About us

Powering the Enterprising Generation

NACUE is committed to advancing education and supporting bespoke solutions in developing greater engagement with learners from various academic backgrounds in enterprise initiatives. We believe that all students should have the chance to engage in unique opportunities, supporting them to develop the skills they need to succeed.

Nacue History

"NACUE was formed in 2008 by 12 enterprise society presidents. These university students were already playing a leading role in the development of student entrepreneurship at their institutions, however they knew that collaboratively they could create something bigger for the benefit of their societies. In 2009, Oxford Entrepreneurs President Victoria Lennox, took the plunge and founded what was then the National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs, with support from the other enterprise presidents, Matt Smith and Cyprian Szalankiewicz.

NACUE existed as a predominantly volunteer led organisation until 2011, which saw a rapid year of expansion for the organisation. NACUE relaunched as a charity in early 2011 and later announced a large expansion thanks to gaining funding from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and widened their operations to the inclusion of further education colleges. On November 15th 2011, the organisations name was changed to the 'National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs to represent their commitment to other levels of education within the sector.

Those original 12 societies were the catalysts for an extraordinary movement in student entrepreneurship. Now that initial group has grown into a national non-profit organisation with a thriving national network representing over 200 college and university enterprise societies."

Executive Team
Board of Trustees
Past Leadership
Founding Members

Our Executive team is responsible for the running of the organisation, faciliating programmes to an exceptional high standard in line with the organisation's charitable mission.

Yani Vladimirova

Enterprise Engagement Manager

Yani is NACUE's Enterprise Engagement Manager, building and developing a national community of enterprising students and entrepreneurs by fostering collaboration

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to support their growth, development and sustainability. With a background in the open innovation and advertising world, she also contributes to service design and development for NACUE's programmes to support student societies and institutions as well as bringing a new perspective to NACUE's regional events and membership services. Throughout her MA course, she co-founded a collective group called NX Creative Lab - a non-profit entrepreneurial incubator established in 2014 as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. With a passion for human-centred design and community architecture, her objectives are to support aspiring students and entrepreneurs to create valuable enterprises by driving collaboration, sustainable change and innovation.

Abigail Howard

Social Media & Admin Support Officer

Abbie is NACUE’s Social Media lead, responsible for communications and outreach cross all social media platforms, whilst also assisting with administrative tasks for NACUE.

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As a graduate of the University of Leicester, Abbie founded two societies and was appointed Secretary for another. As such, she is well versed in events organisation, community outreach, and student engagement.

Abbie also works as a Community Manager for the Rain Cloud, a GovTech co-working incubator based in the heart of Westminster.

Graham Kinch

Financial Controller

Graham is NACUE's Financial Controller and is an experienced commercially minded accountant. He worked for over twenty-five years in the property sector,

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eventually working for the largest property services company in the UK. Latterly he has been working as a business consultant providing advice and support to new businesses and bringing practical solutions to problems. He has built a reputation for getting the job done, no matter what the circumstances and is very much a “hands on” accountant with high standards and a straightforward approach.

Claire Renwick

Programme Delivery Consultant

Claire has extensive experience in accelerator and similar programme delivery, she has managed the Loughborough University Spin Sports Tech accelerator and the Sirius Programme for international graduates.

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From 2010 to 2017 she was Head of Student Enterprise at SOAS, University of London and worked to support enterprise and the development of new businesses. She is currently studying for a PhD in social enterprise and holds three masters degrees in enterprise education, international marketing and management respectively. Claire is a Chartered Marketer and IEEP Fellow and worked as a business adviser with Young Enterprise as well as being a member of the board. She has been supporting NACUE in the successful delivery of our programmes and the Tata Varsity Pitch Competition for several years.

Till Spanke

Research Consultant

Till is NACUE's Research Consultant, having previously worked as the Impact, Evaluation and Research Officer at NACUE where he conducted insightful impact research.

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Till has been particularly involved in the research side of the EU MY-WAY project, composing the Guideline for Student Organisations as well as the Synergy Report examining the needs, demands and current level of support from student support centres and networks for young entrepreneurs; The Best Practices Report of the MY-WAY project identifing best practices among student support centres in web entrepreneurship ecosystems across Europe, whilst simultaneously studying for a PhD and Graduate Teaching Assistant at the London School of Economics and Political Science

Tim Barnes - Chair of Trustees

Until January 2016, Tim was the Director of UCL Enterprise Operations and Director of UCL Advances, the centre for entrepreneurship at University

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College London and largest such centre in the world, which Tim led from its launch in 2007. In total, Tim grew a team of four into a team of 65 in eight years. He is the founder of The Rain Gods, a new company building enterprise programmes and incubation support. A serial entrepreneur, he previously founded a services business and Citrus Saturday, a non-profit enterprise driving entrepreneurial ambition in school-age children that now runs in sixteen countries. Previously, Tim worked as an investment manager at a pan-European investment firm that specialised in early-stage technology ventures. Tim is a member of the Board for the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers, which represents university entrepreneurship programmes around the world, as well as the International Advisory Boards for Flywheel Ventures, an early-stage US venture capital company, and Venture Cup Denmark, a national programme that seeks to unearth Danish university entrepreneurs. He holds the CFA’s Investment Management Certificate. In 2014, he was awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion for life.

