, high-technology start-ups, academic spin-offs and agri-food SMEs.

Lisa’s teaching experience has drawn on this background, focusing on the modern international business landscape and how large and small businesses develop innovative and entrepreneurial strategies to cope with its rapidly evolving dynamics. She has taught a variety of courses, including Leadership in contexts of change, Global Business Environment, Innovation Management, and Entrepreneurship. Lisa also actively collaborates with industry, both locally and internationally. She has worked with university incubators, Venture Capital funds, and has delivered strategic guidance to help SMEs navigate the uncertain environments stemming from Brexit and Covid-19..