The Board oversees the performance of the organisation and of each of the co-ordinating Committees.
Upcoming vacancies on the PraxisAuril Board are notified to PraxisAuril members via the PraxisAuril website, NewsUpdate and Directors’ Jisclist.
Alicen is an experienced leader and has worked in a range of roles in the Higher Education sector for almost 20 years. In her current role as Director of Research and Innovation at Royal Holloway, Alicen develops and delivers strategies for the generation of high quality research, knowledge exchange and commercialisation, and she leads the Research & Innovation Directorate. Alicen is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Research Management and Administration, the ARMA Stakeholder Engagement Committee. She is passionate about professional development and evidence informed practice, and has published in the wider research management field. Alicen studied International Relations and Social Anthropology at St. Andrews University, and was awarded an MBA from the University of Southampton and an MSc Social Research Methods from the Open University.
James is Managing Director of HIOM Advisory, a boutique financial and investment advisory practice focused on the agriculture and horticultural sectors. He is currently a Non-Executive Director for Agaricus Robotics an Agri-tech business and as a consultant to Agri Frontier, an advisory business focused on emerging African markets. He has a range of clients with interests in a number of territories.
Previous roles have been in the Agricultural and Finance sectors, both in the UK and overseas having spent many years living in Australia and Singapore. He was Head of Agriculture (Europe) for NAB Group, GM (NSW) for Westpac in Sydney and Director of HIOM Advisory based in Singapore and London. James has advised a range of clients on investments globally, principally within the Agriculture, Food and Green Energy Sectors. He has a degree in Agricultural Business Management from Wye College (Imperial) and is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Farmers.
Iain is Head of Cambridge Enterprise’s Life Sciences team at the University of Cambridge where he and his team support researchers commercialise technology across the whole life sciences spectrum from therapeutics to agritech.
The team have helped spin-out Mission Therapeutics, XO1 Therapeutics (sold to Janssen), Phoremost, Predictimmune, DIOSynVax, Storm Therapeutics, NoBACZ, Morphogenix, Apcintex and Z-Factor (the latter three now founding assets in Centessa (NASDAQ: CNTA).
With colleagues at UCL and Imperial Iain founded Apollo Therapeutics with £40m and has gone on to raise £100m in 2021. Iain led discussions with GSK in respect of the University of Cambridge–GSK open innovation drug discovery initiative based at the SBC. Iain also led the founding of Ceres Agritech Partnership which from a standing start span out 3 companies in 3 years. Iain has been an active trainer on PraxisAuril courses since 2004 and is currently the Chair of PraxisAuril.
He started his scientific life with a PhD in Sydney, Australia, post docs in Oxford and Cambridge before completing an MBA at the Judge Business School in Cambridge.
Amanda is Head of Research and Innovation Services for the University of Derby. She has spent her career working at the interface between university and industry. This has included working for a spin-out company of the University of Nottingham which exploited the properties of super critical fluid in drug delivery technologies.
Amanda has worked in technology transfer and knowledge transfer roles in healthcare and biosciences at the Universities of Birmingham and Sheffield before moving to Derby.
Olga is the Director of Innovation and Industry Engagement at the University of Strathclyde where she leads entrepreneurship and investment functions, industrial engagement and the development of the Technology and Innovation Centre Zone within the Glasgow City Innovation District.
Olga has a substantial track record in delivering successful translation of innovative research into economic growth and societal impact. She started her career as a RSE Enterprise Fellow and then moved on to become a founder and the CEO of a biotechnology start-up company. Subsequently Olga worked in a variety of roles supporting industry-university collaborations. In her previous role she founded Converge Challenge and grown it to become the largest Scotland-wide programme for converting university know-how and intellectual property into company creation.
She has worked extensively with small companies providing training and mentoring to the Converge participants and for the RSE Enterprise Fellowship Programme.
She is a Trustee of Young Enterprise Scotland, Governing Board member of the Scotland’s 5G Centre and a Board Member of PraxisAuril.
Olga is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Registered Technology Transfer Professional.
Ersel Oymak brings in 33 years of international experience at senior ICT
industry roles with focus on co-creation, technological innovation partners, sales, strategic business development, digitisation and verticalization. He is currently Strategic Alliances Advisor and Innovator in Residence for University College London (UCL), Computer Science Department. He was formerly Head of Strategic Alliances Directors and Corporate Relationships for UCL and an Advisory Board Member at Hounslow Chamber. He has significant global technology sector experience with leading corporates including CISCO, working closely with government, industry and start-ups. His career includes Head Network Design Consultant at KOCSISTEM (formerly KOC-UNISYS, 1995- 1998), Regional Technical Manager Turkey & Middle East at ENTERASYS NETWORKS (formerly CABLETRON SYSTEMS, 1998-2002), International Sales & Marketing Director at NEVOTEK (2002-2005) and Strategic Sales Business Development Manager at CISCO Enterprise Business Group EMEAR covering Retail, Consumer Packaged Goods, Smart Connected Real Estate, Smart Connected Communities, Business Energy Management, Sports & Entertainment, Hospitality, Museums, Gaming and Mega-yachts & Cruise-liners vertical solutions (2005-2013). He then served as an Innovation Technology Manager at CISCO Corporate Strategic Innovation Group (CSIG) as an overlay function to the UK & Ireland Innovation Team (2013- 2018).
Most recently he was Head of Strategic Alliances Directors & Corporate Relationships at UCL (2019-2021) where he sought to develop Transformational Strategic Alliances with key industry partners to drive a step change across the twelve entities of UCL EAST, UCL’s largest campus expansion project in its 200-year history that is aimed to create a world-leading innovation district in the UK. He also served as a Non-Executive Director & Advisory Board Member overseeing innovation and technology at Hounslow Chamber in London, UK (2017-2021).
