Stephanie may be your first point of contact with LAUNCH.ed. Stephanie will arrange your meetings and clinics with LAUNCH.ed, and manages the Hot Desk facility.

Brian is a Student Business Advisor and is available to help anyone who is thinking of starting a business. He will deliver one-to-one business support, deliver start-up workshops and look after the LAUNCH.ed Business Ideas Competition.

Prior to joining LAUNCH.ed, Brian spent six and a half years as a regional manager with the Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust, initially in Lanarkshire before taking over the flagship Edinburgh region five years ago. During that time, Brian helped launch nearly 500 businesses, despite the fact that many of his clients came from disadvantaged backgrounds. He also managed a team of over 100 volunteers.

Born and raised in Glasgow, Brian has always been in the construction industry, and ran his own building company for about eight years. He has experience in retail, sports and the hotel and catering industry, and has set up a number of networking clubs across Scotland.

Rebecca manages the delivery of the LAUNCH programme for students. She manages day-to-day client management and one-on-one business support and clinics. 

Rebecca started working for the University of Edinburgh in 2005, working initially for the Edinburgh Pre-Incubator Scheme (EPIS). Prior to this she developed and managed a service offering initial market assessments for small businesses at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

Rebecca also has seven years commercial experience in direct marketing and brand management.  She worked as a Senior Brand Manager at Gerber Foods Soft Drinks in Somerset, managing soft drinks brands. She graduated from the University of Birmingham in 1996 with a degree in Law and Business Studies and was recently awarded a Masters degree in Marketing, focussing on Market Research for high-tech start-ups. She is Chartered Marketer and member of the CIM, and has a Chartered Institute of Marketing Diploma.

Paul manages the delivery of the LAUNCH.ed Accelerator Pipeline Programme for high-growth startups. He is available to help anyone who is thinking of starting a business, and delivers one-to-one business support as well as start-up workshops.

Joining the LAUNCH.ed programme in December 2011, Paul has expertise in market and technology assessment, academic and industrial collaborations, foresighting, programme management, business plan development, company formation, and IP commercialisation. Prior to joining the University of Edinburgh, Paul was a Senior Consultant with New Media Partners with projects including the delivery of a national advisory service, and market assessment for several technology spin-out companies.

Following on from post graduate research work, Paul co-founded a successful university spin-out company, securing substantial investment from 3i, SEP, Aberdeen Asset and Lockheed Martin. Paul has a BEng (Hons) in Computer and Electronic Systems from Strathclyde University and is completing his dissertation for an MBA at the Strathclyde Graduate School of Business. He holds patents in the fields of sensor networks, media streaming and video compression.

Hilary is LAUNCH.ed's link to a three year, multi-million euro European Union initiative on Open Innovation. Through this project, the Open Innovation Project, Hilary works with universities, chambers of commerce, and public bodies across North West Europe to source new ideas and to build new relationships that benefit LAUNCH.ed's student clients.

Hilary began working for LAUNCH.ed part-time in 2008. After obtaining a Masters in Physics from the University of Edinburgh in June 2010, Hilary took a full-time position as Programme Co-ordinator for the Edinburgh Pre-Incubator Scheme, before returning to LAUNCH.ed as Innovation Project Officer.

Hilary is originally from Alaska, but moved to Washington, D.C. in 2004 to study international relations. She has been living in Edinburgh since 2006.

Grant manages Edinburgh Research and Innovation's Company Formation and Incubation team - a grouping that comprises the company formation support activities for both staff and students, and the University's technology company incubation facilities. As well as a general management role, Grant works closely with a number of companies and projects, particularly those located at ETTC, ETTC BioSpace and ETTC Campus.

Since 1995, Grant has been involved in company formation and incubation activities. In 2000 he joined the University as part of its Scottish Institute for Enterprise team. Prior to that, Grant worked for SMEs in the North Sea oil industry and in the financial sector. Grant is a director of the Scottish Microelectronics Centre incubator and research facility on the King's Buildings campus - a joint venture between the University and Scottish Enterprise. He has a degree in Business and Economics - from a long time ago!