Come along and be inspired...

Today we are delighted to confirm the sixth in our line-up of incredible Cloud9 speakers- Imran Hakim.

Young entrepreneur Imran Hakim is best known as one of the most successful individuals to gain investment on BBC2’s Dragons’ Den show with his innovative iTeddy product. His successful sales pitch back in 2007 secured him a £140,000 investment after experts Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis agreed a joint 20 per cent share.

After securing investment on the programme, Imran has gone on to successfully launch the award-winning iTeddy and associated licence platform http://www.iteddy.com/, billed as the Teddy Bear brand for the 21st century. This year Imran has put together a distribution deal with Vivid Imaginations UK’s biggest toy company, and the product is now retailing in more than 40 countries world-wide, including every major UK toy retailer (including Tesco, Asda, Argos, Costco, Makro, John Lewis, Littlewoods, Harrods, Hamleys etc) with an extensive TV campaign planned for later in the year.

However his business experience goes far beyond the realm of television. An optometrist by profession, Imran runs a successful group of independent practices in and around his home town of Manchester. Having run his own business since he was 16, he has extensive first-hand experience of a huge range of business sectors.

Imran controls a diverse business portfolio ranging from restructuring existing loss-making businesses out of administration to become successful and profitable operations and successfully negotiating licensing arrangements with global brands including Reebok, Longines and Revlon in order to secure distribution rights within given territories.

He has won countless business awards over the years in recognition of his numerous endeavours including; North West Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006, Fusion Entrepreneur of the Year 2007, Young Emerging Talent 2008 and most recently a Mosaic Award for Science and Technology awarded to him by HRH Prince of Wales. His work on the iTeddy brand has earned him further awards such as Toy Inventor of the Year 2007 and World Toy Innovation 2008, Start-up Business of the Year 2008 and
IoD’s Northwest Young Director of the Year 2008.

Imran’s interests include expanding his business portfolio whilst encouraging entrepreneurship through mentoring and acting as an inspirational role model for young entrepreneurs. In addition, during 2009 he will be working with UMIP as Director of Entrepreneurship.

Most recently, Imran has teamed up with fellow reality TV entrepreneur and Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire, Ben Way (a previous Entrepreneurs Forum Graduate Conference speaker) to incubate and invest in other start-up companies through their new project Rainmakers.