CEO and Co-Founder

Victoria is the CEO and Co-Founder of Nanoloom, a company engineering high-performance, circular graphene-based fibres for a variety of sectors and use cases. Prior to Nanoloom, she was part of the original team building an AI startup and led on product development and AI. The company captured over 50% of its market during her tenure. Previously, she was a corporate lawyer at top tier firms like A&O Shearman, leading, negotiating and executing over 50 deals worth £1 billion+, from VC to IPO stage. Victoria has a background in law, and has also previously worked on court trials including the prosecution and extradition of alleged Rwandan genocide war criminals in London, and criminal trials in Sydney, as well as having experience in aviation, maritime and shipping law. She holds degrees in both Economics and Law (First Class Honours) and multiple awards / scholarship prizes.

DVM PhD Professor, Wallenberg Scholar

Anna Rising is a Professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, specialising in spider silk and bioinspired advanced materials. Her research focuses on engineering spider silk proteins to develop sustainable, high-performance materials with applications ranging from biomedicine to next-generation textiles and industrial materials. She pioneered an all-aqueous fibre-spinning process inspired by the natural silk-spinning process of spiders, enabling the production of high-performance artificial spider silk under mild, environmentally friendly conditions. Her current research explores functionalised and smart silk-based materials, translating nature's design principles into innovative solutions for advanced materials.

Marketing and Sustainability Director – Textiles

Simon has extensive international B2B2C sales and marketing experience growing new business in the sustainable fibres, technical textiles and performance apparel industries. Having worked for global brands, retailers and manufacturers, Simon’s background includes building ingredient brands and aligning teams across cultures in dynamic markets and supporting supply chain transformation and engagement through the textiles value system. Simon currently leads sustainability for Hyosung, the world’s largest elastane manufacturer by market share, who recently completed a US$1bn investment in creating the world’s first low-carbon integrated supply chain to produce bio-based elastane derived from sugarcane in Vietnam.

CEO and Founder of Mycorrhiza Fashion, Materials Science Researcher

Mya Love Griesbaum is a materials science researcher, specialising in the convergence of design, biology and materials science. She is also the CEO & founder of Mycorrhiza Fashion - a biomaterials startup transforming textile waste into fungi-based leather alternatives. Using locally sourced textile waste and cultivate mycelium (the root system of fungi), she is working on growing durable, customisable and biodegradable materials to replace animal and plastic-based leathers. Currently, Mya and her team are focused on producing these textiles from discarded polyester and other textile waste. By using polyester as a feedstock, they grow microbes into a biomass that they can process into a textile. Inspired by fungi’s regenerative power and ability to digest synthetic pollutants, currently they are in the R&D stage, working to gain feedback from designers. 

Meet our speakers