Professional

Introduction

"I am a business leader with a track record of success in delivering market insight, strategic projects, innovation, and product development. I have demonstrated leadership in every environment I have worked in, and I have the communications skills and breadth of experience to work effectively with all: colleagues, customers, investors, managers, technical personnel and professional advisors. I also have an excellent academic background which includes a 1st class degree from Edinburgh University."

Current

I am currently working on a part time consultancy contract with ATEEDA, supporting a variety of marketing and sales activity.  I am also assisting with intellectual property and technical issues from time to time.

I am also working with Contemplate, a company currently in the Informatics Ventures incubator.  For Contemplate I am carrying out a market assessment exercise, as well as supporting ongoing activity including winning support from the High Growth team at Scottish Enterprise and supporting early meetings with potential investors.

As of August 2010, I am assisting Loc8er Mobile with user trials and development of their business model.

I am actively looking for other ambitious young companies where I would be able to make a significant contribution to growth either by joining the team or through consultancy engagements.

I sit on the board of charity Forth Sector as a trustee and non executive director and on the board of subsidiary Forth Sector Development, a consultancy business specialising in social enterprise.

Saltire Fellowship 2009

During 2009 I participated in the inagural Saltire Foundation Fellowship programme, designed to educate the next generation of entrepreneurial business leaders for Scotland. This took me to Babson College near Boston for the first four months, followed by 3 months doing an Executive Internship with Sun Microsystems at the heart of Silicon Valley. My second placement was 3 months working in a marketing role with Scottish company ATEEDA, building a market report, identifying strategic approaches to the market and supporting sales activity.   

Career History

Prior to joining the Saltire Fellowship programme in January 2009 I worked in the high tech industry for over 10 years.  I started out working full time at Edinburgh University spin-out VLSI Vision (camera microchips), which went through IPO and ultimately acquisition by STMicroelectronics during my 4 years there.  I started out writing highly technical software, and ended up running a key part of the software group and co-ordinating activity between the software and hardware (ASIC) groups. 

My first career move was to Cambridge consultancy Scientific Generics (now rebranded as Sagentia) where I spent a further 4 years working on a huge range of projects, from innovative technology development and prototyping through to technology strategy and due dilligence.  My time at Scientific Generics expanded my experience into the business domain and international markets, in industries from telecommunications to medical devices and FMCG.  It also helped me to develop a strong interest in helping small companies to bring new technology to market. 

My most recent post was as Chief Technology Officer at CHIL, a software start-up based in Dunfermline.  At CHIL I lead the transformation of the core technology from prototype to commercial implementations, and managed early customer engagements which ultimately resulted in follow-on projects.  Being in a small company environment I also had the opportunity to learn a lot about the challenges faced by an organically growing business without external capital.

In addition, I worked in the marine industry running sonar and navigation systems for pipeline survey during my time at university.  This alongside my interest in running sound and lighting systems for large scale live events gave me early practical experience as a consumer of sophisticated technology in harsh environments - crucial to understanding the difference between a technology and a product.  I was also a founding director of DeliveredSafe Ltd, a startup in the delivery logistics market, for which seed funding fell through when the markets crashed in 2008. 

More Information

	If you're interested in finding out more about my professional life you may be interested in downloading my CV or taking a look at my list of Publications.
	To keep in touch with professional contacts I used LinkedIn, where I have a profile page..
	I have a small business selling software through my Salient Point website.