Aldo is an experienced entrepreneur, business owner and investor. He is currently the director, shareholder/investor in 10 businesses that span from business support, renewable energy, residential and commercial property, food, accountancy, HR, and IT and across multiple countries. 

Aldo has a strong ethical vision of business and for this reason, he founded Inventya 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 support to Inventya’s clients, 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. 

Andrew has over 16 years' experience of leading publicly funded business support projects to high growth, high-tech SMEs.

Andrew provides innovation and internationalisation advice to clients based in North West England. 
‍
He has particular specialisms in recyclable market development, renewable energy and sustainability.

Andrew excels at supporting companies to develop value propositions and business models.

‍

Simona holds a BSc and an ACCA Diploma in Accounting and has extensive experience in the running of publicly funded services.  

She is the financial lead of Inventya Group, overseeing the auditing and compliance aspects of European Projects.

Having previously worked at The Women’s Organisation, Simona is very passionate about women's roles in business and community.

With a background in environmental and mechanical engineering, Valerie is an expert in feasibility studies, market research, commercialisation strategies and R&D Finance.
‍
Valerie leads our R&D Tax Credit team and is expert at helping clients submit accurate claims. 

Valerie is an advocate for female entrepreneurship and speaks three languages.

‍

Viney is highly passionate about innovative technologies that could have a positive impact on society. Over the last 7+ years, Viney has supported, as an adviser, over 150+ innovative SMEs around innovation, commercialisation, and growth strategies. 

In his current role as Operations Director of Inventya, 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 for Inventya 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 Inventya clients and international partners. This includes connecting one of Inventya’ 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.

Anchal has recently completed an MBA in general management from the University of Surrey before which Anchal has4 years of experience as a market researcher with a research agency based in India conducting projects for global companies.

Sector-wise most of her experience spans healthcare, pharma-related fields, consumer-packed goods, communication research including Ad Pre-testing, Brand tracking, and Idea testing.

Recently, Anchal has also worked with System1 Research in the UK as a Strategy Intern which was a part of her final MBA project, formulating internal growth strategies mainly focusing on competitor review, where they should compete in the market.

Danielle Wallis serves as the dynamic Marketing Manager at Inventya, originally joining the team as a Proposal Writer in 2020. Noted for her creative flair and passion for writing, Danielle transitioned into marketing, where she now guides key initiatives and infuses a fresh take into Inventya's content and strategy. Her captivating narratives have deepened connections with our audience and enhanced Inventya's market standing.

Beyond her internal contributions, Danielle also offers invaluable marketing consultancy to clients. A standout achievement includes her work with a digital transformation company, where her ability to understand and creatively articulate complex technological concepts earned her high praise. Beyond her professional impact, Danielle's warmth and empathetic leadership style bring a great dynamic to our team.

Danielle is passionate about learning, delivering value to clients, and implementing new ideas, making her a crucial part of the Inventya team. As she continues to evolve in her role, she looks forward to completing her marketing management qualification, taking on more leadership responsibilities and making a more significant impact in shaping Inventya's future.

‍

Deborah started her first business at 17.  The rest, as they say, is history!

With two exits under her belt; one successful and by choice; the other not by choice, but successful in the end, she has certainly experienced the highs and lows of running a business first hand.

Taking this experience in business and now working as a critical friend, mentor and advisor Deborah has been helping other business owners go further, faster since 2006. She has worked across a broad range of sectors and with start-up companies, those looking to grow and some looking to exit.

Deborah is a highly skilled business advisor with a track record of identifying areas for improvement and delivering solutions through strategic development, coaching and mentoring and business leadership expertise.

She brings a depth of expertise generated through extensive experience supporting SMEs across sectors, establishing, growing and exiting businesses and working at board level. 

Deborah thrives on developing leaders, utilising NLP, serving as a sounding board and providing constructive challenge. 

You will find Deborah to be personable and approachable with strong emotional intelligence, crisis management and project management capabilities.

