Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne is Chair of the Ukraine Britain Business Council (UBBC) and President of the Iraq Britain Business Council (IBBC). She is a member of the House of Lords, former MEP for the UK South-East Region, former member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and former MP for Torridge and West Devon. She is a member of the UK/EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly and of the House of Lords Select Committee for European Affairs. She served for a decade as UK Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy for Iraq, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. She has taken part in Election Observer missions to thirty-four countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Russia, Moldova, Kenya and Zambia, and was Chief International Observer in Armenia and twice in Yemen. She chairs the AMAR International Charitable Foundation.

Mark Irwin is an experienced CEO and Executive Director with broad international expertise in leading state-owned, public, and private equity businesses. Most recently, he was Group Chief Executive at Serco PLC, a UK-based FTSE250 company providing services to government agencies in sectors such as defence, transport, justice, immigration, healthcare, and citizen services, with 50,000 employees across 20+ countries and £4.8 billion in revenue. Mark’s leadership background includes roles in Australia, Singapore, Japan, the USA, and China, focusing on growth, organisational transformation and cultural change. He holds degrees in Applied Science and Business including an MBA from Victoria University and has completed management programs at Harvard and LSE.

Mr Christophe Michels is the Managing Director of the Ukraine Britain Business Council (UBBC), which he established with Baroness Nicholson on the margins of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London in 2023. Since then, he has regularly visited Ukraine and led several trade delegations to Kyiv. He is also the Managing Director of the Iraq Britain Business Council (IBBC), the Syria Britain Business Council (SBBC), and a trustee of the AMAR Foundation. Prior to helping establish the IBBC in 2009, Christophe headed Baroness Nicholson’s political office in the European Parliament. In 2008, he worked as a consultant to the Iraqi Council of Representatives for the European Parliament. He also observed the 2012 elections in Yemen and volunteered for the AMAR Foundation in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and the United States, as well as for the Russian Booker Prize in Moscow. Since 2009, he has served as an aide to Baroness Nicholson in the House of Lords and has supported her work at the Council of Europe and with the APPG on Foreign Affairs. Christophe graduated from the Lycée Franco-Allemand in Paris and studied History and Art History in Berlin, Amsterdam and Düsseldorf. He is also a Senior Fellow of Humanity in Action.

Ashley Goodall is an experienced Marketing consultant to charitable, business, cultural and financial brands. As MD of Saatchi & Saatchi Design, Ashley ran large branding projects for clients such as Barclays Capital, Raifeissen bank, The Post office, A1 telecom Austria, Head and Shoulders and T Mobile. He is a Marketing professional with expertise in brand positioning, brand identity, digital communications, PR, business development and digital entrepreneurs. As head of Business development and Marketing at Fitch (WPP) he also developed an international range of clients in retail, branding, and communications. Following a degree in Human Sciences at Oxford, Ashley joined EMI records as a Marketing graduate and signed diverse acts as Iron Maiden, Talk Talk and Curiosity Killed the Cat before moving onto creative marketing recruitment and a directorship at Pricejamieson in the 90’s. Finally settling in directorships in branding and communication at Fitch, Saatchi & Saatchi Design and independently with IBBC and others since 2010.

Agne is the Events and Operations Manager for UBBC. Agne has experience as Events Coordinator / Senior Administrator at IBBC since 2017, where she helps organize many meetings and events from the organisation’s London office. Agne has solid expertise with over 6 year’s first-hand experience in customer service, coordination and planning of large and small events, administration, and business management. Previously, Agne worked in job roles such as Operations Manager, Area Manager and Personal Assistant to Managing Director. Agne has a solid educational foundation and a passion for business administration, development, and innovation. She holds BSc in Business Administration at ISM and MSc in International Business at London Southbank University. In addition to her duties, Agne was a Student Steering Committee Member at Institute of Directors (IoD) and responsible for student membership development and future growth opportunities. Agne speaks Lithuanian, English and Russian. Agne has a solid educational foundation and a passion for events, business development and innovation. She holds bachelor’s degree in business administration and two master’s degrees with the most recent one in events and experience management from Goldsmiths University, graduated in 2022. In addition to her duties, Agne’s passion is painting portraits and listening to jazz.

John is commercial advisor for UBBC. John has over 40 year’s International experience in upstream project management and construction throughout Africa, Latin America, UK, USA and Middle East. As an engineer, John initially worked for Taylor Woodrow in the Arctic and in the North Sea for Global Engineering before joining Texaco to run R&D in UK. He subsequently transferred to Aberdeen to manage offshore production and then the US to head up development of major Greenfield projects in Latin American and West Africa, including re-instating a Brazilian rainforest as part of a carbon capture initiative. He returned to UK to join Foster Wheeler to manage upstream business in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and most recently moved Petrofac as Director of Project Development. As a representative for Foster Wheeler, John has been involved with IBBC since its foundation and has twice chaired the Oil & Gas Sector Table, so brings exceptional knowledge to both UBBC and the membership.

Roman serves as a Partnership Advisor to the UBBC. Roman is a legal professional at one of the American law firms in London and a former Executive Director of CEO Club London. His primary areas of practice are corporate law and finance, M&A, private equity and venture capital. Roman has extensive experience in shaping corporate transactions and conducting complex negotiations. For the last year, Roman has been leading the exclusive business club of Ukrainian CEOs in London, connecting various stakeholders into a unique network of Ukrainian support as well as establishing the Club infrastructure. Following a degree in Law at Oxford, Roman worked at the Council of Europe, Williams Advanced Engineering, Investor Update as well as several governments and universities. He was the leader of the Ukrainian Oxford Student Society, completed several projects with the University of Oxford and has recently established the Ukrainian Alumni Oxford Group in the UK. Roman’s primary duties at UBBC include providing advisory support, building networks with high-net-worth individuals, investment funds and corporations in London and Kyiv, and searching for new opportunities for the UBBC expansion.

Sergii Drobysh is a Kyiv-based Business Development Advisor at UBBC. He is a consultant with five years of experience working at the intersection of political risk advisory, strategic communications, and data analytics. Sergii has worked with FTI Consulting, Eurasia Group, and Control Risks, to name a few. His projects spanned across financial services, energy, industrials, metals and mining, real estate, and technology sectors. Sergii was a Vice President of the Oxford University Ukrainian Society, a Data Analyst at the Oxford University’s European Studies Centre, a Researcher for Timothy Snyder while at Yale University, and a Founder and First President of the Ukrainian Society at the University of St Andrews. Sergii holds an MSc in Political Sociology and Statistics from the University of Oxford, an MA in European and Russian Studies from Yale University, and a BA in International Relations and Social Psychology from the University of St Andrews. In his spare time, Sergii enjoys wildlife photography, nature walks, music, and boxing.

Ani Iaralishvili has recently completed an MA in International Peace and Security at King’s College London. Her research focuses on energy policy, particularly the energy-security nexus across the Gulf, South Caucasus, and Europe (Recent publication in collaboration with Azure Strategy: “Competing in the Gulf, Converging in Europe: The Saudi – UAE Bet on the Black Sea Cable”). She is a Research Fellow at the EPIS think tank within its Climate Policy and Environment Report Group. She has also been selected as a member of the Common Futures Conversations (CFC) at Chatham House. In 2021, she served as a Young Ambassador of Georgia to the United Kingdom.