Take a look at our 2021 Judging Faculty across the four competition categories
Nima Roohpour, Reckitt Benckiser
Nima Roohpour is the Science Platform lead at RB he is responsible for the finding and evaluation of inventions and new technology/products and identifying innovation partners for RB health. Passionate about scientific breakthroughs, Nima has worked with many health-tech start-ups negotiating partnership and commercialisation, he is continually looking for the next big ideas, identifying cross category platforms that can bring significant growth for RB.
During his career Nima developed expertise in product research and development through developing new technologies, evaluating external opportunities, innovating and supporting new product claims together with managing R&D teams and projects including all stages of product lifecycle from exploration to launch.
Nima joined RB in 2019 from GSK consumer healthcare where he was a Principal Scientist in consumer health R&D with more than 8 years of experience in innovation and new product development. Nima is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry with Ph.D. in Biomaterials from Queen Mary University of London.
Paul Ellis, Walgreens Boots Alliance
Paul Ellis is a PhD chemist with over 25 years of Industrial Experience. He has spent the vast majority of his career in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods Industry at RB and now Walgreens Boots Alliance. He has led teams developing products for global markets for Brands such as No7, Soltan, Scholl, Veet, Airwick, Strepsils, Dettol and Clearasil.
He currently heads up the WBA Scouting and Partnerships team which identifies new technologies and technology partners for future collaboration.
Matilda Bingham, Concept Life Sciences
Matilda Bingham is VP of Science at Concept Life Sciences and is a medicinal chemist with over 18 years’ experience of working in the pharmaceutical R&D sector in ‘large pharma’ (Organon, Schering-Plough, Merck), Biotech (Redx Pharma) and currently with a CRO (Concept Life Sciences). Her early career was spent working in CNS therapeutic areas where her research focussed on design strategies for getting small molecule therapeutics across the blood brain barrier.
More recently as Head of Research and Operations at Redx Pharma she was involved in the discovery and development of oncology and fibrosis clinical and pre-clinical candidates including the porcupine inhibitor RXC004 and BTK inhibitor LOXO-305.
Matilda is currently VP Science overseeing multiple programs covering the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and petrochemicals sectors. Matilda is a member of the SCI fine chemicals group and has authored over 40 papers, patents and publications including the RSC book “Drug Discovery for Psychiatric Disorders”.
William Goundry, AstraZeneca
William Goundry is a Principal Scientist in Early Chemical Development at AstraZeneca’s Macclesfield Campus. Following his DPhil in organic synthesis at Oxford University and Post Doc at Indiana University Will joined AZ at Macclesfield in 2006. He has developed a strong track record in process design and scale up working from grams to tonnes, including Biocatalysis and flow chemistry.
Will is currently AstraZeneca’s scientific lead for the early phase scale-up of New Modalities, including antibody drug conjugates (ADC), peptides, and nucleotide based drugs. In this role he is developing the commercial routes and processes for ADC payloads, whilst directing the manufacture of clinical trial material.
He has a strong innovation track record including winning an internal AstraZeneca technology competition through delivering a pitch. He is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Manchester in the Division of Pharmacy, and an industrial lead for both the Centre for Biocatalytic Manufacture of New Modalities and the Centre for Doctoral training (CDT) in integrated catalysis. William is both a Chartered Chemist (CChem) and a Fellow (FRSC) of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Tim Luker, Eli Lilly
Tim Luker is currently VP External Innovation at Eli Lilly. He leads Lilly's external advancing innovation process within Global Corporate Business Development, primarily targeting transformational early stage research across 5 therapy areas. This role also supports Lilly’s multiple external VC fund investments and runs due diligence and search and evaluation initiatives.
Tim is an experienced drug hunter with more than 20 years’ experience (more than 60 patents and publications). Prior to Lilly he worked at Shire, Polleo Pharma (founder, company acquired) and AstraZeneca.
Tim has a PhD in chemistry from the University of Southampton, carried out post-doctoral research at Universiteit Van Amsterdam and is a Prince2 qualified project manager.
