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 Director operating in the Robotics space. If you think a 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.
Ken Lever
Non-Executive Director of Blue Prism
Ken is an ex-partner of Arthur Andersen and has held senior executive director roles in many listed, companies including Alfred McAlpine plc, Albright & Wilson plc and Tomkins plc. Ken was Chief Financial Officer of Numonyx in Switzerland from April 2008 to September 2010, and was Chief Executive Officer of Xchanging plc between 2011 and 2015. Ken currently is a Non-Executive Director of Vertu Motors plc, Gresham House Strategic plc, DAC Beachcroft and F.M. Insurance Company Limited. From 2007 to 2013 Ken was a member of the Accounting Council (formally the UK Accounting Standards Board) of the Financial Reporting Council. Ken is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales.
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About Blue Prism: Blue Prism is an intelligent robotic process automation company that develops a digital workforce for enterprises.
Nicola Bergstrom
Director of Human Resources of Blue Prism
Nicola Bergstrom brings over 10 years experience in Human Resources management, having held a number of HR roles across BAE Systems Group. Nicola has a Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resource Management (CIPD) alongside a degree in Business Management and French from the University of Manchester.
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About Blue Prism: Blue Prism is an intelligent robotic process automation company that develops a digital workforce for enterprises.
Chris Batterham
Non-Executive Director of Blue Prism
Chris Batterham qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen and has significant experience in the technology based business environment, including the flotation of Unipalm on the London Stock Exchange. Currently working on the boards of a number of companies including SDL plc Toumaz Ltd, Office 2 Office plc, Iomart plc and Eckoh plc as Chairman, Chris brings a wealth of experience in the strategic development of companies within the IT sector.
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About Arthur Andersen LLP, Blue Prism, Eckoh: Blue Prism is an intelligent robotic process automation company that develops a digital workforce for enterprises.
Steve Brooks
EMEA Alliance Director for Accenture & Avanade of Blue Prism
Steve Brooks is the director strategic alliances – EMEA at Blue Prism.
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About Blue Prism: Blue Prism is an intelligent robotic process automation company that develops a digital workforce for enterprises.
Ian West
Director – Advisory Services of Blue Prism
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About Blue Prism, Consulting Insights: Blue Prism is an intelligent robotic process automation company that develops a digital workforce for enterprises.
Martin Flood
Director of Sales of Blue Prism
Martin Flood brings Sales & Sales Management expertise and experience, gained in the IT Industry over two decades in a variety of enterprise software and hardware businesses. Martin’s roles have ranged from large international organizations such as Sybase and Sun Microsystems through to early stage software companies such as Whitelight Systems and Searchspace. Martin recently headed the new products division of Progress Software EMEA which comprised SOA Integration, Business Activity Monitoring and Business Process Management offerings.
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About Blue Prism: Blue Prism is an intelligent robotic process automation company that develops a digital workforce for enterprises.
Alex Bentley
Director of Corporate Development of Blue Prism
Alex is responsible for leading and delivering the corporate and strategic initiatives that underpin the Blue Prism growth strategy. Prior to joining Blue Prism in 2013, Alex was a management consultant at Deloitte with a background in operational excellence and business architecture. Alex spent the majority of his consulting career delivering Target Operating Model design, process improvement and business transformation programs for Financial Services clients. He has a BA (Hons) in Management from Leeds University
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About Blue Prism: Blue Prism is an intelligent robotic process automation company that develops a digital workforce for enterprises.
Will Jackson
Founder & Director of Engineered Arts
Will Jackson is the Director of Engineered Arts Ltd, based in Cornwall UK and is the creator of RoboThespian, a full sized humanoid acting robot. Will formed Engineered Arts Ltd in 2004 and employed the talents of many local artists and engineers to produce a number of bespoke commissions for UK science centres and museums. Their accomplishments including major installations for The Eden Project in Cornwall, Glasgow Science Centre, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and Centrum Kopernik in Warsaw.
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About Engineered Arts: RoboThespian, a life-size humanoid acting robot designed by Engineered Arts Ltd. info@robothespian.co.uk
Shefali Sharma
Co-Founder & Director of Oxford Dynamics
I’m a creator & a dreamer. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been passionate about creating ‘something of value’. With a Masters Degree in Engineering, I have spent the last 7+ years working with technical start-ups to gain a better understanding of how successful businesses are built. In a nutshell, what I have learnt can be best summarised by Ed Catmull; “If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better”. I am a big believer in following your instincts and taking unique approaches to life. So, I’ve now embarked upon my own entrepreneurial journey by co-founding not one but two companies, a Healthtech start-up called OXLABS; as well as a Space start-up called Oxford Dynamics (OD). At both these companies, we’re developing inspiring & accessible technologies by working with those that share our values and passion for making the world a better place. Though still in a fledgling state, its an absolute joy & honour to be working with people / friends who are equally passionate & committed to the OXLABS & OD journey as I am. We dream big, work hard and believe anything is possible. We’re currently in stealth mode for both our businesses but please do follow our pages as we’ll be breaking cover soon – your support really matters to us 🙂 Last but not the least, I’m really proud to be selected as a Global Young Innovator by Innovate UK as one of the few entrepreneurs (under 30) across the UK & South Africa who are solving global challenges with their ground-breaking ideas.
