Meet the Scaleup Directors who'll help you

Specialising in Design for Manufacture and Assembly and integrated product development, Adrian has assisted companies from hardware and software start-ups, to managing the IP portfolio of a multi-million-pound organisation.  

Having worked with leading design consultants in Denmark, user-centred design is second nature.  He has a passion for helping businesses develop practical, efficient, solutions, and is adept at identifying innovative commercialisation models and routes to market.  Adrian also helps companies raise investment.  

Previously he has played a significant role in business support infrastructure development, including the establishment of a regional proof of concept fund, setting up and managing an incubator, launching a Knowledge Transfer Programme (KTP) service, and working with multiple stakeholders to establish a new business park.

In addition to innovation and Scaleup Programme roles, Adrian also manages the UKIPO IP Audit grants scheme for London.

Aldo has a strong ethical vision of business and for this reason, he founded a company to support the development and commercialisation of innovative products and services that have a positive impact on society, the environment and humanity and to support the growth and international expansion of technology-based businesses.

Over the 17 years’ work experience in growing and scaling businesses, Aldo worked directly with over 200 businesses supporting their scaleup journey, their entry and expansion in national and international markets and in raising more than £45m of finance. 

Through the growth of his businesses and client support, Aldo gained practical knowledge of growth business models, commercialisation, internationalisation, sales, finance, and growth strategies. 

Aldo was instrumental in the creation of the Innovate UK Scaleup Programme incorporating the best practices and methodologies gained over the course of this professional career. 

Aldo has a technical background in Mechanical Engineering (MEng) and a Master in Entrepreneurship (MEnt) from Alliance Manchester Business School. He has lived and worked in the US, UK, France, and Italy and is fluent in four languages. 

During his spare time, Aldo enjoys travelling, reading, downhill mountain biking, skiing, horse riding and pretty much any other activity that can be done outdoors. Above all Aldo loves spending time with family. 
 

Angela has worked across both the private and public sectors supporting larger organisations and SMEs.  She is sector agnostic having previously worked within automotive, software development, maintenance, housing, local government, and charity organisations.  

For the last 9 years, Angela was part of the Senior Leadership Team at Bentley Motors driving forward transformational change globally. Throughout her career, Angela has won multiple external awards including Global PMO of the year, Best HR Impact, Best Change Management Initiative and Contribution to the Community.

Angela has a personable style and likes to build relationships with businesses to really understand them.  She is passionate about people and helping businesses to maximise talent within their own organisation to drive exponential growth.  She collaboratively uses a range of tools to identify areas for improvement and develop innovative future strategies.  She acts as a Coach to businesses to embed improved capability and consistent usage of innovation tools to drive repeatable business success.   

Angela is also passionate about helping charities in terms of fundraising, helping them to shape future strategies and volunteering her time.  She also volunteers to provide coaching and mentoring to nurture future talent.  

Angela is a Scaleup Director on the Innovate UK Scaleup Programme.  She actively supports a range of business to implement impactful and sustainable change.

His career includes marketing and sales roles with multi-nationals 3M Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson and De La Rue leading to senior European positions in Digital and Compaq. In the latter cases driving the pivot from technology to service-based propositions which involved leading on major change programmes. In 2000 Charles became director of techUK, the industry body for the UK’s ICT sector, delivering services to 850 member companies, mostly SME’s.

Charles’ business coaching credentials are derived from his time at techUK through working with a variety of businesses, professional advisors, and investors.  During this period, he led several business growth initiatives that provided him with a unique insight into the performance drivers and KPIs of successful tech SMEs as well as deep understanding of common scaling challenges.  In parallel he has been an advisor to New Zealand Trade & Enterprise since 2005 supporting over 30 globally ambitious Kiwi companies with UK and European market entry.  

With go-to-market strategy and internationalisation as areas of expertise Charles applies business design thinking to the core management priorities in helping clients to create fit-for-purpose business models for rapid growth.  

