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The Gender Index Strategic Advisory Board
The Gender Index is steered by a Strategic Advisory Board composed of UK business and academic leaders who champion gender equality and especially female entrepreneurship.
Sam Cooper-Gray
Sam Cooper-Gray is the founder of The Wisdom Studio, a strategic consultancy empowering SMEs to scale with clarity, impact, and intention. A former Global Head of SME Strategy at HSBC, Sam led global initiatives in sustainability, social impact, and female entrepreneurship—including HSBC’s $1bn Female Entrepreneur Debt Fund and the UK’s £250m Women’s Business Growth Initiative. She also leads the Conditions to Scale workstream for the UK Government’s Invest in Women Taskforce, shaping national strategy to unlock growth for female-led businesses.
Sam is also the host of The Beginner’s Guide to Being a Grown-Up—a podcast that blends wit, wisdom, and real-world insight to help listeners navigate adulthood with more clarity and less chaos.
With over 30 year in business including 25 years in financial services and multiple board roles, Sam brings corporate rigour and entrepreneurial empathy to every engagement—helping founders and leadership teams move from operational overwhelm to strategic brilliance.
John Cushing
John is the CEO of mnAI. An ardent tech enthusiast, he specialises in fast-growth digital companies and is an advisor to the Silicon Valley Bank growth-stage advisory panel.
Prior to this he was a mentor for the American accelerator, TechStars, worked for the corporate venture capital team at the John Lewis Partnership and is a non-exec director/chair to early-stage technology companies.
Supporting inclusion and diversity amongst entrepreneurs has been a lifelong passion, central to which is the availability and access to finance and guidance for female founders.
Stephen Roper
Stephen is the Professor of Enterprise at Warwick Business School and Director of the Enterprise Research Centre an independent research centre which conducts policy relevant research on SME growth and development.
Prior to joining WBS, Stephen was Professor of Business Innovation at Aston Business School and before that he was Assistant Director of the Northern Ireland Economic Research Centre, Belfast. Stephen holds a BA Hons in Economics from the University of Durham, an MPil in Economics from Oxford University and a PhD in Economics from LSE.
Eleanor Shaw
Eleanor is Head of the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow. She is a values-led, inclusive entrepreneurial leader with more than 25 years’ experience of working with entrepreneurs, complimented by a portfolio of entrepreneurship research that has informed the design and delivery of entrepreneurial education, influenced entrepreneurial policy, and guided the development of successful growth interventions which have supported the scale up of numerous Scottish ventures. Eleanor is a senior leader within the Higher Education sector and is passionate about using her knowledge, expertise, and networks to unlock entrepreneurial potential across Scotland’s economy. She holds an MA and a PhD from the University of Glasgow and was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours List 2022 for her services to Entrepreneurship and Education.
Eleanor holds a number of board and external appointments including, on the boards of the Beatson Cancer Charity, the Chartered Association of Business Schools, Enable and is a Strategic Advisor to Pathways Forward which seeks to grow participation of under-represented groups in entrepreneurship and business ownership. She also sits on the People, Talent & Leadership Committee of the ScaleUp Institute.