Jason Harcup, Unilever
Jason is Unilever’s Global Vice President for Skin Care Research & Development, responsible for the end-to-end R&D delivery from innovation to market across several billion Euros of turnover. He is also Global Vice President for the Prestige Division. He leads a team of several hundred scientists located in laboratories across the world. In 20 years with Unilever, he has been site leader for the Shanghai R&D facility and headed Unilever’s Research organization in China. He currently heads up Unilever’s R&D Campus in the United States.
The teams Jason has led have delivered a string of technologies totaling several hundred million Euros of turnover in global Beauty & Personal Care brands. He has been on the Faculty of Health and Beauty America, a Beauty Disruptor with the CEW network and a co-convenor of the Unilever Asian Dermatological Forum. He is a Fellow of both The Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Prior to Unilever Jason graduated from Cambridge University, has worked as a scientist for the UK Ministry of Defense, and has been an adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is author of various publications, holds several patents and has delivered numerous invited talks as an industry leader.
Jessica Gould, Croda
Jessica is the research team leader for Croda’s Energy Technologies Business. Formed from four existing strong and innovative business areas within Croda, Energy Technologies integrates: Lubricants, Oil & Gas, Phase Change Materials, and Batteries & Catalysts. The Energy Technologies business mission is to provide leading technologies that address today's issues and work in partnership with customers to develop ever-more sustainable solutions for the future.
Energy Technologies provides differentiated specialty chemical additives, high sustainability solutions, and technical expertise to our customers in the fossil fuels, lubricants, and renewable energy value chains. Croda's products and services help enable and increase the efficiency of energy extraction, transport, harvesting, refining, storage and conversion/use.
Croda is the name behind the high performance ingredients and technologies in some of the biggest, most successful brands in the world: creating, making and selling speciality chemicals that are relied on by industries and consumers everywhere. Our Commitment is to be Climate, Land and People Positive by 2030 and to be the most sustainable supplier of innovative ingredients, we will help provide solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges in the coming decades.
Jessica has a strong background in organic and polymer chemistry having joined Croda’s Global Synthesis Team in 2013 before moving on to Energy Technologies in 2020. She received a first degree in chemistry from the University of Liverpool and a PhD in inorganic materials chemistry from the University of Nottingham.
Geetha Srinivasan, PETRONAS
Dr. Geetha Srinivasan as an applied chemist with 20 years of research experience is passionate about bringing chemistry to real life applications. After qualifying for her PhD in Applied Electrochemistry from Central Electrochemical Research Institute from India, she moved to Northern Ireland in 2006 as a post- doctoral research fellow at The Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) where she became the chief scientist for industrial projects sponsored by PETRONAS. In 2018, she relocated to work directly at PETRONAS in Malaysia at the industrial settings. Currently she is Head (Technology Program) based within Group Research and Technology, leading clean energy programs.
Geetha has strong innovation record since receiving outstanding women in science award from L’Oreal-UNESCO-Royal Society in 2012 for her work on ionic liquids in biomedical applications. This was followed by three Institute of Chemical Engineering – IChemE awards and Don Nicklin Medal in 2013 as a key researcher in an environmental mitigation project dealing with toxic heavy metal removal from petrochemical streams, showcased by RSC as one of the 175 faces of Chemistry, recipient of Rising Star in Science and Engineering Category Award UK in 2018.
In 2020, she was appointed as an Elected Member of Royal Society of Chemistry Industry and Technology Division. Geetha is a Chartered Chemist (CChem), Chartered Scientist (CSci), Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). Besides green chemistry, Geetha is passionate on championing diversity and inclusivity in the workplace and beyond.
Will Barton, Oxford Biotrans
Will is a non-executive director and consultant working with early stage technology companies, bringing over 40 years of experience in manufacturing, technology and business leadership in the chemical industry. He is co-founder and chairman of Oxford Biotrans, chairman of Added Scientific, HydRegen and Irish Manufacturing Research, and a non-executive director of NiTech Solutions and the Institute for Manufacturing. He has also spent time at Innovate UK as Head of Manufacturing.