Charles is well-networked and has had spells working in the US, Switzerland, and South Africa. His style is collaborative and collegiate yet challenging when needed.

Charles is an active NED of an IoT software development company targeting international defence and health sectors; itself starting the scale-up journey.  He also has interests in MedTech as well as a niche food delivery platform founded by his entrepreneurial daughters.  Charles is a keen sports follower and, in his heyday, captained amateur cricket and football teams.

He ran his own marketing consultancy for 11 years and has a mMBA in Marketing. He has also studied at Cranfield Business School.

Chris has held interim Marketing Director roles with several businesses in fintech, construction and cold chain sectors, and has extensive experience of working with food brands, financial services and enterprise technology/SaaS providers, investing in one venture which AIM-listed.

When not supporting innovation-led businesses at work, Chris is a keen golfer and has twice served on the management committee of Ely City Golf Club where he has been a member for 30 years.

Chris moved to the Cambridge area after an early career in a leading London publishing company, Centaur Communications, where he played a central role in the launch of DesignWeek Magazine – sister title to Marketing Week.

His ethos and approach to scaleup is that it is best characterised as a team activity, the most multidisciplinary initiative any company can undertake.

He started his career as part of the Boots Company management development programme. Chris joined the company in 1975, shaping his interest in innovation, development and scale-up.

Chris has managed scaleup projects from “bench to board” level, for blue-chip companies such as Boots, Cadbury, Beecham, Callard & Bowser Group and Leaf Group. He has managed truly transformational growth projects, including taking Smith Kendon to become Callard and Bowser Group (from 100 to 2000 people).

He is chairman of BIC Innovation, who have been helping companies to “scaleup” for over 15 years, turning ideas into something tangible that is of real commercial value. He is an MRSB, MILM, and gained most of his management training through corporate programmes, additionally trained in achieving world-class manufacturing standards.

As a University Lecturer in Innovation, Chris has a deep understanding of the skills and people challenges that being a scaleup business brings.

Even for relaxation, Chris is interested in how things work - so restores motorcycles and cars in his spare time. He is a keen biker and has been known to indulge in a track day burn or two!

He also follows rugby and cricket and helps to look after the family menagerie of 3 horses and 2 dogs.
 

Initially a Building Surveyor, Chris moved into Finance, leading the key Joint Ventures division within the Bank of Scotland, working alongside, and growing partnerships with Scania, Heidelberg, JCB and Barclays. In Underwriting Finance for the likes of Porsche and Ferrari Maranello, he progressed to managing Risk within three years, holding a personal £1m and joint £10m mandate. Chris then accepted the challenge of building two businesses within ICT; a c£1.2m Turnover SaaS company which he helped grow to over £3.5m and a full Managed Serviced IT business which also grew from c£2m to over £5m.

He progressed in joining BT Business to build an Enterprise Business Division, where he introduced and lead new technical business development teams, processes, procedures, and key partnerships to grow the division from zero base to c£40m Revenue and 34% GM. Chris joined EE’s largest outsource partner to drive them to achieve their ambitious 3 x growth. Heading up their 90 seat North West Business, under Chris’ leadership they grew to c300 staff, and he introduced a new management structure, implementing 10 Sales and Service Managers, 5 Operation Managers and 200 Account Managers. Turnover increased threefold.

As a current Director of Business Development, he believes strongly in growing successful partnerships, delivering the right values in driving the right culture, and supplementing these with a clear strategy, direction, and support.

Out of work, Chris spends his time with his two wonderful children, Olivia and Daniel, and family, becoming quite the den builder along the way. In believing he has already experienced the heights that Manchester United are going to reach in the foreseeable future, he now only attends a couple of games a season.
 

In 2000, Craig was appointed Trading Director at Aldi, a position he held for over 10 years. He oversaw the repositioning from 'Dirty Discounter' to 'Household Hero' followed by exponential UK growth beyond £2 billion, one of the most talked-about success stories in recent times.

