Appointed to the Board in March 2009 and appointed Chief Executive on 20 May 2009. Prior to this, Xavier was CEO of Lehman Brothers in France from July 2007 to 7 January 2009. He became a member of Lehman Brothers’ European Operating Committee in 2003, having joined the firm in February 2000 in New York as co-head of Global Equity Trading. Xavier started his career on the International Arbitrage desk at Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York in January 1984. In 1990, he moved to London as co-head of European Equity Sales and Trading. He joined Credit Suisse First Boston in 1994 as global head of European Equities before moving to Dresdner Kleinwort Benson as global head of Risk and Trading, and deputy head of Global Equities in 1997. Xavier attended Columbia University Graduate School of Business, where he gained an MBA in January 1984. He is also a 2008 graduate of the post-graduate Institut des Hautes Etudes de Defense Nationale in Paris. He is a member of the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School and an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments, FSCI(Hon). He is also a member of the Financial Services Trade and Investment Board at HM Treasury and a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group.

George was elected to Parliament in 2010 after a 15 year career across the life sciences sector, in particular working with hospitals, clinical researchers, patient groups, and biomedical research companies to pioneer novel healthcare innovations. Following his election to Parliament in 2010, George served as PPS to the Minister of State for Climate Change. He was appointed Government Adviser on Life Sciences in July 2011, working closely with the Department of Health and coordinating the Government’s Life Science and Innovation, Health and Wealth Strategies (2011), and the Agri-Tech Industrial Strategy (2013). Following that, he was appointed to the post of Prime Minister’s UK Trade Envoy. From 2014 to 2016, George served as Minister for Life Sciences, a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. In July 2016, he was appointed Chair of the Prime Minister’s Policy Board.

Marcus Stuttard is Head of AIM and has responsibility for Primary Markets in the UK across both AIM and the Main Market. He is responsible for the management and development of AIM, London Stock Exchange’s international growth market for small and medium sized enterprises. Marcus has a particular focus on boosting access to finance for ambitious growth companies through initiatives such as ELITE and the development of the High Growth Segment on the Main Market. He is a regular speaker on growth and business funding issues and sits on a number of industry and policy advisory bodies and has played a leading role in key policy changes such as the recent change to make AIM shares eligible for inclusion in ISAs and the abolition of stamp duty on the trading of shares admitted to Recognised Growth Markets such as AIM.

Russ Cummings has a strong track record as an investor in early stage and high growth companies spanning both the healthcare and technology sectors. Russ joined Imperial Innovations Group plc in 2006 as Chief Investment Officer and was appointed Chief Executive in 2013. Imperial Innovations creates, builds and invests in pioneering technologies developed from the academic research within the 'Golden Triangle' broadly bounded by London, Cambridge and Oxford, which is home to the UK's four leading research-intensive universities. Along with its co-investors, Innovations has committed £1 billion in investment in UK innovation since its IPO in 2006. Russ has played an active on role on the board of Circassia Pharmaceuticals plc, which raised £200M in its IPO on the London Stock Exchange. Over the last two years, three further portfolio companies have also been involved in public transactions, namely Abzena and IXICO both listing on AIM and Oxford Immunotec listing on NASDAQ. Russ was closely involved in the sale of Respivert to Janssen Biotech, Inc, the subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. Imperial Innovations unlisted portfolio includes many of the UK’s most promising therapeutic companies, including Cell Medica, PsiOxus Therapeutics, Mission Therapeutics and Crescendo Biologics. Russ studied at Imperial College in the 1980s and started his career as a development engineer. He then joined the international venture capital company, 3i Group plc, and during his 16 years there rose to the position of Director in the UK Technology Group. He was responsible for investments in a number of successful University spinouts including Queensgate Instruments, Oxford Asymmetry and Searchspace. In 2003, he joined the Growth Equity and Venture Capital firm, Scottish Equity Partners, where he was an investor and board member of high growth companies including Zeus Technology.

David was appointed to the Board in March 2014 following the acquisition of Fusion IP plc, where he was Chief Executive Officer and one of the founders. David had been a board director of Fusion IP plc since 2004, having been a director of Fusion IP Trading since incorporation. Previously, David worked at Celsis International plc from its incorporation to its flotation on the full list of the London Stock Exchange in July 1993; Toad plc (now 21st Century Technology PLC), which he also co-founded where he was responsible for taking the company from start-up to a full listing on the London Stock Exchange. David was also CFO of Codemasters Limited, the UK's largest privately held games company.

