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 Health Diagnostics 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.
Paula Wada
CFO of Baby2Body
Coming from New York to London in 2013, Paula has many years of experience in investment consulting – and her prowess in financials, spreadsheets and keeping us on point is her specialty. Paula is a passionate fan of dynamic Pilates, spinning, Kobe Bryant, and she is possibly the most unusual Millwall supporter.
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About Baby2Body: Baby2Body is a fully automated health, fitness and wellbeing coaching platform for pregnant women and mothers.
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.
Charlie Steel
Chief Financial Officer of Babylon
CFO of Babylon, one of the world’s leading AI-driven, out-of-hospital care technology businesses, where I have raised over $1bn of financing across debt, equity and convertibles from sovereign wealth funds, strategic, VC investors and credit funds. Led bringing both Babylon and CMC Markets to being listed businesses, on the NYSE and LSE respectively. Additionally, I work part-time as a Non-Executive Director at the UK Government’s Department of Work and Pensions, on their Transformation Committee.
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About Babylon, Department for Work and Pensions: Babylon is a world leading, digital-first, value-based care company.
Keith Lovell
CFO of Antidote.me
Keith Lovell brings over 15 years’ experience gained from commercial, financial and management positions in a range of blue-chip, entrepreneurial and start-up organisations. Prior to Shazam at Extreme Mobile, Keith played an integral role in formulating commercial and financial plans for an MNVO venture with Vodafone. Previously, he was also responsible for all major network operator and supplier relationships at DX Communications Ltd and played a key role in negotiating the sale of the UK retail business to BT Cellnet, now 02.
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About Antidote.me: Antidote is a digital health company that accelerates and improves medical research by combining technologies, data, and business models.
Fiona Stewart
Chief Financial Officer of Cambridge Epigenetix
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About Cambridge Epigenetix, Fusion Global Capital: Cambridge Epigenetix is using epigenetics to reduce several routine & important diagnostic tests for common cancers to a simple blood draw.
Zalakben Kataria
CFO & DIrector of CLYZ Labs
Zalakben holds a Bachelors in Business Administration from S.P. University in India. Zalakben has a number of years’ experience as a project manager in Clinical Finance Ltd. Prior to her work with Clinical Finance Ltd Zalakben was based in India
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About CLYZ Labs: CLYZ Labs are developing a testing service to select the best drug therapy for personalised cancer treatment.
Zalakben Kataria
CFO & DIrector of CLYZ Labs
Zalakben holds a Bachelors in Business Administration from S.P. University in India. Zalakben has a number of years’ experience as a project manager in Clinical Finance Ltd. Prior to her work with Clinical Finance Ltd Zalakben was based in India
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About CLYZ Labs: CLYZ Labs are developing a testing service to select the best drug therapy for personalised cancer treatment.
Jayesh Pankhania
Chief Financial Officer of Horizon Discovery
Jayesh joined Xtera in February 2017 with over 25 years’ senior finance experience having started his career with PwC. He has since held senior roles in public quoted and privately owned companies, rising rapidly to the CFO role in his latest two positions, most recently with the HOC Group, a $150M privately owned construction group. Prior to that he was with Asia Resource Minerals PLC (Group Turnover >$1B) as Deputy CFO. Jayesh was responsible for improving corporate governance and financial controls in both cases. Jayesh attended the University of East Anglia studying Accountancy, holds an MBA from the London Business School and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
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About Horizon Discovery: Horizon is a gene editing company that designs & engineers genetically-modified cells, applying them to advance human health.
Bill Fleming
CFO of Ultromics
Bill’s career spans over 25 years in a broad range of finance positions. Holding a law degree from Cambridge University and as a qualified ACMA, Bill has accumulated international FD/CFO experience in small venture-backed companies, large blue chips and the bio-tech arena. Bill served as European Finance Director for Visible Genetics, a pioneering company in the field of nucleic acid diagnostics, subsequently holding senior finance positions for Bayer Healthcare in Europe and the USA. Bill played a leading role in securing investment for Oxford University spinout Oxitec and in its successful acquisition by Intrexon Corporation. Joining Ultromics in February 2018, Bill brings with him extensive experience in life sciences and technology sectors and holds a non-executive directorship at the leading life sciences network, OBN.
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About Ultromics: Ultromics clinicians and engineers working together to set new standards for world-class cardiovascular diagnostic tools.
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.
Mark Ground
CFO of Cygnet Health Care
CFO at Cygnet Health Care
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About Cygnet Health Care: Cygnet Health Care Limited provides mental health services.