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About Oxford Dynamics: We’re developing a new range of cutting-edge AI-based tools that enable machines to think like humans.
Mike Lawton
Co-Founder & Director of Oxford Dynamics
I’m a serial entrepreneur, which is code for the fact I bear a few scars from getting things wrong slightly less often than I get things right… I enjoy building early-stage high technology businesses in demanding commercial environments: taking an idea from concept stage, raising external investment & building motivated teams that focus on delivery. I’m currently excited about commercial opportunities in so-called ‘new space’ – a sector in which my latest venture Oxford Space Systems is making great progress. I’m firm believer in actively promoting STEM subjects and regularly present in schools, colleges and universities with the aim of inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurial engineers and scientists. I also frequently present at events in the UK and overseas on my entrepreneurial experiences and the process of raising equity finance for technology focused businesses. I (or more correctly the smart guys in my team) have won numerous business and technical awards both in the UK and overseas. I consider myself a pragmatic and enthusiastic leader with a hands-on approach who believes in direct reward for achievement. I have a pathological hatred for bureaucracy, preferring tangible progress in preference over shuffling paper.
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About Oxford Dynamics, Oxford Space Systems: We’re developing a new range of cutting-edge AI-based tools that enable machines to think like humans.
Dr Edward Jackson
Co-Founder & Director of Oxford Dynamics
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About Oxford Dynamics: We’re developing a new range of cutting-edge AI-based tools that enable machines to think like humans.
Luke Hares
Technology Director of CMR Surgical
Before co-founding CMR he worked for product design companies in the UK and the US, where he worked on medical devices, robotics, ASIC developments and consumer products. Luke believes the best devices are created by combining a detailed knowledge of the unmet needs of the users with the creative application of a broad knowledge of available technology. Regular contact and interaction with the users of the product is essential for this process. Luke is responsible for leading the CMR technology team and has overall responsiblilty for the technology strategy of the company. He is accustomed to championing ideas, communicating technically complex ideas and designing and managing the development of complex systems.
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About CMR Surgical: CMR Surgical is developing the next-generation surgical robotic system for minimal access surgery.
James Hall
Operations Director of Teneo
As a Company Director and Operations Director, James manages Teneo’s service and support teams, systems and processes, legal and contractual work, maintains our ISO certifications and enthusiastically leads our Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.
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About Teneo: Teneo is the specialist integrator of next generation technology, offering the strongest mix of optimization solutions for networks.
John Rogers
Fractional CIO/CTO/IT Director of Freeman Clarke
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About Freeman Clarke, OPP Ltd: Freeman Clarke creates, manages, and executes technological strategies and solutions to help one’s company grow.
Chris Smith
Part-time Finance Director of Altitude Angel
Chris Smith is a Scottish Chartered Accountant with 20 years’ experience in NED, CFO and Finance Director positions in rapid growth companies, turnarounds and PE-backed transactions.He is a business advisor and mentor and has expertise in fund raising, corporate governance, strategic planning, financial reporting and business modelling. He works on a portfolio basis across a number of sectors including construction services, engineering, electronics, digital technology, software and business services.
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About Altitude Angel: Altitude Angel makes drones safer by providing the data and cloud services needed to safely unlock their potential.
Mark Chambers
Consultant & Non-Executive Director of Magpie Education
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About Magpie Education: Magpie Education is Creating curriculum tools for teachers to inspire the next generation of STEM Innovators.
Dave Froker
Managing Director of Focusrite
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About Focusrite: Focusrite is a global music and audio products group supplying hardware and software products used by professional and amateur musicians.
Andrew Preston
Technology Director of Symphony Ventures
Andrew is an experienced software developer and architect, having worked in the software industry for much of his career. He also has extensive experience using automation tools, and developing digital operations programs across a variety of sectors including healthcare, insurance, recruitment, HR and payroll. At Symphony, he is responsible for system infrastructure, network operations, and for leading a global delivery excellence organization charged with ensuring world-class design, configuration and support across the entire Symphony client portfolio.
