Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based CEO’ operating in the Advanced Materials space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Sandy Chen
Founder and CEO of Graphene Composites
Sandy Chen came up with the idea of a graphene/aerogel composite six years ago. However, since he was committed full-time as a City analyst, there was little time to pursue the idea. Sandy Chen gained prominence as the analyst who called the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-9, identifying key weaknesses in the UK banks (e.g. Northern Rock, RBS) and in the financial system overall. Since then, he has written a book on bank analysis and valuation, and testified on banks at a Parliamentary committee hearing. He is a regular media commentator on banks and macroeconomic issues.
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About Graphene Composites, Unity Trust Bank: Graphene Composites is a nano-technology startup that combines graphene with aerogel .
Henrik Hagemann
CEO and Co-Founder of Puraffinity
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About Puraffinity, Tech London Advocates: Puraffinity develops precision materials to target chemicals, with an initial focus on PFAS in water
Simon Thomas
Chief Executive Officer of Paragraf
Simon’s diverse background in physics, engineering and materials science combined with many years’ experience in the fields of semiconductors, functional materials, solid state devices and capital equipment manufacture, have equipped him with the knowledge to truly understand two-dimensional materials production. With expertise in materials deposition techniques he has developed numerous new materials and structure generation processes whilst progressing the general community understanding of the science of materials growth. As a global high-tech materials and engineering consultant, Simon has multidisciplinary skill sets in the development of equipment, deposition processes and surface science across a range of fields. The resulting technology advancements have achieved new performance levels in existing semiconductor device structures and have facilitated the capability to produce new and novel materials and devices.
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About Paragraf: Paragraf develop and deliver game-changing, commercial-quality, graphene-based electronic devices using contamination-free technology.
Andrew Nelson
President & CEO of IQE
Andrew Nelson has over 30 years experience in the semiconductor industry in a variety of research and managerial positions. Following a PhD in Semiconductor Physics, he joined BT Research Laboratories in 1981, leading the group responsible for the development of advanced optoelectronic devices for optical fibre communications. He subsequently managed the technology transfer from BT to Agilent for mass production. He co-founded EPI in 1988 (which became IQE in 1999) and was appointed Chief Executive Officer of IQE Plc in April 1999. Andrew has held several Non-Executive Directorship appointments, and served on several Government and Industry bodies. He received an OBE in 2001 for services to the Electronics Industry. He is currently a member of the High Level Group appointed by the EC to oversee the implementation of Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) throughout Europe.
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About IQE: IQE is the global leader in the design and manufacture of advanced semiconductor wafer products.
Gerard Rubio
CEO & Founder of Kniterate
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About Kniterate: Kniterate is an affordable and compact digital knitting machine for your workshop.
Haidin Rashid
Co-Founder and CEO of Materialize.X
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About Materialize.X: Data-Driven Directors for Manufacturing
Tony Davies
Chief Executive Officer of Atraverda
Tony Davies founded Bowman Power Group in 2004, and held the position of CEO until 2011, when he moved to a non-executive director role. Tony’s extensive experience in developing technology companies from start-up to investor exit also includes Membrain Limited- Automatic Test Systems, and Information Technology plc. Tony has also held non-executive directorships of Aeroform Group plc, Ocean Quay Management, Marine Current Turbines Limited and TTP Capital Partners, and was an Industrial Adviser to UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1981 to 1986.
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About Atraverda, Bowman Power Group: Atraverda is an advanced material company producing a proprietary conductive ceramic.
Kaushal Shah
Founder and CEO of envoPAP
Trying to turn Ideas into Reality!
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About envoPAP, Inwius: envoPAP is a Sustainable Materials Company utilizing green technology to provide agricultural waste with a second life.
Hugo Macedo
CEO & Founder of Smart Separations Ltd
Hugo is the founder and CEO of Smart Separations Ltd. He has over 11 years of experience in entrepreneurship which helped him founding this start-up company that has developed a proprietary filter that can be tailored to suit many different applications in the poorly explored but very large microfiltration market, from biotechnology to food & drink processing. Throughout his PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Hugo was constantly challenged with new and diverse tasks, in a multidisciplinary environment, where he breathed skills from chemical engineering to stem cell technology, including membrane technology, hydrodynamics, stem cell culture and bioprocessing, human blood production, amongst many others. This provided him with the right tools to create the first “3D hollow fibre bioreactor for the production of human red blood cells” – a system design that he patented. This work was featured in different magazines, including the cover page of The Chemical Engineer (TCE) in 2011, selected as one of “Ten life-changing ideas under research at UK universities” by the Research Councils UK and shortlisted for the highly prestigious IChemE Awards in 2011. Hugo currently holds 2 patents and is passionate for innovation leading to improve people’s quality of life – a vision that he has shared with Smart Separation
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About Smart Separations Ltd: Smart Separations is a limited company based in London UK that has patented an innovative microfiltration technology.
Brian Gordon Purves
CEO of Luxfer Holdings
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About : Luxfer Group is a global materials technology company specializing in the design, manufacture, and supply of high-performance materials