Joanne has a passion for helping technology-based and IP-rich companies and over the last 20 years has worked in a variety of consultancy and business support roles which have all revolved around helping companies position themselves for growth and access to funding. 

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. 

Gary is an Innovation and Growth Specialist with robust expertise in finance, fintech and digital technology sectors.

Gary has helped clients access funding and support programmes through his established networks while maintaining trusted relationships with internal and external partners, businesses, and advocates.

‍
His innovative and strategic approach focuses on applying resources to achieve outcomes that have a positive impact on supporting clients from innovation to market.
‍

As Inventya’s Innovation and Growth Specialist, Gary is a friendly face who enjoys meeting new and old clients, networking, discussing future collaborations with clients and working on building relationships with partners and stakeholders.

‍

A highly experienced IP specialist with a background in biotechnology and engineering, and a PhD in Cancer biology. 

Having works as an in-house IP manager and IP consultants for technology start-ups, Ginny is experienced in managing the creation, maintenance, defence and commercialisation of intellectual property rights.  She helps organisations leverage innovation for IP creations and develop best strategies to monetise these IP to the fullest extent.

Helen Roberts is the Marketing Manager for the Innovate UK Scaleup Programme. With more than 20 years’ experience in both digital and traditional marketing, she has worked with many top brands whilst working at one of the leading marketing agencies in Manchester.  

Helen excels at crafting innovative strategies that drive brand growth and audience engagement. With a strong foundation in market research, digital marketing, and campaign management, she thrives on turning data-driven insights into impactful initiatives that deliver measurable results. Helen expertise spans content creation, social media management, and developing integrated marketing plans and campaigns tailored to diverse industries and target audiences. Known for her creativity, adaptability, and results-oriented mindset, her focus is on building strong brand identities and fostering meaningful connections between businesses and their customers.

‍

Jo leads the Grant Funding activity for Inventya, and together with her team has raised over £50M in grant funding for innovative projects. Jo started her career working in the technology transfer world, firstly at Loughborough University and then at the University of Nottingham Innovation Park. With a law degree, Jo has a background in IP commercialisation, having spent more than 25 years in the innovation and enterprise sector.
‍
Jo is recognised in the industry for establishing the Loughborough Innovation Centre, where she was the Managing Director for 15 years. Jo was also MD of Loughborough University Enterprises Ltd, managing IP commercialisation, consultancy, and the spinning out of over 30 companies. Jo was a founder of the Lachesis fund which was a government back investment fund supporting spin-out companies from across the midlands. In 2019, Jo established Cresco Innovation, a successful grant writing company, acquired by Inventya in 2021, with the team which is now an integral and busy part of the Inventya family.

In her spare time, Jo is studying for a PhD in Archaeology and is a member of the Gebel el Silsila Archaeological Mission in Egypt, where she spends several weeks of the year working on the archaeological survey of an ancient quarry and cultic centre.

‍

‍

‍

Kalpana is the Reach out executive for the Innovate UK Scaleup Programme and joined Inventya as a finance exec in 2023 after 36 years in Retail & Private Banking. 
After demonstrating excellent written and verbal communication skills and being able to build rapport quickly with both colleagues and clients, when the position of Scaleup Reach Out Executive came up, Kalpana was the obvious choice.  

With a positive mindset, can-do attitude, excellent time management, a customer centric focus, and a proficiency in drafting compelling outreach emails, proposals and presentations, Kalpana is a key support for the Scaleup directors and a valued member of the Inventya team.

‍

Mark Holmes has an extensive background in mechanical and production engineering, culminating in over 15 years of R&D, process, and materials development within the global plastic food packaging sector. Mark's career journey demonstrates his expertise, from hands-on R&D and customer support roles within leading plastics manufacturers to managing R&D projects and programmes at a prominent commercial Research and Technology Organisation (RTO). Here, his responsibilities expanded into project scoping, commercial contract negotiations, technology scouting, and technical services procurement.

