BHCC - Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce

Richard Robinson worked in TV for many years, as a founding member of Spitting Image and creating the puppet characters in several children's programmes, including The Riddlers. He was also a busker for almost as long, starting the Covent Garden buskers pitch. He has written twenty science books, including 'Why the Toast Always Lands Butter-side Down'.

In May of 2011, Councillor Bill Randall found himself centre stage in the first Green Administration in the country. As Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council Bill now spends his days making those big decisions for the city, his time is no longer his own, and people want to speak to him at all hours of the day and night.

Duncan Baker-Brown is an award-winning architect whose love of sustainable design began when he was just eleven. As a small boy growing up on a farm near Epping Forest, Duncan watched the construction of the M11 across the valley. He was immediately struck by its incongruity and his thoughts quickly turned to the environment and sustainable design. Today, Duncan has combined his love of design with his passion for all things green and is co-director of one of the UK's leading award-winning green architectural practices, BBM Sustainable Design.

Richard Maher is Operations Manager for Carluccio's: his fourth position within a company he has been with for ten years. Richard's background is exclusively within the hospitality industry spanning human resources, recruitment and store management. His current role allows him to 'do a bit of everything' and use all of his knowledge to deliver great service to his customers with that little something extra.

Kate Peach has worked for Early Years Childcare for the last 18 years, rising from the most junior position to nursery manager, then all the way up the company's ranks to become Managing Director in 2010. Kate now manages nine day nurseries across the South East - including two in Brighton and Hove - and employs around 350 staff.

With guest speakers Tim Jarvis, Director of SeeThat.

Tim Jarvis started SeeThat from his grandmother's bedroom in April 2010 having quit his much loved job at Sussex Cricket after two and half years. 18 months on and SeeThat is working with clients such as AXA Insurance, The Government, Local Councils, large PR firms and many National Sporting Governing Bodies.

Seventeen years ago, Jonathan Hirsch designed an electric guitar - then spent twelve years promising himself that "One day I'll do something with it"...

In 2006, after a successful career in the interactive media industry, Jonathan finally began what turned out to be a much-longer-than-planned process of bringing his guitar to market - patenting, prototyping, refining the production process and finally launching Hirsch Guitar (and the Hirsch SB-1 Radius 'smallbody' electric guitar) in January 2011.

Nicholas Röhl's involvement in the restaurant business began as a nineteen-year old working on the shop floor of an industrial factory in the countryside just outside of Tokyo.

It was here that he learnt Japanese and the appreciation for Japanese food which led to the co-founding of Moshi Moshi, the first British owned sushi restaurant in the UK. Since then, Nicholas has opened a number of Moshi Moshi branches, and in 2008 opened a sister restaurant called Soseki.

David Marks co-founded Marks Barfield Ltd architects in 1989 with Julia Barfield. In 1994 David and Julia founded the London Eye Company, which they remained directors and shareholders of until 2006.

In 2000 David was made an MBE in the Queen's New Years Honours List and received the Prince Philip Special Commendation for Outstanding Achievement in Design for Business and Society.

Ten years ago, Rob Shepherd earned his living as a writer-director in the world of film and television, with a new, small, local webhosting company as an accidental sideline. By chance rather than design, he is now full-time MD of the international press release agency Press Dispensary, as well as having a few equally accidental side projects.