In her current role Laura heads up the intellectual property team at Paris Smith LLP, specialising in IP exploitation and strategy. She has previously worked in niche intellectual property firms in London.

For Catalyst, Laura leads a workshop and advises on how to identify, protect and exploit your intellectual property assets thereby increasing their value within the business. She says: “We start the year with, in some cases, brand new companies – with little or no business acumen or awareness of the risks and pitfalls that they will encounter along the way. By the end of the year, we have companies which are significantly more switched on – their IP is in order, as is their corporate structure, they are aware of employment issues and how to start thinking about commercialisation of their products; they are businessmen and women.”