Eileen Burbidge

Eileen Burbidge is a Partner at Passion Capital, the pre-eminent early-stage technology venture fund based in London. She brings extensive operational experience to her investment activities gleaned from business and product roles at Yahoo!, Skype, Apple and elsewhere. On behalf of Passion, Eileen serves as non-executive director on a number of fast growing SMEs including Monzo Bank, Digital Shadows, Marshmallow and Butternut Box among others.

Burbidge started her career in Silicon Valley, working for some of the world’s most prestigious tech companies, including Apple, Yahoo!, and Sun Microsystems. In 2004 she moved to London to become one of Skype’s earliest employees. In 2011, as a founding partner of Passion Capital, Burbidge was part of the team that built the pre-eminent early-stage technology venture fund based in London. At Passion, she serves as board director for Digital Shadows, Focal Point Positioning, Prowler.IO, Butternut Box and other portfolio companies.

Eileen Burbidge is also a member of the board of Dixons Carphone, the FTSE 250-listed consumer electronics retailer. Eileen was awarded an MBE in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to Business. She also holds a BSc Engineering degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Burbidge was also formerly chair of financial technology start-up Tide, one of the first digital-only finance platforms in the UK to provide current accounts for businesses, and an early investor and director at consumer challenger bank Monzo; where she is now Board Director.

In 2018, Dixons Carphone appointed Burbidge as an independent non-executive director of the Board and a member of the Audit Committee, and she joined the Transformation & Innovation Advisory Board for UniCredit in early 2019.

In addition to Passion Capital, and as described by Fortune Magazine as “The Queen of British VC”, Eileen Burbidge is one of the UK’s biggest Tech personalities and one of London’s most influential venture capitalists. She is the UK Treasury’s Special Envoy for Fintech, appointed by the Chancellor; Tech Ambassador for the Mayor of London’s office and served on former UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s Business Advisory Group as well as Chair of Tech Nation for 5 years, stepping down in 2020.

Anthony Gardner

Anthony L. Gardner served as United States Ambassador to the European Union from February 2014 to January 2017.

Anthony L. Gardner was sworn in as the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union on February 18, 2014. He presented his credentials to European Council President Van Rompuy and European Commission President Barroso on March 18.

Prior to becoming the United States Ambassador to the European Union, Ambassador Gardner was Managing Director for six years at Palamon Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in London, that focuses on providing growth capital to fast growing businesses in a wide variety of service sectors throughout Western Europe. In that capacity he managed financing, legal and tax structuring issues related to the firm’s acquisitions and divestitures.

Previously, Ambassador Gardner served as an Executive Director in the leveraged finance departments of Bank of America and GE Capital and as a Director in the international acquisitions group of GE International, all based in London. He has also worked as a Senior Associate at international law firms in London, Paris, New York, and Brussels.

Ambassador Gardner has dedicated more than twenty years of his career to U.S.-European affairs, as a government official, lawyer and investor.  He served as Director for European Affairs on the National Security Council in 1994-95. During that period, he worked closely with the U.S. Mission to the European Union to launch the New Transatlantic Agenda, a joint commitment to promoting peace and stability, democracy, and development around the world; responding to global challenges; contributing to the expansion of world trade and closer economic relations; and building bridges across the Atlantic. Ambassador Gardner also participated in the launch of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, an advisory group bringing together executives from leading American and European companies to advocate for a barrier-free transatlantic market.

Prior to his government service, Ambassador Gardner worked with the Treuhandanstalt (German Privatization Ministry) in Berlin, with the Commission des Operations de Bourse in Paris, and as an intern at the Directorate General for Competition Policy at the European Commission in Brussels. He is the author of A New Era in U.S.-EU Relations?: The Clinton Administration and the New Transatlantic Agenda and numerous articles on EU affairs.

Ambassador Gardner holds a BA in Government from Harvard University, an MPhil in International Relations from Oxford University, a JD from Columbia Law School, and a Masters in Finance from London Business School.  He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has served as Trustee of the Guggenheim UK Charitable Trust, and a Board Member for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.  Ambassador Gardner is fluent in French, Italian, and Spanish, and also speaks German.