After a D.Phil in Materials Science from Oxford, Jim led R&D projects on engineered microcrystals in imaging systems at Ilford Ltd. He then joined ICI (later Zeneca) Specialties in 1989 where he led R&D activities and teams working on crystal engineering and the physical, formulation and synthetic chemistry of dyes.

Jim also spent five years at BASF in Germany, heading formulation development for dye and pigment preparations before switching to the biocides business where he was responsible for global marketing and strategy. Jim also served for several years on the board of Agion Technologies, a specialist provider of antimicrobial materials based near Boston, USA.

He started at Dow Chemical’s European Headquarters in Switzerland where he was project leader in technical service and development of aqueous emulsion polymers for seven years.

His time at Biocode as Technical Manager involved leading a group commercialising anti-counterfeiting compounds. His time at Holliday Pigments continued the formulation theme with developments for coatings, thermoplastics and construction products involving global technical presentations. During that time he made numerous presentations about life cycle analysis and this environmental element was continued when he led the Environmental Technologies Centre of Industrial Collaboration (ETCIC) at the University of Hull. He led the development of the first accredited REACH training course and also formed a local environmental network to help companies with resource efficiency and carbon management.

He was appointed National Contact Point for the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Development. He then moved to Yorkshire’s Regional Development Agency, Yorkshire Forward, where he was responsible for the Centres of Industrial Collaboration, as well as working on the development of the region’s innovation strategy. Building on this experience in the innovation support arena, Nicholas moved back into the commercial world, working as an innovation consultant for a business support SME, where he also managed the region’s Enterprise Europe Network project.

He has a proven record of business development within diverse industrial markets for both large international and privately owned SMEs. Steve has a special interest in recruiting for Process Industry and technically-led organisations.  He also speaks Italian, having worked in Italy for a number of years and has considerable international experience.

Simon then moved into the nuclear industries with spells at UKAEA, BNFL and Applied Photonics Ltd, before he was recruited to the University of Leeds to manage a major strategic partnership with BNFL and in 2003 co-founded the ParticlesCIC, providing commercial contract services in particle and colloid engineering to companies from around the world. Since this appointment, Simon has also founded Escubed Ltd, a contract analytical SME providing high quality services to companies across a range of sectors, been a non-executive director of Dyecat Ltd, and is currently Director, Enterprise and Knowledge Transfer for the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Leeds.

He is currently Director of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Innovation (IPI) Centre of Industrial Collaboration at the University of Bradford. He is also CEO of CrystecPharma, a pharmaceutical crystal and particle engineering company (based in the UK and China), as well as a board member of Lena Nanoceutics (nanoparticles for enhanced dissolution).  In addition to these roles he provides lifecycle management consultancy to the pharmaceutical industry as well as mentoring of entrepreneurs and start-ups, is a member of the UK-China Joint Economic Trade Commission Healthcare Working Group, and is a non-executive Director of Medilink (Yorkshire and Humber).

Current non-executive directorships include Yorkshire Water Services Ltd, Pond Conservation, Yorkshire Chemical Focus Ltd, Water Industry Forum Ltd and Intelligent Formulation Ltd.