Arnaud Autret

Investment Director, BOLD, the venture fund of L’Oréal

Arnaud serves as one of BOLD's Investment Directors, where he leads European investments with a focus on beauty and science-driven innovation.  

Before joining BOLD, Arnaud was Head of European Investments at Illumina Ventures, focusing on life sciences, healthcare, and enabling technologies. His earlier career includes significant investment roles at M Ventures and Seventure Partners, where he actively participated in numerous transactions spanning therapeutics, diagnostics, and life science tools. Arnaud holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Pasteur Institute and an MSc in Finance from ESCP Europe Business School. 

Ross Hendron

CEO, Wild Bioscience

Ross Hendron is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wild Bio, an Oxford University spin-out harnessing evolution to design resilient crops for a changing planet. He completed his PhD at Oxford, worked at the venture capital firm OSE, and co-founded Wild Bio in 2021. Since then, Ross has led Wild to develop new crop products from discovery through to field trials, built partnerships with industry-leading multinationals, and scaled the company through successful fundraises, most recently a $60M raise led by the Ellison Institute of Technology. 

Oliver Sexton

Investment Director, Future Planet Capital

Oliver is an Investment Director at UKI2S. Specialising in life science investments he has managed the enlarged £33m engineering biology sub-fund since its inception in 2014. He has invested in a broad range of companies in sectors as diverse as therapeutic, agritech and clean biotech.  

He sits on multiple boards and has overseen exits including the £85m sale of Quethera to Astellas. He is also a member of the Future Planet Capital ESG steering group.  

Prior to joining UKI2S, Oliver worked at the venture fund Imperial Innovations as well as other roles in the industry. He has a background in strategy analysis and consultancy including roles in New York and has a masters from the University of Bristol and commenced a PhD in bioremediation at the University of Nottingham. 

Karolina Zapadka

Senior Partner , BioInnovation Institute

Karolina has spent the past 15 years building a strong network across the UK life sciences ecosystem. She is an experienced life sciences investor and entrepreneur with over a decade in life sciences innovation, spanning drug discovery, technology transfer, venture building, and equity financing. She recently joined the BioInnovation Institute (BII) in London. Previously, she was an investor at the UK’s largest EIS fund, where she led multiple deals, sat on several company boards, served as a member of the Investment Committee, and supported numerous portfolio companies. Karolina also co-founded Accelerate@Babraham, Cambridge’s first life sciences accelerator. She began her career at MedImmune (AstraZeneca) and later in leading Cambridge biotech ventures, focusing on biologics in neuroscience and metabolic science. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and an Executive MBA from HEC Paris.