Emerging Technologies Competition: Judges

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.

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.

David Freeman, Croda

David is the research & technology manager for Croda’s lubricants business – responsible for technical developments in base stock and additive technology. His career started in 1998 in ICI’s Paints Division before moving on to Uniqema and Croda. Before his current role he operated in a range of different market areas – including personal care, crop protection, polymer additives and coatings & inks – developing new chemical technology (products and processes) to deliver solutions to unmet market or customer needs. 

David received a first degree in chemistry from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Nottingham. 

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.

Will Barton, Oxford Biotrans

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.

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.

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.

Helen Munday, Food and Drink Federation

Helen Munday is the Food and Drink Federation’s Chief Scientific Officer. Helen is accountable for the diverse food safety and science policy briefs, but also has responsibility for sustainability and contributes to health and wellbeing policy.

Helen has a wealth of experience of the food and drink sector. 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.

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.

Claire Holt, Hosokawa Micron Limited

Claire is Business and Partnerships Consultant at Hosokawa Micron Limited, responsible for Innovation, development and data driven manufacture. Claire is partnership development manager at the University of Central Lancashire, responsible for innovation and enterprise with external and internal partners. Her career started in British Alcan and has spanned Fisons Pharmaceuticals, Ciba Geigy, Bush Boake Allen, Zeneca, Avecia, Fujifilm Imaging Colorants, Oxford Advanced Surfaces, University of Manchester/UMIP, Regenerate Lancashire and most recently University of Central Lancashire.

She has extensive experience in process design, commissioning, production, operations, supply, capital expenditure, new product, technology and business development, commercialisation, business strategy, planning and evaluation, and multi-functional general business management – all on an international basis. Claire has also founded and owns her own lifestyle business, Flashbang Science. Claire has a BSc (Hons) in chemical engineering from University College Cork and is a Member of the Institute of Chemical Engineers and a chartered engineer.

Kevin Matthews, Scott Bader

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 pharmaceutical 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, he 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.