With a keen interest in disruptive business models, Craig self-funded the launch of a dental group having identified that market requirements were not being met. Following a successful pilot, private equity was raised to support a national roll-out. 

Seven practices across the UK and Dubai were opened within two years, via an innovative franchise model and represented some of the fastest growing in the sector. This was recognised with Craig named Runner Up in the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards - Emerging Talent category in 2013. Following an aborted trade sale in 2016, the practices were disenfranchised and now continue to operate successfully as individual entities.

Craig has since invested in several businesses across the technology, healthcare, hospitality, and recruitment sectors working hands-on with Boards, management, and leadership teams to build value and drive growth. 
More recently Craig has taken on some selected business support and advisory roles which he finds incredibly rewarding given his engaging, creative and collaborative approach.

A northerner, educated in Newcastle, living in Durham with a lawyer wife and teenage son ensuring he never wins an argument or stops fixing punctures. 

His interests include all things sport, especially football, rugby, and golf. He has a love-hate relationship with a loyal but destructive Labradoodle called Stanley.

Emma’s core skills include access to finance, sales and marketing and building partnerships for growth. As an ex-business owner, she understands the ups and downs of the business journey and is an empathetic advocate of the founders she has supported, based on real life experience.   

Her ability to connect individuals has led to many long-term partnerships built up over the years. Emma has organised events that connected over 1200+ businesses, Angel Investment Summits, Pitch events and has reviewed 1000’s of investment decks. Her deep understanding of what investors want to see and hear makes her not only a great all-round mentor but also the potential key to unlocking your next fund raise.

Having joined Innovate UK EDGE when it was known as EEN in Nov 2019, her knowledge of the Government's landscape of support, both financial and actual, has grown tenfold. This has led to several of her clients unlocking hard to find funding that is not always visible to the general viewer.

Emma has two children, Phoebe (11 years) and Sophie (10 years), a Dogue de Bordeaux (Turner & Hooch dog) and is a very keen cook, having graduated from the famous Prue Leith Cookery School.

In her current role as an Innovation & Growth Advisor with BIC Innovation Ltd, Heather helps businesses to identify barriers to growth and overcome innovation challenges to scale internationally. 

She is passionate about supporting SME’s reach their full potential and has great admiration for the dedication and tenacity inherent in these businesses.

Heather’s key personal successes include securing an £8m contract providing a next-generation wide area network for six Local Government partners and securing substantial sales for a first to market software solution for the global telecoms market whilst working for a UK scaleup company. 

Having assisted many SMEs to access funding including Angel, debt, mezzanine, and equity investment as well as her experience gained working at a senior level in a scaleup company, Heather understands the challenges from both an institutional investor and scaleup company perspective and is ideally placed to assist the companies on the scaleup programme.

Heather is a member of CIPP and CIPFA. 

In her spare time, Heather enjoys spending time with family, yoga, playing the saxophone, walking, and researching local history.
 

Key skillsets and knowledge base are centred around financial management, processes, and planning. Jim understands and appreciates the financial needs of SME’s, managing internal and third-party stakeholders as well as a deep knowledge and experience of the corporate finance world. Jim has a significant network of contacts covering all sources and types of funding including Angel networks, HNW individuals, Venture Capital firms, Private Equity, Debt providers and the ever-growing Alternative Finance sector. 

Jim can deliver both strategically and in a “hands-on” way helping scaleup companies to formulate and develop financial modelling for funding as well as offering a high degree of expertise in deploying financial strategies.

Jim understands the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and their team having founded a lift manufacturing company in his late 20’S, growing to 45 employees, 2 million turnovers within eighteen months, clients included Thyssen, Kone, Otis, Fujitec, Mitsubishi and Schindler. 

Jim has been instrumental as an SME Finance Director, in closing significant funding rounds from a variety of providers.

Jim also has interests in two technology companies having helped them to achieve early-stage seed and series A funding. Jim has a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Sheffield Hallam University.