He is the co-author of ‘University-Industry Partnerships for Positive Change: Transformational Strategic Alliances Towards the UN SDGs’ published by Bristol University Press and Policy Press (https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/university-industry-partners...).
Ersel holds a MSc(Eng) degree in Microelectronic Systems and Telecommunications from the University of Liverpool and a BSc(Eng) degree in Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering from Yildiz Technical University.
Amanda is Associate Director of Research Innovation and Knowledge Exchange at the University of York responsible for the strategic development of innovation and enterprise.
She has portfolio responsibility for enterprise development, consultancy, training and executive education, local and regional economic development, collaborative partnerships, commercialisation of the University’s intellectual property, business and incubation space and start-up support.
She has institutional responsibility for the KEF, KEC and HEIF.
Amanda is a PraxisAuril Board Member and a member of the #PrAConf23 Conference Committee.
Jennie is Head of Accreditations, Head of Engaged Scholarship and Academic Impact Lead in the Faculty of Business and Law at Manchester Metropolitan University. A strategic leader in various aspects of innovation engagement, she has won £14M of funding for Manchester Met in innovation, small firm growth and research into knowledge exchange.
Under Jennie’s leadership, the Business School has achieved re-accreditation with AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA, creating the triple crown of elite global accreditations, awarded to 1% of Business Schools worldwide.
Jennie is passionate about connecting the university, research and education with society and business, as well as developing excellence and engagement in our triple accreditation portfolio. She has a national and international reputation for knowledge exchange, accreditation excellence and impact.
Jennie is also a PraxisAuril Board Member.
Adam is SVP Academic Partnerships at Evotec SE, a global multi-modality drug discovery and development company. Adam has specific responsibility for creating new BRIDGE partnerships to accelerate the translation of academic science into new therapeutics. He has worked for more than 15 years in commercial roles encompassing business development and licensing, new venture formation, product development, lobbying/advocacy and general management. Prior to Evotec, Adam was Chief Operating Officer and board director at Oxford University Innovation Ltd (OUI) where he led Oxford's technology transfer and consultancy activities. While at OUI he was a member of the team that negotiated the Oxford COVID vaccine partnership with AstraZeneca, was a founding director of Vaccitech Ltd and EvOx Therapeutics Ltd, served as a board observer for MiroBio and Dark Blue Therapeutics, and was a co-architect of Evotec's first BRIDGE; LAB282. Between 2010 and 2013 Adam worked as Deputy General Manager for the Oxford-Emergent Tuberculosis Consortium Ltd, a joint venture between the University of Oxford and Emergent BioSolutions Inc, which conducted the first ever efficacy study of a next generation TB vaccine in infants. Prior to this Adam worked in healthcare consulting with Technomark Ltd and then in increasingly senior commercialisation roles at Isis Innovation.
Matthew is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing. His research interests include work-based learning, Higher Education marketing, knowledge exchange, and small business growth.
Matthew is an active member of the HEA, and has over 10 years’ experience of teaching on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. As a teaching mentor, he works with colleagues across the department and supports and trains new teaching staff. He has extensive module tutorship and programme management experience.
Matthew is currently supervising 4 doctorates (PhD and DBA) in the marketing field and has supervised to completion. He is also an external examiner at Anglia Ruskin University.
In 2013, Matthew established the Marketing Internship Programme and currently works with over 240 North-East SMEs, as well as some of the region’s larger businesses including Greggs plc. He is a trained assessor for the Small Business Charter and currently leads the Northumbria University reaccreditation submission 2020. Matthew has secured over £1 million worth of research income from his extensive knowledge exchange activity. He is currently leading a team of 10 on a national project with Sage (UK) Ltd, only 1 of 6 such projects funded nationally.
Outside of work Matthew is a school governor, sits on a number of boards, and is chair of a North-East based charity.
Andy Walsh joined GSK in August 2017 as a member of the Academic Liaison team where he supports the engagement between GSK scientist and their collaborators in academia.
Previously he worked at Cambridge Enterprise where he managed a wide range of technologies in the life sciences field from novel approaches in medical imaging through to novel therapeutics through license deals and spin-out company formation.
Before joining the technology transfer profession, Andy was a researcher in the field of molecular biology, first at the University of Leeds and then at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.
Stuart is the acting Director of the Innovation and Engagement team in Research Services at the University of Oxford. The Innovation and Engagement team supports, promotes and coordinates innovation, knowledge exchange and engagement activities across the University. This includes support for researchers and students and who are seeking to exploit their research and develop impact from it. Activities include
• Innovation and knowledge exchange policy, strategy and support
• Public and societal engagement with research
• Regional Engagement
• Due diligence for exploitation of research outputs and IP rights management
• Enterprise & entrepreneurship through Enterprising Oxford and was instrumental in setting up Oxford Social Enterprise Partnership (OSEP)
Stuart is also a Fellow of Reuben College, Oxford University's 39th and newest college, established in May 2019, which is dedicated to graduate study with a focus on interdisciplinary research addressing 21st century challenges.
Prior to joining Research Services Stuart worked for Oxford University Innovation (at the time known as Isis Innovation), the technology transfer company of the University Oxford in both the UK and as an overseas consultant. Stuart gained an MEng in Metallurgy and the Science of Materials prior to completing a DPhil in Biomedical Materials, both from the University of Oxford.
Stuart and has been Chair of the PraxisAuril Professional Development committee and Course Director for the New Venture Creation and Knowledge Exchange courses.