Lital Leshem is an American-Israeli entrepreneur and corporate advisor experienced in rapidly scaling startups. She is the Co-founder of Carbyne, a pioneering emergency communication technology startup, that raised $128 million and attracted notable investors like AT&T Ventures, Hanaco VC, and Founders Fund. Lital also spent five years as a Partner at Frontier Resource Group, focusing on strategic investments in defense, aviation, and cybersecurity across emerging markets. She is a Forbes 30 Under 30 member and a founding member of the UAE Israel Business Council. With 11 years of military and intelligence service as a Major (Res.) in the Southern Command of the IDF, she has demonstrated leadership and strategic acumen, contributing to national security and operational excellence, and has served in the reserves since October 7th. In the wake of October 7th, Lital and her Co-founder, Lee Moser, started Protego Ventures, a $150M early growth fund fueling innovation in Israeli defense technologies.

Raj Shah is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Shield Capital, a venture capital firm focused on technologies at the convergence of commercial and defense markets. He is also the chairman of Resilience, a cybersecurity start-up he co-founded. Raj served as the Director of the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), reporting to the Secretary of Defense. Raj recently co-authored the book, Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War, which describes DIUx’s efforts to modernize the U.S. military and bridge cultural divides between the technology ecosystem and the Pentagon. Raj currently serves on the Board of Directors of the NATO Innovation Fund. He continues his reserve uniformed service as an F-16 pilot in the Air National Guard and is assigned as the Director of the Joint Reserve Detachment at DIU (DIU-JRD). He holds an AB from Princeton University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Kerry Baldwin is the Co-founder and Managing Partner at IQ Capital, a deeptech VC firm with $1bn AUM, investing £1-30m in teams within AI & Automation, Computing and Semiconductors, Advanced Engineering & Energy, Security, and Resilience. She is the Chair of the Pensions and Private Capital Expert Panel, unlocking £50bn in DC funding for unlisted equities. Kerry also serves as a Competitive Advisory Board Member at the City of London Corporation and was the Chair of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (2021/22). She is an Independent Investment Committee Member for British Patient Capital, overseeing co-investment programs and Future Fund: Breakthrough. Kerry is a member of the Board of Governors and Finance Committee at Plymouth University and serves on the Steering Committee for Scale-Ups at the Royal Academy of Engineering. She is a specialist in Reg-tech, Sup-tech, Cyber, Data, Defence, and Security investments and advises governments on VC, defence, and R&D ecosystems. She is also an Honorary Fellow in Entrepreneurship at Cambridge University.

Ragnar Sass is the Co-founder of Estonia’s fifth unicorn, Pipedrive CRM, which exited to Vista Equity in 2020. He is an active angel investor with a portfolio of 50+ companies. Ragnar is also the founder of Help99, an NGO that has delivered aid to over 200 Ukrainian military units. Currently, he is building the Defence Tech ecosystem with Darkstar, focusing on bringing combat-proven products from Ukraine to global markets.

Philip Lockwood leads strategy and international business for Stark, a new company reshaping the future of defence technology to give NATO a decisive edge. Before Stark, Philip was Head of the NATO Innovation Unit on the Secretary General's staff, where his team was responsible for NATO's overarching agenda on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies. In this role, Philip was the architect and founder of both DIANA--NATO's transatlantic innovation agency--and the 1B NATO Innovation Fund--the world's first multi-sovereign venture capital fund. Previously, he was a tech lawyer with an international law firm and served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 20 years.