Guest Speakers
We are delighted to announce that we will be joined by Conor La Grue, Engineering Lead, BLOODHOUND Project and Levi Roots, Musician, Entrepreneur and Founder of Reggae Reggae Sauce during this year’s ceremony!
Conor La Grue began his engineering career in the Royal Navy as a Weapons Engineer and trained in Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering. After a successful Royal Navy career, Conor moved into the offshore oil industry, followed by the telephony industry. Conor then sought a change of pace starting his own motorsports company and moving to the country. Having built it up over four years, Conor sold the company in summer 2008 and joined the Bloodhound Project in October 2008.
From the smallest nuts and washers through to the composite structures that make up the largest parts of the car – Conor works within the Bloodhound design team to understand the requirements and identify a supplier for every part of Bloodhound. He then works with every supplier, helping bring the designs to maturity, get the components loaded into manufacture and ensure the parts are built to the exacting requirements of the project, all within a very aggressive time frame.
Levi Roots made the big time after producing his Reggae Reggae Sauce, which won an exclusive contract in 2007 and was soon stocked in Sainsbury’s stores across Britain. Levi’s sauce is the chain’s fastest ever selling product.
Prior to that, Levi had been making the sauce from his kitchen and selling it at various small outlets in London, including a south London record shop. But that all changed when he was featured on the hit TV show Dragons’ Den. Two of the five judges were sufficiently impressed with Levi’s charming presentation which included a song whilst strumming on his guitar, that they committed £25,000 each for a return share of 20 per cent of his company.
Levi has launched his own app called Levi Roots’ Sunshine Food (www.leviapp.com) and also published a business book entitled You Can Get It If You Really Want, which charts his success and provides tips on how to get ahead in business.
The philanthropist in Levi sees him giving back to the community and the young people in the UK today by visiting hundreds of schools, universities and prisons every year. Levi is also a proud ambassador of The Prince’s Trust.