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About SYKES Digital Services, Symphony Ventures: Symphony is a professional services firm passionate about creating value for the world’s leading organizations.
Rob Mossop
Managing Director of Minttulip
Rob Mossop and Mint Tulip have a wealth of experience in delivering workplace modernisation projects. Rob has been at the forefront of leading a business dedicated to the identification, quantification, and realisation of real world business benefits through the expert blending of the best Modern Workplace technology, with Mintulip’s inclusive digital transformation framework, exceptional technical expertise, and class-leading workplace adoption and change capabilities. Furthermore Rob and Mintulip have a world class change and cultural management practice, to help businesses adopt cloud technologies.
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About Minttulip: Minttulip specialises in delivering tangible and measurable business benefit to customers.
Ergun Ozyurt
Director / Consultant of BecomeUp
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About BecomeUp, Plum Guide: Cloud Fanatic”” IT solutions consulting company
Sean Schwarz
Founder and Managing Director of RAFT Recruitment
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About RAFT Recruitment: RAFT Recruitment is a recruiting firm that places executives, software, machine learning, and robotics engineers.
James Gough
Director of StackThread Software
Jim Gough is a leader in the London Java Community and helps with the occasional hack day when time permits. He is also a known conference speaker and contributed to the release of Java 8. He has extensive practical experience in designing and building software solutions for some of the largest global investment banks. Working on high profile projects and embracing good software craftsman practices enabled Jim to rapidly be promoted to Vice President. Jim has always enjoyed mentoring and helping others get the most from the careers. He has recently become a full time technical trainer teaching newly hired graduates and experienced programmers Java, Python and more.
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About StackThread Software: StackThread currently has two contributors focused on building a portfolio of applications for a variety of audiences.
Douglas Higgins
Founder & Director of Mujo Mechanics
Douglas Higgins is the Founder & Director at Mujo Mechanics.
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About Mujo Mechanics: Mujo Mechanics provides smart devices and intelligent cloud platform for a data-driven approach to musculoskeletal health.
Geri McMahon
Non-Executive Director of Mujo Mechanics
Geri McMahon Managing Director joined MUJO following eight years in investment banking to coordinate and drive the team to deliver the MUJO vision. Geri brings a focus on operational excellence, and a wealth of international business experience having worked with government institutions and corporates across EMEA, APAC and AMERICAS regions. Geri holds a combined Finance and Commerce degree with Chinese language from the University of Sydney and previously worked on the trading floors of both RBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Sydney and London.
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About Mujo Mechanics: Mujo Mechanics provides smart devices and intelligent cloud platform for a data-driven approach to musculoskeletal health.
Jon McLoone
Director of Business Development of Wolfram Research
Jon McLoone As Director of Technical Services, Communication and Strategy at Wolfram Research Europe, Jon Mc Loone is central to driving the company’s technical business strategy and leading the consulting solutions team. Described as “The Computation Company”, the Wolfram group are world leaders in integrated technology for computation, data science and AI including machine learning. With over 25 years of experience working with Wolfram Technologies, Jon has helped in directing software development, system design, technical marketing, corporate policy, business strategies and much more. He leads the technical services team who deliver data science and computation solutions for engineering, business and scientific sectors. Jon gives regular keynote appearances and media interviews on topics such as the Future of AI, Enterprise Computation Strategies and Education Reform, across multiple fields including healthcare, fintech and data science. He holds a degree in mathematics from the University of Durham. Jon is also Co-founder and Director of Development for computerbasedmath.org, an organisation dedicated to a fundamental reform of maths education and the introduction of computational thinking. The movement is now a worldwide force in re-engineering the STEM curriculum with early projects in Estonia, Sweden and Africa.
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About ComputerBasedMath.org, Staaff Ltd, Wolfram Alpha, Wolfram Research: Wolfram Research is a computer, web, and cloud software company that offers solutions for sectors such as education, R&D, and sciences.
Alexis Twigg
Non-Executive Director of Tribepad
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About : Recruitment Software Specialists. Products include Applicant Tracking System (ATS), Onboarding, Video Interviewing and Contractor Management
Neil Armstrong
Commercial Director of Tribepad
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About : Recruitment Software Specialists. Products include Applicant Tracking System (ATS), Onboarding, Video Interviewing and Contractor Management
Rich Walker
Managing Director of Shadow Robot
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About Shadow Robot: Shadow designs and manufactures state-of-the-art anthropomorphic robot hands & related systems.
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.