Mark has over 15 years' experience in technology commercialisation and investment, and led the MBO which eventually resulted in the creation of Mercia Technologies PLC. Mark has grown Mercia from £4m in third party managed funds linked to 2 universities in 2006 to now in excess of £228m in managed funds, 18 university partnerships and 60 employees across 6 offices focussed on accelerating the growth of young businesses predominantly from the UK regions which are then selectively scaled over time using its own balance sheet which was greatly strengthened by raising £70m gross on IPO in 2014. Prior to Mercia, Mark was at the Department of Pharmacology (University of Oxford) and then moved to Oxford University Innovation (formerly Isis Innovation (the technology transfer operation of the University of Oxford)) where he was involved in spinning out BioAnalab, Oxford Immunotec, Oxitec and Natural Motion (three of which were latterly sold and one of which listed successfully on NASDAQ). Mark was also VP Corporate Development at Oxxon Therapeutics Inc, prior to its sale to Oxford BioMedica PLC.

David Docherty is Chief Executive of the National Centre for Universities and Business, and Chairman of the Digital Television Group, the industry body for digital television in the UK. He was the first BBC Director of New Media and Deputy Managing Director of BBC Television. After leaving the BBC he led cable company Telewest’s (now Virgin’s) drive into broadband content and services as MD Broadband, and has been Chief Executive of two television and interactive media companies. In the public sector, he was Chair of Governors of the University of Bedfordshire, and a member of various government advisory panels on new media, technology, and higher education. He serves on the Research Excellence Framework Panel and the Strategically Important and Vulnerable Subjects Committees for the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) as well as HEFCE’s Enterprise and Skills Committee. He is on the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC’s) Digital Economy Panel, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC’s) Creative Economy Board and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB’s) Interim Advisory Board for the Digital Economy Catapult. David’s other activities include serving on the Steering Groups of DESCRIBE, The Future of Innovation in Television Technology Taskforce (FITT), and Going Global 2013, and serving on the Panels of REF 2014 and the Space Advisory Panel. He is also a member of the National HE Stem Programme Advisory Forum, the UK~IRC Advisory Board, the Universities UK Employability Business and Industry Policy Network, and the Gateway to Research project board. He has served on the management board of The Society of Authors, written extensively on media and technology convergence for the Guardian, the Financial Times and other national newspapers and is in regular demand as a speaker at the world’s leading media and education conferences. David has senior level experience as a member of the BBC’s Board of Management, Telewest’s Executive Board, YooMedia and CSC Media Board, and as Chairman of the University of Bedfordshire.

Graphene Enabled Systems is a new company, wholly owned by The University of Manchester. Its mission is to develop a range of industrial products, components and systems based on the University’s broad portfolio of IP relating to graphene and other 2D technologies. It plans to launch a number of stand-alone ‘spin-out’ businesses which will licence the University’s IP for use in specific, well-defined applications and markets. The business’s CEO, Andrew Wilkinson, is a business leader with extensive experience managing international industrial and technology companies. He joined Graphene Enabled Systems directly from the privately owned French power-equipment manufacturer Socomec, where he was the Managing Director responsible for the British Isles and North America. Prior to this he spent 14 years with ICI plc’s Imagedata business, 8 of these in the role of Global VP of Sales and Marketing. Andrew specialises in the industrialisation and commercialisation of innovative products. He was responsible for leading the teams that successfully brought to market a host of new technologies. These included a revolutionary 3-dimensional industrial decoration system, completely new covert and overt document security products, high-performance thermally stabilised films for use in the printed electronics industry and a range of D2T2 digital imaging consumables and hardware.

Mike has held senior roles in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry since 1982, both in the UK and the USA. Previous large companies included Ciba Geigy, SmithKline & French and Amersham International where he headed up the Drug Development Services in the USA – later becoming an Executive Vice-President in Nycomed Amersham’s healthcare division. For the last 18 years, Mike has worked in the biotech/technology sector serving as executive director on the Boards of both publically listed and private companies including Core Group plc, Oxford Asymmetry plc, Mindweavers plc, Synaptica Ltd, Scancell plc, Hunter-Fleming Ltd and CMP Therapeutics Ltd (in the latter four companies as CEO). Mike is also currently a non-executive director of Stealthyx Therapeutics, Roslin Cells and Synaptica. He joined Edinburgh BioQuarter as Director in 2010 before founding Sunergos Innovations in October 2015.