Jim has five wonderful children (mostly adults now) and a beautiful granddaughter whom he dotes on. Other interests away from work include Ornithology, a passion for reading and ongoing learning and Liverpool Football Club supporter.
 

Additionally, Jim has served on the Supervisory Board of the £2 billion turnover distribution division of a major global paper manufacturing and distribution group, defining best practice, advising on education, and monitoring performance.

Subsequently, Jim built his own small group of SME companies from a zero base to over £10 million turnover and has experienced the high and lows of developing a business in often unforgiving economic and political environments. 

Accordingly, he has great empathy with entrepreneurs and business owners for the challenges they face, particularly in navigating the often confusing and complex business support landscape.

A multi-disciplined executive and sector agnostic, Jim adopts a holistic approach to business growth and development, operating as a generalist practitioner and catalyst bringing constructive objectivity, and adding real value. Specialisms include Strategy, Leadership Development, and Commercialisation.

Jim holds a first degree in education (BEd Hons) from Lancaster University (1972), an HND in Paper and Printing Technologies (1975), and an MBA from the University of Salford (2010). 

A Fellow of the Institute of Paper, Printing and Publishing, Jim is a certified and accredited behavioural analyst and practitioner (TTI Success Insights DISC) and business coach, with a commitment to both life-long learning and promoting authentic leadership. 

Relaxation these days for Jim involves his four adorable grandchildren, following all sport, playing duplicate contract bridge and high stakes rubber bridge, and both supporting and lamenting his beloved Manchester United. 
 

She has nine years of academic research experience; industrial product development experience (senior scientist, clinical nutrition company SHS International); strategic business development and multiple Board experiences with VC-backed start-ups and is familiar with all aspects of the challenges faced by high growth potential technology and IP-based businesses. 

As a specialist Business Consultant, experienced CEO and Board Director, Joanne works with early-stage SMEs, start-ups, organisations seeking growth and University spinouts. With a strong network of contacts, Joanne has successfully built and supported operations in both private and public sectors in fields as diverse as medical devices, educational software to consumer beauty products and latterly established the Liverpool University Enterprise Zone, Sensor City, where sensor developments, big data, AI, and Smart City approaches were all part of the day-to-day activities.  

As CEO, she was responsible for the first commercially available automated diagnostic for diabetic eye disease; helped to deliver the Access to Funding Growth Accelerator programme as Growth Manager in the North West and was part of the Life Science team at BAFI. She has created strategy and business plans, delivered commercial support, raised funds, and put the vital relationships in place for organisations to achieve growth, harness competitive advantage and achieve profit.  Her approach to supporting companies is one of friendly challenge and her key strengths are in identifying opportunities and positioning for fundraising. 

Joanne holds first (BSc Joint Hons Medical Cell Biology and Biochemistry) and second degrees (PhD, Dept of Medicine) from the University of Liverpool and is continually immersing herself in new technologies and ideas through her work as Non-Executive Investment Director on behalf of Deepbridge Capital and as an External Board Observer with the Technology Venture Investments team of Development Bank of Wales. 

Relaxation for Joanne is firmly rooted in walks in nature, particularly in North Wales, and indulging her creative side with painting. 
 

This business was in the UK, North America, Europe, and China. Malcolm was Group Finance Director and subsequently, Executive Chairman overseeing many acquisitions, Joint Ventures, Strategic Alliances and Greenfield start-ups. He managed an IPO, fundraisings and an MBO. 

Over the past 10 years, he has focussed on providing high-quality International Trade Advice to SMEs in London and in the South East and, more recently, on leading a large team of Advisers covering both International Trade, Innovation and Business hubs. 

He recently established a joint venture to promote a soft landing for UK and International SMEs looking to set up a base in the USA. Malcolm is now the Managing Director of a large Advisory Team of 140 staff. 