Will helped found Oxford Catalysts (now Velocys) and, as its chief operating officer, played key roles in a successful IPO and the acquisition of US-based Velocys. Previously, he had roles up to vice president level in Flexsys, FMC and ICI / Zeneca. He received an OBE for “services to innovation and manufacturing” in the New Year’s Honours List 2016.
Mark Selby, Ceres Power
Dr. Selby is Chief Technology Officer at Ceres Power Ltd where he is responsible for the vision to develop world-leading electrochemical technologies and the associated research agenda and strategy to deliver this vision.
Mark's goal is to build collaborations with progressive companies to solve hard science and engineering problems to get world-changing science out of the lab and into their products actually changing the world.
He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Ellen Norman, RSSL
Ellen is a Principal Scientist at Reading Scientific Services Ltd (RSSL) where she leads the technology and science innovation strategy. As a service provider RSSL needs to be agile and adaptive to the market needs ensuring the capabilities match client expectation on quality and cost. She also coordinates major investigative projects covering a wide variety of issues including contamination, adulteration, developing new analytical techniques and troubleshooting product failures.
She originally joined RSSL in 2007, having previously worked for 10 years at Brewing Research International (now part of Campden BRI). Throughout her career she has had a variety of responsibilities including running training courses, research, surveillance and government funded projects. She has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham.
Julie Dimakou, PA Consulting Group
Julie is a Management Consultant Chemist at PA Consulting’s Global Innovation Centre in Cambridge. Bringing 25 years’ experience in manufacturing, technology and innovation in the Food and Drinks sector, she is responsible for leading innovation programs from concept creation to commercialisation as well as advising start-ups and multinational corporations on growth strategies and Intellectual Property.
Julie has invented and patented novel products and processes, as well as novel home-compostable packaging films. She started her career with rheology, cereal science, meat and fat replacers. She subsequently worked for Foss, creating end-to-end analytical chemistry solutions enabling businesses to run intelligent data-driven high yield processes before moving to a start-up as CTO. During her career she has worked with dairy, bakery products, oils, wine, juice, beer, coffee and functional ingredients.
Pete Wilde, Quadram Institute Bioscience
Pete is a senior research scientist at the Quadram Institute Bioscience (formerly the Institute of Food Research). He is a physical chemist specialising in investigating the breakdown of food structure during digestion to determine how foods can be structured to improve their health impact. The impact of this research will be to aid the design of foods with enhanced nutritional benefits such as promoting satiety and reduced glycaemic and lipaemic response to address the global challenges of obesity, type 2 diabetes and other major diet-related conditions.
He has led a number of multipartner collaborative projects funded through BBSRC, LINK, DTI and EU, involving partners from both academia and industry. He has published over 130 peer reviewed papers, about 40 book chapters and conference proceedings. He sits on the RSC Food Group and is an honorary professor in the school of pharmacy at the University of East Anglia.
Imran Afzal, PepsiCo
Imran Afzal leads life sciences open innovation for PepsiCo in Europe, and is based in the UK. He works alongside world class external partners: start-ups, universities, research groups and other companies to source and successfully deliver on strategic opportunities in the food and beverage spaces. He also leads PepsiCo’s engagement in the European KIC – EIT Food, an endeavour to transform the food sector, in collaboration with a wide cross-section of partners.
Imran has held product category roles at Tesco and at Sainsbury’s, where he helped managed a diverse range of SKUs worth in excess of £200 million annually. He was also at ASDA as their Head of Quality, delivering the largest private label consumer testing program in UK history. Prior to joining PepsiCo Imran joined the Board of a start-up creating gluten and dairy free products for retail and foodservice customers, where he led the creation of a factory, and set the R&D agenda resulting in a range of award-winning products. He remains passionate and engaged with the start-up scene.
Helen Munday, Institute of Food Science and Technology
Helen Munday has a wealth of experience of the food and drink sector and is currently the President of the Institute of Food Science and Technology. Helen started her career with Mars Petcare where she spent 20 years in various roles including nutrition research, product development and innovation processes. Helen has also held the position of Director of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs for Coca-Cola and worked as Lead Technologist in AgriFood at InnovateUK.
