Meet the Team

Akshay leads the investment team for LYVA Labs. Overseeing the Health & Life Science & Deep Tech challenge funds, whilst supporting our portfolio companies to develop and grow.

Ivo works closely with the CEO and executive team to develop and implement strategies and business support programmes that align with our goals and ambitions. Ivo has built and led a variety of consultancy teams executing R&D and digital projects that bring economic growth for businesses and regions. 

Farhad joins from a Government regulator where he held managerial roles in strategy and corporate stakeholder engagement, and currently serves as a public sector Non-Executive Director. He has prior experience within innovation as entrepreneurship lead for a North West University with an award winning business incubation programme. At LYVA Labs he will leads on identifying and shaping transformational innovation opportunities based on large scale collaborations.

Rachel has 10 years’ experience in health and life sciences within academia having achieved a MRes and PhD at the University of Liverpool. She has helped many SMEs across the country having been involved in raising over £9million for UK SMEs. At LYVA Labs, Rachel helps support our Head of Investments with the Health and Life Science fund and works with local companies to secure further funding for product development.

Joe joined LYVA Labs having spent 9 years at Unilever as a project leader in Design, R&D and Marketing roles. He works with businesses in key growth sectors to identify innovation opportunities and connect with the right partners to develop ideas into commercial propositions.

Hannah has previously worked as Sector Manager for Health and Life Sciences at Growth Platform. At LYVA Labs, Hannah leads on our incubator and accelerator programmes, working alongside colleagues to support and develop the health and life sciences and deep tech sectors with a focus on start-up and scale-up growth, collaboration with delivery partners and wider strategic initiatives.

Harry joins LYVA Labs from Lockton Risk Investors, with economics degrees from Glasgow and Sheffield Universities, as our Investment Analyst. Harry is part of the investment team for LYVA Labs. Supporting the health and life science and deep tech challenge funds and helping our portfolio companies to develop and grow.

Paul is an experienced Design Engineer whose past work includes 8 years as a manager and consultant at 3M Buckley Innovation Centre. At LYVA Labs, Paul fosters collaborative engagements, grows the network and celebrates the technologies, projects, skills and assets in our advanced manufacturing cluster.

Daniel joins the LYVA Labs team as a graduate from the University of Cambridge’s Bioscience Enterprise MPhil. Having spent 18 months working as a chemist within Liverpool-based start-ups and spinouts, Daniel will now be working with Hannah and Natalie to deliver our incubators and support promising start-ups in the Liverpool City Region.

Anaz joins LYVA Labs as an Innovation Analyst. A Business Analytics postgraduate from the University of Liverpool, he has a background in engineering and management. He supports Farhad and the team with the identification of large-scale innovation consortia opportunities and the development of our Innovation Ecosystem Platform.

Natalie joins LYVA Labs as a law graduate from the University of Liverpool. Natalie supports Hannah on project management and promotion of our incubator and accelerator programmes.

Kate previously worked as an Investment Executive at Growth Platform supporting companies considering establishing a physical presence in Liverpool City Region. At LYVA Labs, Kate manages day to day operations including HR/recruitment, finance, IT, data management & reporting, company policies and compliance.

Adil supports financial management for LYVA Labs alongside financial control of the programmes we lead.

Jaine leads the marketing, media and communications for LYVA Labs.