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 CFO’ operating in the Medical Device space. If you think a CFO’ 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.
James Abell
Partner and CFO of Abingworth
Jams has more than 14 years of venture capital experience and three years of operational experience in life science companies. His directorships have included Chroma Therapeutics, Clinical Designs and Syntaxin. He joined Abingworth as CFO in 1998, prior to which he was CFO of Prolifix from 1995 to 1998. He trained and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG. He holds a degree in Biology with Chemistry from the University of Southampton. James handles Abingworth’s finance and administration as well as investment matters, focusing on start-up companies.
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About Abingworth: Abingworth is an international investment group dedicated to collaborating with life sciences entrepreneurs.
Neil Cooper
Chief Financial Officer of Abingworth
Neil is responsible for finance, administration, and investor relations. Before joining Kennet, he was the Financial Controller at Robert W. Baird Group. Prior to that he worked at Advent Venture Partners. He began his career at KPMG where he gained experience in both Audit and Transaction Services. Neil is a qualified Chartered Accountant and holds a BSc. in Biochemistry from the University of Warwick.
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About Abingworth: Abingworth is an international investment group dedicated to collaborating with life sciences entrepreneurs.
Alex Asquith
General Counsel and Chief Financial Officer of Abingworth
Alex joined Abingworth in 2005 having previously been a member of the UK legal team at The BOC Group plc, where she was responsible for providing legal advice on a wide range of issues to one of BOC’s lines of business. Alex trained as a solicitor at the London offices of Slaughter and May and was an assistant solicitor in the corporate and commercial department from 1994-1999. Alex’s role at Abingworth is to assist the General Counsel and Chief Financial Officer as well as to provide legal support to the life sciences team
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About Abingworth: Abingworth is an international investment group dedicated to collaborating with life sciences entrepreneurs.
Willem Baralt
CFO of Quanta
Willem has almost twenty years of investment banking, executive management, and private equity experience. Amongst his achievements, he was pivotal in the $1.6bn turnaround and public listing of FLAG Telecom and was co-founder and CFO of Arqaam Capital, one of the largest boutique investment banks based in Dubai. Previously, he has worked at the telecommunications firm Ameritech (SBC), as well the investment banks Deutsche Bank and Panmure Gordon. More recently, he led the acquisition and the subsequent merger of the real-estate agency Humberts with Chesterton. As Deputy Chairman of the enlarged Chesterton Humberts he oversaw its growth into one of the largest real-estate agencies in the UK. Willem has undergraduate degrees in business administration and computer science from Lehigh University and an MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Business.
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About Quanta: Quanta develops an advanced haemodialysis systems for use in the home and clinic.
Tom Sawyer
Chief Financial Officer of Cognetivity Neurosciences
Tom Sawyer is the Chief Financial Officer at Cognetivity Neurosciences.
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About Cognetivity Neurosciences: Cognetivity Neurosciences is a Platform technology for early, rapid and easy detection of dementia.
Thad Huston
Chief Financial Officer of LivaNova
Thad Huston is the Chief Financial Officer of LivaNova. Huston joined LivaNova after more than 25 years of healthcare experience at Johnson & Johnson (J&J) where he most recently served as Group Chief Financial Officer, Medical Devices. While at J&J, Huston was pivotal in accelerating the growth for many of its divisions through focused strategies, calculated investments in innovation and streamlined productivity. Huston held various other senior roles while at J&J, including: President of J&J’s Xian-Janssen Pharmaceuticals division in China; Vice President – Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operations Officer in J&J Pharmaceutical Research and Development; as well as Vice President – Finance and Chief Financial Officer at Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceuticals. Prior to this, he held senior financial roles at various J&J locations in the U.S., China, Belgium, Russia and Hungary. A Certified Management Accountant, Huston holds a Bachelor of Science in finance with an emphasis in accounting from Pennsylvania State University.
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About LivaNova: LivaNova PLC is a global medical technology company built on nearly five decades of experience and a relentless commitment.
Robin Pakenham
Chief Financial Officer of Kind Consumer
Robin Pakenham is the chief financial officer of Kind Consumer.
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About Kind Consumer: Kind Consumer is a healthcare research and development company focused on inhalation technologies.
Tom Hadfield
Chief Financial Officer of Oxehealth
Tom Hadfield is the Chief Financial Officer at Oxehealth.
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About Oxehealth: SaaS workflow solution gives carers and custodians more time for hands on care where and when it’s needed most.
Julien Cotta
CFO of Inion
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About Inion: Inion is a medical devices company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative biodegradable applications.
Martin Cartwright
Chief Financial Officer of Owlstone Medical
Martin is an energetic and commercially oriented Chartered Accountant. He has nearly 30 years’ experience of working in the technology and services sectors. He has worked in a number of SMEs as CFO from start up through to publicly quoted companies. Previous companies include Cadence Design Systems (Electronic Design Automation), GE Smallworld (Geographic Information Systems), Ubisense (Real Time Location Systems). He always strives to be a value added business partner to the management team and has a broad range of management experience encompassing legal and customer contracts, human resources, investor relations, procurement, as well as financial accounting, planning, forecasting, tax and treasury. Martin qualified as a chartered accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC).
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About Owlstone Medical: Owlstone Medical is a diagnostics company that developed a non-invasive breathalyzer for infectious disease detection.
Darren Millington
Chief Financial Officer of Rayner Surgical Group
Darren joined the Rayner Group Board in August 2014 with 8 years’ experience as a CFO in public and private companies. Following an MSc in Theoretical Physics, Darren worked in new product development for AEA Technology before joining Arthur Andersen (later Deloitte) to become a chartered accountant. Once qualified he worked for IP Group plc as part of a small team helping commercialise innovative university technologies. He then joined one of these spin-out companies, Summit Corporation, which specialises in developing drugs for muscular dystrophy and TB. The company was successfully floated in 2004 on the AIM market. Darren’s most recent position was as CFO at Gama Aviation, an aviation and engineering company with operations around the world and revenues over $200m. In each of his recent roles Darren has helped the companies grow through investment and acquisition. Darren is a keen cyclist who can be found climbing the Sussex hills most weekends.
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About Rayner Surgical Group: Rayner Surgical Group is manufactures Intraocular lenses and associated instruments used in cataract surgery.