Before joining the Innovate UK Business Growth team, Mark excelled as a commercial bid writer, crafting compelling applications for SMEs and large enterprises targeting UK and European grant funding. This role leveraged his deep understanding of the innovation landscape, particularly the intricacies of grant funding, and honed his expertise in intellectual property's strategic application in commercial outcomes.

Mark's approach to innovation support combines his technical acumen with a keen insight into the grant application process. He is adept at identifying the strengths and weaknesses of applications, providing invaluable feedback to enhance their quality and competitiveness. His work has significantly impacted clients, many of whom have secured grant funding and other forms of innovation support under his guidance. Clients consistently praise the difference Mark's support has made, not just to their applications but to their broader innovation strategies.

‍

Paul is a primary leader in healthcare projects, with a specific focus on pharma and biopharma. He has a rich history to draw on, having worked as a research chemist for the best part of 20 years, mainly in pharmaceutical R&D.

Paul’s first-ever job was as a research scientist at Pfizer, working on trying to make new antifungal drugs. He then went on to work as a research chemist for the best part of 20 years, mainly in pharmaceutical R&D at Pfizer and AstraZeneca, before moving into grant writing more than five years ago.

One of Paul’s career highlights so far was when he finished his lab career as a synthetic radiochemist preparing radiolabelled drugs, which he describes as “challenging but also extremely enjoyable”. During that time, Paul developed new methodologies that are used to expand on the limited ways that radiolabelled compounds can be made. He also presented this work at international conferences.

‍

‍

Paul is an experienced Non-Executive Director, investor, and business advisor. He has a degree in Civil Engineering and an MBA from Manchester Business School. Paul has twenty years’ corporate experience with Blue Circle Cement, BPB Industries, British Gypsum (Plaster & Plasterboard) and Anglian Water in group strategic planning and line management roles. At British Gypsum he led the start-up of a gypsum-based flowing floor screed business. 

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. 

Phil has been overseeing, guiding, and supporting the team in the submission of grants, from sales through to running successful funded projects since 2016 in his role as Head of Proposal Writing. He has worked as a technologist, project manager, research funding bid author, key knowledge holder, bid manager and funding acquisition quality manager.

Whilst working for a research and development company, starting off as consultant, Phil first came across grant funding. After securing his first grant, he realised he had discovered his niche and, since 2005, has been doing it ever since, thoroughly immersing himself into working within a diversity of sectors and technologies.

Phil’s ability to take difficult and highly technical concepts and present them in a simple, persuasive, and logical manner has seen him gain a hugely impressive track record of delivering funding, he has delivered more than £19million to clients.

His most notable career achievement here to date was a client acknowledging him as an inventor on their patent in recognition of the innovation he was able to supply.

‍

‍

‍

‍

Shane is a skilled data analyst with experience in collecting, organizing, interpreting, and disseminating various types of data and statistical figures.

He has over 2 years of data experience in large corporate and SME environments, holding analyst, management and consultant roles with organisations including Radisson Hotel Group and PHMG.

Shane holds a degree in Film & Television Production (BA Hons) from the University of Cumbria (2013). He studied International Business & Economics Management at the University of Leuven (2015-2017). He also has industry specific certifications including Databases & SQL from IBM (2019).

Shane is a techie at heart and has been since a young age. He also enjoys movies, music, horticulture, and sport, with Manchester United being his team of choice.

Tracey holds a portfolio career. She is a part time scale up director, the rest of her time is spilt between work as a tech scaleup fractional strategic CFO/ COO and NED.

Her functional expertise is in business strategy, investor and due diligence readiness, finance management, controls and processes, strategic planning, business operations excellence , risk management, transformation and change, inclusive leadership, risk, regulation compliance and governance for scaleups.  

She has spent the last 4 years running her own business conducting investor and due diligence readiness, business strategy and growth projects for various tech startups. Tracey has mentored in a number of accelerators such as TechStars, Outlier ventures, Mint Ventures and Nat West.