Malcolm was appointed a JP in 1992 and spend 25 years on the Adult, Youth and Family Courts as well as leading the Administration of the Magistrates’ Court Service nationally until it was merged into Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service. He is married with 2 children and 5 grandchildren. 

Malcolm is well equipped to advise growing SMEs on a wide range of issues to support their scaleup journey and business growth. 
 

A move into consumer electronics saw Neil transition into a European Sales & Marketing role at TDK FAS, working with brands incl. Sony, Toshiba, Nokia, Motorola, JVC, Ericsson, Sharp and Pace Microelectronics.

From there Neil applied his skills-set to the printing & packaging industry (conventional & digital), progressing up the value-chain into the Brand Marketing industry. This move coincided with the proliferation of digital consumer-facing technologies, giving Neil a distinct advantage in this emerging discipline.

Now working as an independent consultant, Neil was able to combine his expertise in technology, complex process mapping, marketing content creation, sales activation strategies and behavioural economics to deliver holistic and transformational client solutions.

Neil guided leading B2B & B2C brands on the implementation of impactful and sustainable change, the likes of Xerox, Royal Mail, ASDA, Lloyd’s Banking Group, NHS & Pets at Home benefitting from his insights on digital transformation (DX) projects.

Simultaneously, Neil recognised the need to nurture the next generation of innovative UK businesses and is a long-time advocate for this, working in a voluntary capacity for several incubator / accelerator programs, sacrificing professional and personal time to act as Mentor for innovation start-ups. This passion burns strong as ever, with Neil now providing the benefit of his experience as a Director on the Innovate UK Scaleup Program.

Neil is a keen volunteer with Canal & River Trust and The Friends of Castleton Station and is often to be found enjoying a ride, a run or just a walk along the banks of the Rochdale Canal.
 

For the last fifteen years, he has worked with many SMEs, helping them with their growth via strategic and business planning, investment readiness and fundraising, with extensive contacts into the Business Angel, Venture Capital, and Crowdfunding markets. 

Paul has worked for Beer & Partners (Business Angel Network) and Connect Midlands, part of Warwick University, which ran investment readiness programmes. He has invested in Shadow Foundr, a crowdfunding business and was, for a period, on their Advisory Board. 

More recently Paul has worked as a consultant and a Non-Executive Director and has to date personally invested in twelve high growth companies. Paul has an interest in SME Board performance and improvement and holds a distinction in the IOD Diploma in Company Direction. 

Paul is an experienced Business Mentor and a Member of the Association of Business Mentors. He is currently studying for an ILM Level 7 (Masters level) qualification in mentoring. He has a passion for helping companies grow and helping entrepreneurs/Directors develop themselves. 

Paul originates from Yorkshire, but lives in exile in Leicestershire, is married, has a border collie and flat-coated retriever, is a keen golfer and flat green bowler. 

Steve has led multi-million-pound fundraising campaigns for and on behalf of a range of diverse, primarily technology businesses - from large fibre management through to computer gaming but also life sciences, education services and manufacturing.

He championed the Digital Sector for the Liverpool City Region helping drive equity investment into high growth companies and acted on behalf of both the Liverpool Seed Fund and Merseyside Special Investment

Fund working closely with the Chief Executive and specialising in the digital and software firms within their portfolio.

Recently he has acted as Interim CEO and Chair for several technology firms including a significant spell with an international software firm.

Steve conceived, developed, and delivered the international pitching event format “Software City” and ran it in Silicon Valley, Boston, London, Helsinki, and Liverpool bringing a wide range of technology businesses to the UK and European investor community.

As well as a broad knowledge set and vast network, Steve has considerable experience in managing relationships at board level. Comfortable at Board and C-suite level Steve offers the Scaleup Board a wide range of experience in growth finance, sales and business development and international expansion.
 

Tony then led the sale of the Company to VINCI Energies at the end of 2015. He then stayed with the business for a further 3 years helping with the integration into the corporate business whilst assisting further acquisitions. 

