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 Executive Director operating in the Manufacturing space. If you think a Executive Director 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.
Dennis Curry
Executive Director and Deputy CTO, Technology Fellow of Konica Minolta
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About Konica Minolta: Konica Minolta is an Innovative Company and continues to create inspiring products and services in the field of imaging.
Darren Shapland
Non Executive Director of Ferguson plc
Darren is Chairman of Poundland Group plc and was appointed Chairman of Maplin Electronics Limited in August 2014, Chairman of Topps Tiles Plc in March 2015 and Chairman of Notonthehighstreet.com in June 2015. He retired from his position as a Non Executive Director and as Chairman of the Audit Committee of Ladbrokes Plc on 24 September 2015. Between 2012 and 2013 he was Chief Executive Officer of Carpetright Plc. Prior to that, Mr Shapland was J Sainsbury plc Chief Financial Officer from 2005 to 2010 and Group Development Director from 2010 to 2011. He was also Chairman of Sainsbury’s Bank. Previously, Mr Shapland was Group Finance Director of Carpetright plc between 2002 and 2005, Finance Director of Superdrug Stores plc between 2000 and 2002 and held a variety of positions with the Burton Group and Arcadia.
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About Ferguson plc: Ferguson plc an international business, operating group’s strength is to operate strong national businesses in home markets.
Kate Allum
Non-Executive Director of the Board of Directors of Origin Enterprises
Kate Allum was appointed to the Origin Board on 1 October 2015. Kate is currently a Non-Executive Director at Cranswick plc where she is a member of both the Audit and the Remuneration and Nomination Committee. She has also previously held a number of senior roles in the food and agricultural sector, including Chief Executive of First Milk Limited and Head of European Supply Chain for McDonald’s Restaurants.
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About : Origin Enterprises plc manufactures, supplies, and distributes agri-service products. It offers agronomy, technology, and strategic
Martin Bloom
Non Executive Director of Renesola Pty Ltd.
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About Renesola Pty Ltd.: ReneSola is a leading global manufacturer of solar wafers and PV modules
Shaun Hanrahan
Commercial Director and Executive Director of Epwin Group
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About Epwin Group: Epwin Group Plc is a leading supplier of low maintenance, sustainable and energy efficient products to the new build.
Peter Brewin
Non – Executive Director, Owner of Concrete Canvas
Peter Brewin is the Owner of Concrete Canvas.
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About Concrete Canvas: Concrete Canvas Ltd. manufacture a ground breaking material technology.
Christine Adshead
Non Executive Director of Ultimate Products
Christine Adshead is a Partner at PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers).
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About Ultimate Products: Ultimate Products is a brand and product development house in the UK that specializes in house-ware and electrical goods.
Andrew Dennis
Executive Director of Product Management, Andor Technology & Bitplane AG of Andor Technology
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About Andor Technology: Andor Technology (Andor) is based in Belfast, Northern Ireland and operates at the high-value end of the global scientific digital camera.
Ian Buckley-Golder
Non-Executive Director of Oxsensis
Ian has extensive Board experience from UK, American and Japanese businesses, working in both the private and public sectors as well as in listed and earlier stage companies alike. With a portfolio of Chairmanships/Non-Executive Directorships, and working with companies specialising in electronics, sensors, software and materials, Ian brings with him an understanding of the opportunities and challenges of fast-growing companies.
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About Oxsensis, Syrinix: Oxsensis is a manufacturer of optical sensors for pressure, vibration, temperature, and multiple parameters.
Monika Tomecka
Executive Director, CEO & Co-Founder of uFraction8
Dr Monika Tomecka has a PhD with a background in biology, genetics and biomedical research. This gives her insight into the science and operations of uFraction8’s customer segments. She is able to converse at an appropriate level to engage and sell the benefits of uFraction8 technology.
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About uFraction8: uFraction8 develops microfluidics-based filtration systems to help bio-manufacturers to harvest biomass sustainably and more efficiently.
Digby Lewis
Non- Executive Director of Quarte Inc.
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About Quarte Inc.: Founded in 2005, we are a manufacturing company that produces quartz material for a wide variety of industrial applications.
Alan Stubbs
Non Executive Director of S3 ID Group Ltd
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About S3 ID Group Ltd: S3 ID Group Ltd provides location awareness solutions and manufactures products.
Richard Greenhill
Founder & Non Executive Director of Shadow Robot
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About Shadow Robot: Shadow designs and manufactures state-of-the-art anthropomorphic robot hands & related systems.
Howard Baker
Co-Founder and Non-Executive Director of Powerphotonic
Howard Baker received B.Sc.in Physics and Ph.D. in Laser Physics from Manchester University. Postdoctoral research at Manchester was on pulsed iodine photo-dissociation lasers. In 1980, he became a Lecturer in Applied Physics at Hull University, with research on mercury halide and TEA CO2 lasers and magnetic switching circuits for electrical pulse generation. In 1987, he became Senior Lecturer in Physics at Heriot-Watt University allowing research specialisation in both laser physics and laser engineering. He played a leading role in development of scalable lasers with RF discharge excitation, and CO2 planar waveguide and array lasers were pioneered. The work aided the establishment of a currently successful laser manufacturer in the UK. This expertise in the new CO2 laser technology led to applications research on laser drilling of circuit boards, machining of unfired LTCC ceramic laminations and precision micro-machining and polishing of silica optics. His main interest has been in high power diode lasers, used directly or as pump units for solid-state lasers. A novel diode pumping scheme led to world-leading performance from planar waveguide solid-state lasers. He devised a new technique for fabricating optics to correct the poor beam quality of diode laser bars, combining a novel wavefront measurement technique with custom laser micro-machining. He co-founded PowerPhotonic Ltd, aimed at commercialising this process. Current research continues on the use of laser direct-writing techniques in optics manufacture, and application of laser-cut optics in the general area of high average power industrial diode lasers. A new area is ceramic technology research on vacuum sintered, transparent laser materials for solid-state laser amplifiers and laser-machined LTTC ceramic substrate technology for diode laser packaging.
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About Heriot-Watt University, Powerphotonic: Powerphotonic designs and fabricates freeform refractive micro-optics for laser beam correction and beamforming.
Axel Bindel
Executive Director of HSSMI
Axel Bindel is the executive director at HSSMI.
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About HSSMI: HSSMI is an innovation institute for manufacturing that helps companies develop and take measures towards their strategic general goals.
Neil Hodson
Non Executive Director of GardX International
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About GardX International: GardX provides solutions to automotive manufacturers and automotive dealer groups worldwide.
Kath Durrant
Non Executive Director of Renishaw
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About Renishaw: Renishaw is an engineering technology company with core skills in measurement, motion control, spectroscopy, and precision machining.