As a qualified chartered accountant and former KPMG director with a 22-year career, Tracey has specialised in strategy transformation, growth, operations, audit, assurance, transactions readiness and regulatory compliance. She has worked internationally for 6 of those years, led teams across in multiple sectors and covered specialisms such as Brexit readiness used for COVID lockdown, Climate Change and Sustainability.

In parallel she spent most of her career helping run her parent’s entrepreneurial business pro bono going through the ups and downs.

An IoD award-winning non-executive director 2023, Tracey also serves on Boards and Audit and Risk committees (ARC), Chair of EDI and is an experienced NED in regulated businesses.

Her passions include education, mentoring her teenage daughters, emerging technologies (blockchain), personal development, fitness, theatre and singing.

‍

With a background in product design, Andrew has spent the last 19years working professionally in design research and innovation. His experience spans managing a portfolio of clients and projects across all disciplines within industry and academia. Encouraging multi-disciplinary collaboration wherever appropriate and applying a strategic user-centred design approach to tackle business challenges.

Taking a design thinking approach, Andrew prides himself on supporting the development of new products and service offerings that address real-world needs. He thrives on pushing the boundaries and challenging assumptions of how things should be done, using design as a key tool for success.

Andrew provides support through the full design process from concept to commercialisation. With a goal to help develop the culture of innovation in organisations and creatively maximise business growth potential.

A highly experienced and successful bid-writer with a background in the sciences, including a doctorate in Chemistry. 

Carmel is passionate about what she does and is continually striving to perfect the team’s funding applications. 

We have to say it shows, our bid writing team have an excellent success rate and our clients come back to us time after time!

‍

Charlotte has a background in the healthcare innovation landscape in which she has been working for the past seven years. She has experience of partnering with individuals, SMEs and Public Sector organisations to develop their ideas into sustainable businesses.

Her knowledge and key areas of interest are business planning, value proposition and developing enterprising individuals.

Her previous role saw her lead the start-up programme for health social enterprise, providing tailored 1:1 coaching and mentoring support.

Charlotte is also a co-founder of a tech start-up and has a MSc Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship graduate from Alliance Manchester Business School.

Chris specialises in Business Development and Marketing Strategy, Finance Strategy and Leadership Development, with a Senior Management career spanning over 25 years within both Corporate and SMEs. Having held positions including Head of Operations, Head of UK Sales, Head of Risk, Operations Director and Director of Business Development, Chris brings his wealth of knowledge in building successful Corporate Divisions and SMEs to complement our Scaleup Director Team.

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.

David is an innovation professional with many years’ experience, including innovation roles in blue-chip organisations including Astra Zeneca.

He has extensive knowledge and experience of innovation project delivery, training, culture development, innovation process design and idea management.

‍
David has also run his own management consultancy, helping SMEs develop their innovation capability and deliver new products with agility.
He is also the author of ‘The Innovators Manual’ and a number of other innovation-related publications.

‍
As well as a BA in Business Administration, David holds a postgraduate certificate in Project Management, is a trained PRINCE2 Agile Practitioner, and is a certified Blockchain Expert.

‍

‍

With a PhD in Foreign Policy and a background in globalisation and global political economy, Giulia is a specialist in internationalisation and business development across several sectors.

She has 12 years' experience of developing strategic relations with Latin America and Europe and enjoys helping clients access innovative international advice.

Giulia also works as North West manager of the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the UK.

Giulia is passionate about gender equality and global gender relations and regularly hosts Women in Innovation Events.

After working within the field of engineering, Felipe specialised in International Business, Management and Technology Entrepreneurship with a focus on Innovation. Felipe developed and implemented innovation projects in both the private and public sectors. In his current position Felipe helps many local SMEs in living up to their innovative potential, through answering their internationalisation needs and therefore allowing them to grow. 