Anthony Cassidy - Vice Chair of Trustees

Tony is the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustee's at NACUE. Tony’s professional career has focussed on economic development and regeneration,

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and in a non-executive capacity with the fund management sector. Until recently he was Chairman of Edinburgh Dragon Trust plc, an Asian investment company, and Director of the Scottish Qualifications Authority. He has a strong personal commitment to business-orientated education and training, and to stimulating entrepreneurship among students and staff in higher education institutions. A physicist by training and former university lecturer, he has worked as a British official in India, Japan and France.

Jacques de Cock

Jacques has over 25 years' experience of consulting, technology and business management. Jacques developed leading consulting capabilities

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and knowledge management capabilities as Vice President of Mercer Management Consulting, Principal of Booz|Allen|Hamilton in the UK, France and USA and as a founding Director of Spicer and Oppenheim Consultants. His focus in was mainly in Financial Services with an additional focus on Investment Banking and Capital Markets. He was also the CEO of Patsystems plc, a leading on-line trading software developer, where he took the company from a 6 man start-up, through a London Main Market flotation, growing it into a £200m market capitalized company in 3 years. Jacques was also a Director of ICL Financial Services in the UK and France. Jacques is now the CEO of BQu where he helps companies develop their on-line presence and services and transform data, both internal and external, into insights, business assets and services for their clients. He has an MA in Physics from Oxford University and an MBA from London Business School and is married with three wonderful daughters.

Suzanne Duncan

With over twenty years’ experience in the FE sector, Suzanne has had a number of teaching and management roles in a range of Further Education colleges,

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holding senior management roles for quality improvement, and managing business support areas, as well as the curriculum. Since 2012, she has held the post of Principal and Chief Executive at East Durham College and is a Board member of Northern Education Trust, Visit County Durham, East Durham Business Service and a member of the UK’s Association of College’s Teaching, Learning and Assessment Portfolio Group. The College is also a centre for the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy and has been in receipt of Tutor of the Year and Inspirational Student of the Year awards from the Peter Jones Foundation.

Louise Donaghy

Louise is the Head of Business Development and Executive Education at Leicester Castle Business School and previously, until April 2017,

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was the Head of Employer Engagement at Loughborough University and Loughborough University London. Louise has also worked for the Higher Education Academy as a Project Manager and as a Business Manager in the care industry. For the most part Louise’s career has focussed on forging beneficial relationships and partnerships between industry and Higher Education and being responsible for the employability development and progress of university students and graduates. She grew the number of graduate recruiters at Loughborough University from 45 to 400 and designed a sector leading curriculum based initiative called ‘Enterprise Through the Curriculum’ at Loughborough University London, which included all students taking part in a range of employability initiatives as part of their postgraduate university experience. Louise has grown functions and subsequent teams both in the Midlands and in London and is now working in a start-up environment at a new business school in Leicester, responsible for setting up a unit that offers a range of contemporary and cutting edge executive education courses for business professionals in the 21st Century. She is passionate about providing an environment for all students to flourish and develop entrepreneurial thinking and abilities and is involved in creating innovative and creative community spaces in the Midlands. Louise is also an Enterprise Advisor for the local LEP and the Careers and Enterprise Company thereby supporting local schools to design impactful career development and employer engagement activities. Louise also has two grown up children and owns a property development business with her husband in Yorkshire.

Holly Knower

CEO 2016-2019

Holly joined the organisation in 2013, directly supporting the development of enterprise societies within Further Education Colleges in London.

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Throughout the last 3 years she has supported various forms of students engagement, from working with small groups of learners launching student ventures on campus, running bootcamp weekends and watching young people flourish in 24 hours, to seeing thousands of young people energised after experiencing NACUE events.

As an alumni of the University of the Creative Arts, from a creative background, she is passionate about the importance of providing a practical and hands on education within a safe space, encouraing the younger generation to reach their potential from any academic background.

Johnny Luk

CEO 2014-2016

Johnny had extensive knowledge within the work of policy and entrepreneurship, bringing his experience from within government.

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Johnny was the co-founder of 'Inspired & Hired', an award winning social project and wrote the internationally serialised book 'The Grad Job Game' advising students of their post education education.

Hushpreet Dhaliwal

CEO 2010 - 2014

Hushpreet’s enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and startups was born while she was studying and working in the startup community in the USA.

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In 2009 she graduated with a first class BA degree in International Business. Her quest is to create the most entrepreneurial generation of young people the world has ever seen. Hushpreet’s interests lie in business model innovation, commercialisation, innovation-driven ecosystems, and mobilising great people and resources to create change.

Victoria Lennox

NACUE Founder - Oxford Entrepreneurs President 2008-09

Victoria Lennox is Founder and CEO of Startup Canada, an entrepreneur-led movement working across Canada to support and celebrate Canadian entrepreneurship.

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She moved to the UK to study for an MSc and by the time she returned home she had set up a national body supporting student enterprise (NACUE), received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion as well as numerous other prestigious awards and been noted as ‘One to Watch’ by Spectator Business. Victoria is a born entrepreneur, describing herself as a serial-entrepreneur with an deeply embedded interest in policy work. One of her earliest ventures was the Council of Women in Politics and Public Policy, a student association connecting students with successful female leaders for mentoring and support.