Tony grew the business year on year, he went through the pain of growing a team and developing a structure, managing the finance, making sure they got paid and managing all contractual & financial risks, they moved properties and had to develop the infrastructure to support the business needs and then made the business sustainable before successfully selling it. One of Tony’s specialities is Business Development. 

For the past 20 months, Tony has concentrated most of his time on the Scaleup Northeast programme as a Scaleup Partner, working with the Senior Leadership Teams in the SME community to help develop the action plan for the client scaleup journey. 

During this time Tony has assisted 80+ companies across the region, they have had some great results, worked with a wide range of companies, and found that they have common challenges regarding the strategic growth, they are usually: leadership & planning, sales & marketing, finance, infrastructure, and skills & talent. 

Tony moved to the North East in 2012 and has fallen in love with the area. He lives in Morpeth and is married to Lian and has two young girls Amelia and Alexis, he also has two older children in Nottingham, Laura, and Ben. He loves football, golf, tennis, F1 and pretty much all sports. He has also recently completed one of his long-term goals which was to complete his first self-build project.
 

In his current role as Operations Director, Viney is helping the company to address all the issues relating operational functions and keep abreast of latest developments to ensure that the company maintains its competitive position whilst growing regionally and internationally. 

Viney has managed and delivered several multimillion European projects over the last 5 years. He has a demonstrable track record of delivering profitable client partnerships based on building strong working relationships. Adept at articulating critical business challenges, synthesising ideas, and creating innovative strategic plans to exploit business growth opportunities.  

Viney has gained extensive market research experience while working with innovative SMEs. Leveraging the power of data analysis and market research, Viney has facilitated several commercial partnerships between clients and international partners. This includes connecting with one advanced manufacturing client with Ferrari’s Racing Division in Maranello.

In the current Scaleup programme, Viney is supporting clients by providing them with a holistic view of different access to finance schemes available regionally and nationally. Providing investor profiling, pitch deck analysis, and facilitating discussion with Investors for Scaleup clients who are looking to raise money through the equity route. In addition, Viney has helped several innovative SMEs in raising over £7m+ in funding through the Innovate UK and European grants. 

Born and raised in India, he comes from a family of innovative farmers. His academic background: - Bachelors’ in Software Engineering and Masters’ in International Business Management. Cricket is Viney’s religion, avid reader of autobiographies and his moon-shot project is investing in the research of paddy varieties which can grow in every drought-prone area in India. 

He has held board level roles as MD, Deputy CEO and in commercial and strategic development functions for a variety of publicly and privately funded groups.

His broad commercial experience includes working within the UK but also across Europe and the Middle East. He has given focus over the last 27 years to development and delivery of major infrastructure projects that result from public-private partnerships or commercial and mixed-use development schemes. In that capacity he has been responsible for creating and delivering projects with a capital value in excess of £1bn, with an emphasis on structuring asset-based finance/leasing.

John’s leadership of projects has demonstrated his capacity and expertise in building and managing often complex partnerships and joint venture working. As a Scale up Director, this is a skill-set that he brings to scaling businesses, supporting strategy development, partnership working, and management of business-critical commercial relationships.

Drawing on his knowledge of commercial and infrastructure development, he has also lectured on undergraduate and postgraduate RICS & CIOB-accredited courses. Having been involved in development of national infrastructure projects, he maintains a strong connection with and interest in this field and also broader defence and security matters.

Alongside his work as a Scaleup Director, John is coordinating the delivery of Innovation and Growth Services (IGS) via a team of Innovation & Growth Specialists on behalf of Innovate UK EDGE across the SE region. 

John holds a BA(Hons) in Business with Marketing and an MSc. in Real Estate Development and Investment. When time allows, he can either be found restoring modern classic cars or adding to his own car collection. That collection includes a Porsche GT3, Bugatti Chiron, Lamborghini Aventador, and the latest addition, a Ferrari 488 GTE, all of these by courtesy of masters of innovation at LEGO.