Victor Christou has considerable experience on both sides of the investment table. In recent years he has focused his attention on technology investing. Immediately prior to CIC, Victor was at pan-European venture capital investors Wellington Partners, where he was a Venture Partner in the Tech Team. Before that he founded Opsys, an organic electronics business focusing on OLEDs and was a member of the team that sold Opsys Limited to Cambridge Display Technology, Inc (now owned by Sumitomo Chemicals). Victor has a BSc and PhD in Chemistry from Imperial College, London and was a Sloan Fellow in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. In the early stages of his career, he was an academic at the University of California at Berkeley and then at the University of Oxford, where he was a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Junior Research Fellow at Balliol College. Victor was the Royal Society of Chemistry Entrepreneur of the Year in 2002.

20 years’ experience in the healthcare industry, including 12 as a specialist healthcare and life sciences corporate financier in London, specialising in healthcare and life science ECM corporate advisory and broking Joined Numis in 2015, previously at Nomura Code and Peel Hunt Previously an orthopaedic physiotherapist treating patients for acute sport and trauma injuries

Chris Silva is the CEO of Allied Minds, an innovative U.S. science and technology development and commercialization company. Operating since 2006, the company forms, funds, manages and builds products and businesses based on innovative technologies developed at leading U.S. universities and federal research institutions. Allied Minds serves as a diversified holding company that supports its businesses with capital, management and shared services. The company has formed over 25 majority-owned subsidiary businesses to date and Chris serves on the boards of many of the firm’s portfolio companies. Prior to joining Allied Minds, Chris was a Partner at JSA Partners, an M&A firm. He was also a member of AT Kearney’s Aerospace Aviation & Defense Practice and GRC Intl, a Dept. of Defense and Intelligence Agency contractor. Chris served in the US Air Force and Intelligence Community and holds a BA from Tufts and an MBA.

Ms. Daphne Zohar is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of PureTech (PRTC.L) and a member of the Board. Zohar created PureTech, assembling a leading team to help implement her vision for the Company, and attracting over $450M million to the Company and its business units. Zohar has been recognized as a top leader and innovator in biotechnology by a number of sources, including EY, BioWorld, MIT's Technology Review, the Boston Globe, and Scientific American. She sits on the boards of PureTech, the Sync Project, Akili Interactive Labs, Follica, Karuna and Tal. She also sits on the Technology Development Fund Advisory Board at Children's Hospital Boston and is an Editorial Advisor to Xconomy, a national news company. Twitter: @daphnezohar

Since June 2015, Francois Martelet, MD, MBA is the CEO of NetScientific plc, a transatlantic London based healthcare IP commercialisation group focused on Diagnostics, Digital Health and Therapeutics. Until June 2014, Francois was Interim SVP, International Operations at Stallergenes SA, heading up its International Operations in the field of allergy therapeutics. He was previously CEO at Topotarget A/S, a publicly traded European biotech company specialized in oncology therapeutics successfully merged with BioAlliance SA. He is a Pharmaceutical Executive with over 20 years of US and international experience at both corporate and operational level in blue chip pharma Cos. He brings senior level experience in clinical development, business development, licensing in and M&A, marketing, and sales experiences. His areas of expertise at general management level include mid/late stage development and commercialization of oncology products and managing large P&L ($1+B) across large country organizations in senior level regional roles with full accountability of multiple product lines in primary care and specialty markets in Europe and Emerging markets. He introduced over 12 products in oncology to many markets across the world, and more than six of them have become worldwide blockbusters. He served as CEO of Avax Tech Inc., a US biotech company specialized in therapeutic oncology vaccines. Francois worked for Novartis Pharma AG as SVP and Region Head Europe, Vice President InterContinental Region Head-Oncology Division and Vice President & Global Oncology Franchise Head at Merck and Co., Inc. He is also Trade Advisor at Ministry of Foreign Trade, France since January 2011. He is also a Board Member at the European BioPharmaceutical Enterprises (EFPIA division) since June 2012.