Leah builds and maintains relationships with the coalition’s broad range of stakeholders, including Ministers, MPs and officials. Leah joined the Startup Coalition in 2021 following the completion of her Master’s of Public Administration from UCL in Digital Technologies and Policy. Leah has a background in US politics having previously worked on the US 2020 presidential election campaign and in the US Senate. Leah currently sits on the advisory board of Capital Enterprise.
Geography: Europe
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Kirsten Nelson-de Búrca
Kirsten Nelson-de Búrca is a product policy manager at Mozilla, where she leads work on ads, age verification, and AI product launches globally – shaping how emerging technologies intersect with public interest and trust. With a background spanning global tech companies, startups, and the non-profit sector, she brings a rare blend of policy insight, operational know-how, and product expertise.
Before joining Mozilla, she drove global digital policy engagement for a European scale-up, HelloFresh, and at Meta she launched trust & safety product lines and political advertising transparency tools in over 100 markets. She has also advised governments, political organisations, and civil society organisations (UN entities and EU institutions) on leveraging new technologies responsibly, and navigated the fast-moving fintech startup world from a regulatory risk perspective.
A passionate advocate for responsible innovation, Kirsten speaks about the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of technology, policy, and society – with a focus on AI governance, online integrity (especially when it comes to elections, politics and social issues), and platform accountability.
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Verona Johnstone-Hulse
Verona is an experienced government affairs and policy professional currently leading public affairs for global cyber security firm NCC Group. In this role, she oversees NCC Group’s engagement with UK government and regulatory decision-makers and the wider policymaking community, against a backdrop of the increasing regulation of cyber resilience.
Prior to joining NCC Group, she led in-house and consultancy public affairs programmes for a range of organisations – from FTSE100 to critical infrastructure, across many sectors of the economy.
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Victoria Baines
Victoria (they/them) works as Head of Cross-Government Strategy for the National Data Library, a manifesto commitment housed in the Government Digital Service. Prior to this role, they developed the world-leading Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework, leading on areas including biometrics, fraud and inclusion.
They have also worked as a researcher at the think tank Demos, where they researched a breadth of topics online safety, platform regulation and data protection. Intellectual rigour, relationship-building and a strong sense of social purpose form the bedrock of their work.
When they aren’t working in the world of tech policy, Victoria facilitates meditation and teaches yoga, primarily in LGBTQ+ spaces.
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Victoria Roberts
Victoria specialises in helping innovative companies navigate the politics and public policy that interact with their innovations, drawing on a career spanning nearly 20 years across the public and private sectors.
Her experience includes Director of FinTech Delivery Panel at Tech Nation, Head of Government Affairs for Innovate Finance, and UK and Brexit Public Policy Director at Aviva. She has also served as Private Secretary to the UK Minister for Industry.
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Zoe Jay Hawkins
Zoe is Co-Founder & Deputy Executive Director of the Tech Policy Design Institute (TPDi): Australia’s new independent non-partisan think tank dedicated to technology policy.
Featured in the Australian Financial Review’s 2025 Women to Watch list, Zoe has experience leading international tech policy initiatives from government, big tech, academic and think tank perspectives. Zoe worked for the Australian government across communications, innovation, and foreign policy portfolios, as a ministerial adviser and in the public service. As a member of Amazon’s International Public Policy Team, Zoe drove whole of amazon digital policy initiatives and represented the company in international organisations.
An engaging communicator, Zoe speaks internationally on tech policy issues and her work has been featured by The New York Times, TIME Magazine, The Economist, Forbes, POLITICO, and Vogue. Zoe is a Research Associate at the University of Oxford and an expert researcher for OECD.AI, having started her career at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Zoe is passionate about helping bring the next generation of women up behind her by role modelling confident authentic leadership and actively mentoring young women across international relations and responsible tech policy in Australia and around the world.
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Verity Freeman
Verity Freeman is an Associate in Global Counsel’s tech, media and telecoms (TMT) team. She works with clients to help shape their policy and engagement strategy across a range of issues including AI, digital competition, digital economy, online safety and public sector digitisation.
She previously worked for political intelligence company DeHavilland where she focused on culture, media and sport policy.