The New Geography of Growth Shaping the future of business and innovation
Bringing together leaders from across sectors, this event at the Silverstone Museum will mark the launch of our new South Central region and welcome our new South Central chairperson.
This exclusive IoD event at the Silverstone Museum is shaping up to be an important gathering for anyone interested in the future of business, innovation and regional economic development across the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor.
And the timing could hardly be better.
The event will mark the launch of the IoD’s new South Central region – an area which maps remarkably closely onto one of the UK’s most important emerging growth corridors. We will be welcoming our new South Central chairperson, Dipa Mistry Kandola and hearing from her on plans for the region.
Opening remarks will be followed by a scene-setting keynote from Toni Allen, Chief Engagement & Growth Officer at the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET) – one of the world’s leading professional engineering institutions, with more than 150,000 members across 150 countries.
Drawing on that international perspective, Toni will explore what she is seeing around the world in advanced technology, innovation and high-performance engineering – and what it means for businesses here in the UK.
We will then turn from the global to the regional: examining the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster and Growth Corridor, hearing perspectives from entrepreneurial business leaders, investors and local government, and exploring the role of the Silverstone advanced manufacturing and high-performance technology ecosystem as one of the corridor’s crown jewels.
We will also be looking into some of the critical ingredients needed to turn growth ambitions into business reality, including:
• skills, leadership, training and executive development
• innovation, investment and collaboration across sectors and places
• the latest government funding landscape, including the newly announced £20 million Local Innovation Partnership Fund secured for the region.
The central question running through the day is a simple one:
Where will the next decade of growth come from – and how can our businesses, leaders and places position themselves to benefit from it?
Whether you are based around Silverstone or elsewhere across the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor – and whether you are an IoD member or not – this promises to be an exceptionally timely event.
Come and join the IoD to understand what is changing, meet some of the people shaping it, and consider the opportunities it could create for your organisation over the next ten years. Plus unlimited access to the iconic Silverstone Museum and a networking lunch included.
Speakers
Dipa Mistry Kandola
Dipa is a future focused, human centred leader who brings clarity, momentum and purposeful change to every organisation she touches. With 25 years across financial services, employee benefits, pensions and technology enabled consulting, she blends proven operational foundations with forward looking innovation to build organisations that scale with confidence and pace.
Most recently, Dipa led a financial services firm supporting more than 380 clients with rewards, benefits and pensions. She drove a major digital and operational transformation to modernise a 15 year old operating model, remove internal friction and free consultants to spend more time with clients.
Previously, she was CEO of Cloud8, a SaaS fintech serving SMEs. She created, scaled and exited the business to Benifex in 2023. Her first step into tech was a white labelled B2B2C platform inspired by 16 years of HR and benefits experience a product built from deep sector insight rather than code. It was acquired by a larger competitor after four years.
Across her career, Dipa has remained committed to one thing: delivering good advice for employers, underpinned by brilliant communication and technology that drives genuine employee engagement.
Ian Barham
Having helped deliver a lasting legacy from the London 2012 Games for Buckinghamshire the Birthplace of the Paralympic Movement, and spent a decade as Director of the Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership Ian is now Head of Business Partnerships & Investment at Buckinghamshire Council.
As part of this role he is the Executive Lead for the Silverstone 2035 programme, a multi-agency collaboration seeking to capitalise on business innovation, sporting and community opportunities associated with the internationally renowned race circuit. This programme has recently helped secure major Local Innovation Partnership Funding to grow the commercial, skills and innovation ecosystem at the heart of the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor.
Jon Geldart
Rob Lewis OBE
Rob Lewis graduated from the University of Leeds in 1991 with a BEng Honours degree in Mechanical Engineering and subsequently again from Leeds in 1995 with a PhD in CFD. From 1995 to 1998 he worked as a support engineer and later project team leader at Fluent Europe Ltd. From 1998 to 2007 Rob led Advantage CFD, an aerodynamics and CFD consultancy, from start-up with Reynard Motorsport to eventual closure under Honda F1 Racing Team. In 2007 Rob and others founded TotalSim Ltd, a Computational Fluid Dynamics Consultancy which now employs 55 people in Daventry and Silverstone, Northamptonshire. Rob is formerly a chartered engineer and a Fellow of both the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Engineering and Technology. In June 2017 Rob was awarded an OBE for services to science applied to sport in recognition of Rob’s contribution to the performance of British athletes’ over the last 3 Olympic campaigns. Over the past 10 years TotalSim has developed a number of aerodynamic test facilities including two wind tunnels at TotalSim’s Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub and more recently opened the Catesby Tunnel Test facility using a former 1.7 mile rail tunnel as a vehicle test environment.
Toni Allen
Toni Allen has over 25 years of experience driving integrated marketing, sales and commercial strategies across global sectors including technology, professional services, education, FMCG, healthcare, cybersecurity and non-profit. As Chief Engagement & Growth Officer at the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET), a global 157,000 membership body and research institution, she leads transformative initiatives that connect and grow the global engineering and technology community.
Toni is a passionate advocate for the power of technology, championing data-driven engagement, digital transformation, and innovative customer experiences. Her strategic leadership spans B2B and B2C audiences across industry, academia, government, and society ensuring that the IET’s mission to inspire, inform, and influence is delivered with measurable impact.
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