Most recently Helen was the Food and Drink Federation’s Chief Scientific Officer with accountability for the diverse food safety and science policy briefs, but also held responsibility for sustainability and contributed to health and wellbeing policy.
Helen is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST) and the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Registered Nutritionist and President of IFST until 2023. With her qualifications in Agricultural and Meat Science, together with her vast business experience, Helen has a broad and deep knowledge across the entire AgriFood chain.
Andrew Muir, UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund
Andrew is Investment Director for the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (a £27m early-stage venture capital fund building and growing technology companies stemming from the UK’s research base) and the Stephenson Fund at specialist venture capital firm Midven. They have held investments in some of the UK’s most innovative companies, in areas as diverse as novel antibiotics, research into Alzheimer’s disease, “green” chemicals and airport security.
Andrew has a degree and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Oxford. After an initial research career at ICI and Zeneca he went on to roles in business development at the medical device company Biocompatibles and Vice President of Technology for Sterilox Technologies, a US company with a proprietary technology for sterilisation. Andrew started his career in venture capital with the Invention and Innovation seed capital fund at NESTA.
John Conti-Ramsden, Knowledge Centre for Materials Chemistry
John is head of materials chemistry and director of the Knowledge Centre Materials Chemistry (KCMC) at the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI). He joined KCMC as director in April 2009, bringing 25 years’ experience in industrial R&D, technology and business management. He is responsible for materials chemistry programmes to support innovation in materials across the UK manufacturing industry.
John started his industrial career in the ICI Corporate Laboratory, subsequently working for a number of ICI and Zeneca businesses in the UK, Holland and USA. During this time he was the technical lead on the Avecia Strategic Research Programme, and led the industry team that established the Organic Materials Innovation Centre in Manchester.
Jo Slota-Newson, IQ Capital
Jo Slota-Newson is a venture capital investor at IQ Capital, investing in early stage and growth ventures across deep technology sectors.
Jo has worked in technology commercialisation for 14 years, in technical, commercial and investment roles. She has experience working with high growth technology businesses in the advanced materials, electronics, photonics, cleantech, industrial engineering, medical technology and software sectors.
Jo started her career as a research scientist in nanotechnology and applied electronic materials at the University of Cambridge, and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, where she also lectured in biomedical engineering and renewable energy technologies. She has also served as CTO for an early stage photovoltaics company, and director of operations for an online equity investment platform focussed on the Life Sciences and Biotech sectors.
Jo holds an MA, MSci and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge, and also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation
Jeremy Compton, Givaudan
Jeremy Compton is the Global Head of Science and Technology - Fragrances at Givaudan. With over 30 years experience in the Fragrance and Flavours industry since graduating in Chemistry he has had a diverse global career with significant management positions in commercial, development and research functions and has held senior management positions in the Fragrances, Flavours and the Fragrance Ingredients businesses.
He is passionate about the positive impact Fragrance can have on consumers lives and how research into new materials, formulations, methods and forms of delivery can make this true.
In addition to the UK he has lived and worked in Brazil, Indonesia, France, the United States and Singapore and is now based in Kemptthal, Switzerland.
Kevin Matthews, Non Exec Director
Kevin is Group CEO of Scott Bader Company Ltd, a speciality polymers business, and a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Vectura plc, a listed specialist contract development business. Kevin has more than 25 years’ experience in senior management roles in the chemical, technology and pharmaceutical sectors.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Kevin has a strong interest in commercialising technology having previously held CEO roles at technology companies including Itaconix plc, an AIM listed biobased polymers business, Isogenica, an antibody drug discovery company and Oxonica plc, an advanced materials business.
Previously, Kevin served as a Non-Executive Director and Remuneration Committee chair of Low & Bonar plc, a FTSE listed performance materials business and Elementis plc, a FTSE 250 specialty chemicals business. He also served as a Non-Executive Director of Cellectricon AB, a Swedish biotechnology company dedicated to drug discovery and research in the areas of chronic pain and neurodegenerative disease.
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