Ilana is a quantum physicist and deep tech entrepreneur known for building hard technology, and the people behind it, at the intersection of science, leadership and national security.
She is best known as the founding CEO of Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC). Handed a single patent in 2018, she built OQC into one of the UK's foundational quantum companies: a team of 135+ across the UK, Japan and Spain, more than £100m raised, and the world's first 32-qubit quantum computers deployed inside commercial data centres. What she is proudest of is the people — many of whom now lead and found companies of their own.
She advises governments and boards as readily as founders. She has briefed successive UK Prime Ministers and Chief Scientific Advisors on quantum, served on the UK government's Business Innovation Forum Council and the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Quantum Computing, and now sits on the National Physical Laboratory's Science & Technology Advisory Council and chairs the quantum spin-out SpinOr.
Ilana holds a PhD in experimental quantum physics from Royal Holloway and the National Physical Laboratory. Her work is regularly featured by the BBC, FT, Wired and Nature.