Felipe provides technology companies with international partnership support, innovation advice and funding opportunities. He has the in-depth knowledge to advise Swedish companies whether it is in the field of innovation, business development, digitalisation, financing or internationalisation. Felipe has delivered workshops and he currently delivers the Innovate to Success H2020 programme to SMEs.

Felipe has always been very entrepreneurial. For example, during his postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom, he co-founded a start-up. Felipe has led an innovative project in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) and successfully raised funding in different countries. Besides his work, he likes to constantly educate himself and keep himself updated with the latest trends in the field of innovation, technology and marketing.

Giorgia has a degree in Economics and Management of Innovation at the University of Trieste in Italy.

‍
She has previously worked on international tax refunds and now works in our successful R&D Tax Credit claims team, analysing expenses and full accounts, and calculating & preparing the claims. She also writes innovation reports summarising our clients’ R&D projects and the qualifying expenditures.

‍
Giorgia is passionate about helping our clients’ claim back all the R&D Tax Credits they are entitled to.

‍
She is fluent in Italian and English, and is working on improving her German!

‍

‍

Hannah has a background of working in the mergers and acquisitions market, assisting SME business owners in the sale of their business.

‍

Hannah's key specialisms are competitor analysis', market research and identifying appropriate investment. Hannah is extremely pleased to be joining the team at such an exciting time and she looks forward to supporting our clients with their research needs as part of their growth plans

‍

Ian is an experienced management consultant, and he specialises in the delivery of publicly funded business support programmes to North West businesses.

Ian enjoys working with ambitious people with fast-growing businesses. He provides high level direct strategic interventions, often utilising his extensive network of professional service providers and strategic partners. With an extensive knowledge of the local and national business support landscapes, Ian helps clients access funding and commercial advice aimed at scaling up their operations.

Ian joined Inventya to deliver client support via the Enterprise Europe Network and the Innovate2Succeed Programme.

‍

Ian has over 30 years’ experience successfully commercialising disruptive innovation within both established and fast-growing companies.  His innovation commercialisation expertise began through launching Sat Nav with Philips Electronics in the 1990s.  This was followed with the world’s first taxi-hailing app (pre-dating Uber by some 8 years) before founding the i-Qube innovation consultancy and serving as the Intellectual Property Office’s regional policy lead.  

He has broad knowledge across several technologies and industries − from electronics and software to manufacturing in the automotive and food and drink sectors.    

A track history of creating winning business strategies, innovation practice, securing funding, building collaborations, and managing a diverse Intellectual Property portfolio.

Jim is a focused and commercially experienced finance professional having worked in both small and large organisations within the SME sector. With over 25 years’ experience of financial delivery both at senior management and board-level Jim brings a wealth of knowledge and understanding of the need for strategic financial planning and delivery. His roles have been varied and cover multiple sectors.

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.

Jim is an experienced business executive, entrepreneur, and business advisor. He has over 35 years of main board experience in large corporate and SME environments, holding CEO, Managing Director, Commercial Director, Divisional Director and Sales & Marketing Director roles with organisations including Paperlinx, Reed Elsevier, Bunzl plc and Stora Enso Oy.

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. 

Neil started his career @ GEC Alstom, obtaining a degree in Microelectronics & Microprocessor Design Engineering from Salford University. He then joined Lucas Automotive as a manufacturing engineer, adding process engineering to his skills set (Kaizen, Kanban, JIT, Lean 6-Sigma and Cell Manufacturing).

A move into consumer electronics saw Neil transition into a European Sales & Marketing role @ 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.

An experienced innovation consultant, Ryan originially worked with us for over 6 years before taking a year-long sabbatical to learn new skills.
‍
He missed us and our clients so much, that he came straight back!

Ryan is highly experienced in conducting research and commercialisation work for clients, across every sector you can think of.

Passionate about his work, he always goes the extra mile to provide clients with the knowledge they need to grow and develop their business and technology.

Steve has over 30 years' experience as a technology and business consultant working since the late ’80s at Board level. Steve has worked across Europe and the USA leading technology businesses large and small.

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.