Latest - Business Sector: Manufacturing

Professor Sir Iain Gray

Professor Sir Iain Gray was appointed Director of Aerospace at Cranfield University in 2015. In this role he draws on his 30 years in the aerospace manufacturing and engineering sector, ultimately leading Airbus in the UK.

Sir Iain also spent seven years as Chief Executive of UK Innovate, previously known as the Technology Strategy Board. The post included responsibility for an annual budget of £500m and interacting with some 5,000 large and small businesses across all sectors.

John Poulter

John Poulter is a well known figure of the IT industry who has had an important influence through his participation in the industry bodies and his knowledge of the issues, people, organisations and technology. John’s career CV demonstrates a diversity of experience, from teacher to taxi driver, of which IT is just a part, perhaps giving him the perspective for his roles as observer and historian of the industry. John is a chartered engineer, a professional member of the British Computer Society, and a Chartered IT Professional. During his professional career he worked as system analyst and Management and Systems Consultant.

John is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and was the archivist of the WCIT from 2009 to 2021. He received the Mercury Special Recognition Award from the WCIT in May 2022. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and contributed to the foundation of the Archives of IT. John shares some fascinating lessons from life and insights into the industry.

Paul Mason

Paul Mason is Director of Innovation Policy at Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. The role gives him a key role in determining the future of technology across the nation.

It could have been different. An enthusiastic jazz player in his teens, he almost became a professional musician. But decided instead to study chemistry. The income prospects for a scientist were more reliable than for a freelance jazz player, he says. “Career choice has to be a compromise between what you love, what you do well and what people are prepared to pay for.”

Paul acknowledges the huge educational opportunities he has experienced, first at his local comprehensive then at Balliol College, Oxford. “The quality of staff at school and university, and the time they invested in their students’ education, was huge,” he says.

Graduating in 1984, he rejected merchant banking and took up a full-time job at Courtaulds, which had sponsored his degree. It was there that he first used a networked computer, which the company had installed for its researchers to share their work and exchange reports.

During 25 years in the chemical industry, Paul worked on a wide range of technologies and markets. At Courtaulds, he worked on industrial and apparel fibres, high-tech and packaging films, separation technologies, polymers for a range of applications including LCD polarising filters and sunglasses frames, dyeing technologies, anti-fouling coatings for shipping, and in many other areas including spells in Europe, the US and Japan. He went on to hold change management, manufacturing, and commercial roles in Akzo Nobel and CVC/Acordis.

In 2007, Paul became Head of Development at the newly-formed Technology Strategy Board, which later morphed into Innovate UK. He is responsible for corporate strategy and the programmes that support its development and implementation.

Over the years, Paul has set up and launched national innovation programmes in areas such as agriculture and food, stratified medicine, disease diagnosis and creative industries. In many of these, the UK is world-leading, he says.

Not every idea that gains funding can be expected to succeed. “We’ve invested in some individual projects that went nowhere, but that would happen in industry and with venture capital too – but the programmes overall have been successful.” In innovation the UK is punching well above its weight in many areas, he says, including in offshore renewable energy, creative and digital industries, automotive, aerospace, advanced manufacturing and service industries, and in pharmaceutical and medical industries. For instance, in advanced therapies “about 38% of all European clinical trials are being conducted in the UK.”

Professor Peter Dobson OBE

Prof Peter Dobson OBE was born during WWII in Liskeard,  Cornwall and led a “net zero carbon existence” for his first 14 years without mains electricity or water. 

After Grammar school, he chose a GPO (General Post Office, now BT) scholarship to take him to university and worked alongside Tommy Flowers.  His broad career has covered a wide range of disciplines from physics and chemistry to materials science and engineering and bridged industry (Philips) and academia (Imperial College and Oxford).  Peter was responsible for creating and building The Begbroke Science Park for Oxford University.

Peter has successfully spun-off numerous companies. His latest, Oxford NanoSystems was formed in 2012. He is currently on the advisory board of several companies involved in nano-materials, healthcare and energy. He was awarded the OBE in 2013 in recognition of his contributions to science and engineering.

Dr Martin Read CBE

Dr Martin Read CBE is credited with the transformation of Logica, from the archetypal British 20th century software house with a headcount of 3,000 largely centred in the UK, to a 21st century dynamic enterprise with a headcount in excess of 40,000 based in over 40 countries. Martin followed the familiar path from grammar-school boy in Basingstoke to Oxford DPhil in Physics via Cambridge. He then deviated from a classic scientific career path and commenced his employment in shipping container logistics, where he applied his intellect to operations and strategic planning and worked abroad.

After a spell in the marine business of International Paint, his commercial and management skills were honed working for Lord Weinstock at GEC, before he was headhunted to Logica. After 14 years in the software industry, Dr Read again switched track and has been in high demand for a diverse portfolio of chair, non-executive director and senior advisory roles in industry and Government. His advice to the next generation is to begin their careers in well-managed organisations and to gain early experience in sales and working abroad .

Ann Moffatt

Ann Moffatt found “sums” easy as a child at school in post war London and would have gone to Oxbridge had it not been a time when the boys in the family had first call on education.  Nevertheless, by reading every book she could find, she got a job in IT and went on to defy the male stereotype of the industry: combining a friendly manner with incisive expertise that commanded respect at the highest levels.

Ann was Dame Stephanie Shirley’s first lieutenant at Freelance Programmers before being headhunted to Australia, to sort out a mega-project gone wrong.  She is a Fellow of both the Australian Computer Society and the British Computer Society. In 2002, Ann was inducted into the Australian ICT Hall of Fame and in 2011, into the Pearcey Hall of Fame, for lifetime achievement in the ICT industries. The University of Southern Queensland awarded her an Honorary Doctorate, in May 2006 and Microsoft list her as one of 12 Australian Innovators.