Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Argentic Associates
Dame Hayaatun Sillem DBE is the founder and CEO of Argentic Associates, focused on transforming major philanthropy, and host of What We Don’t Know, the podcast on better leadership in an uncertain world. Until the end of 2025, she was CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation. She is a member of the UK government’s Women in Tech Taskforce, trustee of various charities, adviser to the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) and a non-executive director at construction company Laing O’Rourke.
She previously chaired the government’s Business Innovation Forum and Innovation Expert Group and, with Sir Lewis Hamilton MBE HonFREng, co-chaired his commission on improving Black representation in motorsport. Earlier in her career she served as Committee Specialist and later Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.
She has a master’s in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD from Cancer Research UK/UCL. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and Science Museum Group; and Companion of the Chartered Management Institute; Honorary Professor at UCL; Honorary Fellow at The Queen’s College, Oxford; and President’s Fellow at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. She has been awarded nine honorary doctorates, a Science Suffrage Award and the Engineering Professor’s Council President’s Medal, as well as being named one of the ‘Inspiring 50’ women in tech in Europe and one of the most influential women in UK engineering and tech. She was awarded a CBE for services to international engineering in 2019 and a DBE for services to engineering in 2026.
Dame Hayaatun Sillem DBE HonFREng