Dan Collier
Co-Founder, Director of Sales and Strategy & CEO of ElevateDirect.com
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About ElevateDirect.com: Productivity enhancement tool for recruitment across all workforce categories
Sotira Trifourki
Director of Artemis Space
Sotira is Founder and CEO of Artemis Space. She leads the overall business operations and company strategy. Sotira is an innovation facilitator with expertise in convening systems of stakeholders around complex networks, building connections between companies, researchers, government agencies and NGOs throughout Europe, the Middle East, and U.K. She started her career as a research scientist and has spent 15 years supporting businesses, social enterprises and entrepreneurs with business development and new market strategies. Sotira received her BSc. in Astrophysics from The University of Manchester.
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About Artemis Space, Cyprus Space Office, European Southern Observatory: From concept to design, build and launch, we provide disruptive access to Space.
Mikhail Sokolov
Director of Roborace
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About Roborace: Roborace is a global race series for driverless electric cars.
Sebastian Bain
Director & COO at Advanet Inc of Advanet
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About Advanet: Advanet Inc. is a leading provider of industrial embedded board computers and systems designed, developed, and manufactured in Japan.
Gary Frost
Managing Director of 51zero
Gary Frost, owner and Managing Director of 51zero has over 20 years in IT and technical development experience. With an exceptional knowledge of financial services and investment banking internationally Gary focuses on within budget delivery of critical projects as well as influencing and creating agile teams that productively work together. Getting to the heart of problems quickly and communicating effectively are mainstays of Gary’s approach.
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About 51zero: Software Development Consultancy
Tony Ellis
Founder and Technical Director of Applied Machine Intelligence
Tony Ellis is the founder and technical director of Applied Machine Intelligence.
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About Applied Machine Intelligence: Applied Machine Intelligence focuses on developing functional robots which can help people in their everyday life.
Karl Gilbank
Managing Director of Insider Technologies
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About Insider Technologies: Insider Technologies Limited (ITL) is a UK-based software house and services company.
Matthew Nelson
Managing Director of ChurchBox
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About ChurchBox: A fully managed service, hosted in the cloud, that can be easily integrated into your website.
Matthew Nelson
Managing Director of ChurchBox
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About ChurchBox: A fully managed service, hosted in the cloud, that can be easily integrated into your website.
William North
Director of SheCanCode
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About SheCanCode: Bridging the digital gender divide by empowering women to enter and remain in the tech industry.
William North
Director of SheCanCode
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About SheCanCode: Bridging the digital gender divide by empowering women to enter and remain in the tech industry.
Will Murray
Marketing Director of Skyguard Limited
Skyguard provides Europe’s premier personal safety service for lone workers and people at risk. We offer a range of state-of-the-art personal safety devices linked to our own purpose built UK based, 24/7 Incident Management Centre certified to the highest lone working industry standards (BS 8484, BS 5979 Category 2). Our devices incorporate GSM 2-way audio as well as GPS technology so that we know your precise location, and are accredited by ACPO’s Secured by Design. As the UK’s only end-to-end service provider we can tailor our solutions to suit any organisations’ requirements. Our service is so good, over half of all the UK’s Police forces use our devices to protect the most vulnerable in society. My responsibilities: – Setting the company’s sales and marketing strategy and budget – Managed corporate identity rebranding, with relaunched website, messaging and positioning – Developed two new websites addressing SME and consumer markets – Grow customer acquisition and retention through offline and online marketing channels – Appoint and liaise with Advertising, PR, and online agencies
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About Skyguard Limited: Skyguard provides Europe’s premier personal safety service for lone workers and people at risk.
Will Murray
Marketing Director of Skyguard Limited
Skyguard provides Europe’s premier personal safety service for lone workers and people at risk. We offer a range of state-of-the-art personal safety devices linked to our own purpose built UK based, 24/7 Incident Management Centre certified to the highest lone working industry standards (BS 8484, BS 5979 Category 2). Our devices incorporate GSM 2-way audio as well as GPS technology so that we know your precise location, and are accredited by ACPO’s Secured by Design. As the UK’s only end-to-end service provider we can tailor our solutions to suit any organisations’ requirements. Our service is so good, over half of all the UK’s Police forces use our devices to protect the most vulnerable in society. My responsibilities: – Setting the company’s sales and marketing strategy and budget – Managed corporate identity rebranding, with relaunched website, messaging and positioning – Developed two new websites addressing SME and consumer markets – Grow customer acquisition and retention through offline and online marketing channels – Appoint and liaise with Advertising, PR, and online agencies
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About Skyguard Limited: Skyguard provides Europe’s premier personal safety service for lone workers and people at risk.
Tony Stewart
Director of StackVelocity
Tony Stewart is a Director at StackVelocity.
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About : StackVelocity a business unit within Jabil providing cloud hardware and software systems integration at global scale.
