Learning from Disruption
David was appointed as Director of Innovation Platforms in the Technology Strategy Board in July 2007. He was then made Director of Innovation Programmes in July 2008.
David graduated from the University of Sussex with a BSc in Polymer Science. He stayed on to do a PhD sponsored by ICI Plastics, spending the summers working in their laboratories at Welwyn Garden City. As a result of this experience, he joined the British Petroleum Research Centre at Sunbury-on-Thames where he led a team working on electrically conductive polymers, polymer batteries and non-linear optics.
8 years later he joined Courtaulds to set up and run their Strategic Research Group. In addition he spent separate years responsible for Carbon Fibre Research (1989) and Performance Films (1992)(in America). After another 8 years he left to join ICI Acrylics as Research Director. He then joined National Starch, where he was responsible for research in their Specialty Synthetic Resins Division for 2 years and then became a Director of Group Technology for ICI.
Throughout this time, he has sat on the UK Governments Technology Foresight Panel for Materials, was President of the Industrial Affairs Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2002-2004) and the Co-Chairman of the Strategy and Implementation Board of the Crystal Faraday Partnership on Green Chemistry (2001 – 2007). He is Chairman of Oxford Biomaterials and a Non-Executive Director of Oxford Advanced Surfaces Group, Apaclara and Spineless Design. From 2006 until 2008 he was part time CEO of Materials UK, an organisation set up to implement and develop the work of the Materials Innovation and Growth team.