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 Chemical 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.
Alexander Guslisty
Founder, CEO of BIG Atom
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About BIG Atom: Recycling company on a mission to end polymer waste. They develop, build and operate new generation infrastructure for processing waste.
Stuart Sawyer
CEO & Director of D3O
Stuart Sawyer is the CEO at D3O
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About Cornwall Ventures, D3O: D3O is a specialist provider of impact protection solutions & materials.
Chris Tane
Chief Executive Officer of INOVYN
Chris has 34 years’ experience in the chemical industry, primarily in commodity products such as fluorochemicals, chlorine, chloromethanes, chlor-alkali and PVC. Having held a variety of senior management positions with ICI, Chris has spent the last 14 years with INEOS, the past nine of which have been as CEO of several European business units, most recently INEOS ChlorVinyls. Chris was a previous chairman of Euro Chlor; member of the boards of the European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers and VinylPlus; and member of the Council of the Chemical Industries Association in the UK. Chris has a degree in French and German from the University of Oxford.
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About INOVYN: INOVYN is a vinyls producer that ranks among the top three worldwide.
Dan Wood
Chief Executive Officer of Keit
Dan is responsible for leading Keit and builds on over 10 years’ senior management experience in optics and photonics-based technology companies. Previously, Dan was Head of Business Development in Dublin-based nanotech start-up Ntera and has an MSc (Oxon) in Engineering and Economics from the University of Oxford.
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About Keit, Keit: Keit’s microFTS® design is a Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometer that is smaller, lighter and more rugged than any current system.
Grant Aarons
Co-Founder & CEO of FabricNano
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About FabricNano: FabricNano is a cell-free biomanufacturing company that develops a DNA-based flow reactor to unlock the future of biochemistry.
Bill Thompson
CEO of Redag Crop Protection
Bill has extensive experience of biology-based businesses at corporate, SME and start-up level. He has been Global Business Director for one of the major agrochemical companies, Managing Director and owner of a CRO, and COO of start-up Plant Impact, as well as consulting to Private Equity/Venture Capitalist-backed companies in the biology sector.
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About Redag Crop Protection: The engine of discovery for the agrochemical industry.
Tim Wright
CEO of Aqdot
Tim joined Aqdot as CEO in November 2014. Prior to joining he co-founded Solent Pharma Ltd, a privately held speciality pharmaceutical company and has undertaken consulting projects supporting a variety of businesses as they develop growth and funding strategies. Previously Tim was CEO of IS Pharma plc, which he led through turnaround to become a substantial, profitable speciality business before its successful merger with Sinclair Pharma in 2011. He served as a non-executive director of the enlarged group, Sinclair IS Pharma, until 2012. Tim has previously held senior domestic and international commercial roles with Élan, SmithKline Beecham and Pfizer. Tim has successfully developed, licensed and grown brands and businesses at all stages of their lifecycle. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, a Fellow of the Institute of Directors and a Chartered Director.
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About Aqdot: Aqdot is a specialist chemical company with a focus and expertise in intelligent encapsulation technology.
Paul Colbon
Co-founder & CEO of Liverpool ChiroChem
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About Liverpool ChiroChem: Liverpool ChiroChem manufactures and supplies specialist building blocks for pharmaceutical research and biotechnology.
Charlotte Wiles
Chief Executive Officer of Chemtrix
Dr. Charlotte Wiles has been actively researching within the area of micro reactor technology for ten years, starting with a PhD entitled `Micro reactors in organic chemistry`, which she obtained from The University of Hull in 2003. In the past decade she has authored many scientific papers and review articles, recently co-authoring a book on the subject ‘Micro reaction technology in organic synthesis’. More recently, she has tailored her experience to the development and evaluation of commercially available continuous flow reactors, systems and peripheral equipment.
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About Chemtrix: Chemtrix supplies complete and customized microreactor systems for R&D and commercial manufacturing.
Rob Jones
Chief Executive Officer of British Salt
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About British Salt: British Salt is operates a state-of-the-art, highly efficient and technically advanced salt plant.
John Nicholson
Chairman and CEO of Gentronix
John Nicholson is the CEO of Gentronix.
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About Gentronix: Gentronix provides services for the development of drugs and other chemicals in the cosmetics and personal care sectors.
Craig Hayman
CEO of AVEVA
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About AVEVA: AVEVA is an engineering IT software provider to plant, power, and marine industries.
Ella Kalnina
Chief Executive Officer of Arlabion
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About Arlabion, Commercialization Reactor: Arlabion is an agri-tech company developing a novel seed treatment to protect crops against fungal infection.
Rowena Sellens
CEO of Econic Technologies
A PhD chemist by background, Rowena has 28 years senior management experience in the chemical industry, having held responsibility for R&D, manufacturing, sales & marketing and general management in ICI and Lucite International. This culminated in GM responsibility for Lucite’s €120Mpa turnover EMEA Materials businesses with leading brands Perspex®, Lucite® and Diakon®. She led technical and IP functions through transition from ICI to private ownership and then played a key role in commercial integration of global materials businesses following acquisition by a Japanese multi-national. Passionate about developing individuals and teams to deliver beyond their own expectations, she creates strong values-based culture within her businesses. As the first CEO of Econic, her role is to define and lead the delivery of the complete suite of critical success factors required to achieve Econic’s strategic business objectives and secure the anticipated value returns. Since her arrival in 2014 Econic transformed from a pure catalyst research team to a focused business operation covering all aspects of market and technology development. The IP portfolio of the company has trebled in size. The team has grown from 9 to 30 people. Two funding rounds have secured £12M investment and two new investors. In 2017 Rowena relocated the business from Imperial College’s London incubator to Alderley Park in Cheshire. A £2M Horizon 2020 SME award helped build the pilot scale Customer Demonstration Facility opened in 2018.
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About Econic Technologies: Econic Technologies develops new catalysts and processes for the manufacture of polymers from CO2.
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.
