Board of Directors
Chairman
Managing Director
Non-executive Directors
Bernard Taylor
Bernard Taylor is a member of the Council of Oxford University and is Chairman of the Audit and Scrutiny Committee of the University, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Commissioner on the Commission of 1851, Chairman of Isis Innovation and a non-executive director of Oxford Instruments Group plc. He was educated at St. Johns College, Oxford University. Bernard is Vice Chairman of Evercore Partners and CEO of the firm's European Operation.
Tom Hockaday
Tom Hockaday became Managing Director of Isis Innovation Ltd in 2006, having joined Isis in 2000. Before moving to Oxford in March 2000, Tom was at Bristol University for seven years where he was Managing Director of Bristol Innovations Ltd; before that Tom worked in UCL’s research contracting section for four years. Tom was Chairman of UNICO in 2003, the UK’s technology transfer trade association. Tom was on the founding Committee of Praxis, the UK’s national training programme aimed at technology transfer professionals, from 2002 to 2005.
Professor Sir John Bell
John Bell is President of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University. Professor Bell went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar to train in medicine and undertook postgraduate training in London and at Stanford University. At Stanford he developed research interests in the area of immunology and genetics with a particular focus on characterising the molecular events associated with susceptibility to autoimmune diseases. He returned to Oxford as a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow in 1987 and was elected to the Nuffield Professorship of Clinical Medicine in Oxford in 1992. In 2002, he became the Regius Professor of Medicine. He was appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2006 to Chair the Office for the Strategic Coordination of Health Research (OSCHR), the body responsible to co-ordinate the research functions of the NIHR and the MRC. In 2008 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society and was made a Knight Bachelor for his services to Medical Science.
Professor Sir Mike Brady
Mike Brady is BP Professor of Information Engineering in the Department of Engineering Science as well as a Fellow of Keble College in the University of Oxford. During his time in Oxford, Mike has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineers, a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and a Fellow of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence.
Dr Tim Cook
Tim Cook advises several universities on Technology Transfer, although he has worked with Oxford University since 1997. From 1975 to 1990 he held various management roles in technology-based businesses including Managing Director positions. From 1990 to 1997 he was a private investor and founding Managing Director of two successful companies, Oxford Semiconductor and Oxford Asymmetry, a spin-out from the University of Oxford. Tim then headed Isis Innovation from 1997 to 2006. Tim retired from his executive role in Isis Innovation in 2007, but continues as a non-executive director.
Professor Steve Davies
Steve Davies received his BA in 1973 from New College, University of Oxford and DPhil in 1975, also at the University of Oxford. He subsequently held an ICI Postdoctoral Fellowship and a NATO Fellowship before joining the CNRS. He returned to Oxford in 1980 to a University Lectureship and then Professorship, as well as a Fellowship of New College. He has since published over 375 research papers, and has been the recipient of a variety of awards for his contribution to organic synthesis, including the Pfizer Award for Chemistry (1985, 1988), the Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Organometallic Chemistry (1987), the Tilden Lecture Award (1996), and the Prize Lectureship of the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan (1998).
He is also a member of the Executive Editorial Board for Tetrahedron publications, and Founder and Editor in Chief for Tetrahedron: Asymmetry.
Ann Hacker
Ann Hacker is a non-executive director Proven Health VCT, Plc., Frimley Park NHS Foundation Trust Hospital, Karus Therapeutics Limited and is a Trustee of the William Harvey Research Foundation and The Leonardo Trust. Ann has worked in the healthcare industry for over 35 years and has held senior management positions with Lilly and Glaxo Pharmaceuticals, now GSK, as well as having been CEO of three venture capital backed life science companies, Biocompatibles International Plc, Deltex Medical Limited and Metris Therapeutics Limited. In addition, she has held directorships in a number of private and public healthcare companies and health related government organisations.
Nigel Keen
Nigel Keen gained a degree in Engineering from Cambridge University and also qualified as an accountant with Deloittes. He has pursued a career encompassing industry, venture capital and banking. In 1984 Nigel Keen founded the Cygnus group of venture capital investment companies. Cygnus provides finance and management skills to emergent, developing and mature companies with high growth potential.
He is the chairman of a number of high growth publicly listed companies, including The Laird Group, Oxford Instruments, Axis-Shield, Bioquell and the AIM listed company, Deltex Medical.
Giles Kerr
Giles Kerr is the Director of Finance at the University of Oxford. He is also a Director of Victrex plc, BTG plc and Elan Corporation plc. Previously, Giles was the Group Finance Director and Chief Financial Officer of Amersham plc, acquired by GE Healthcare in 2004. Prior to his role at Amersham, he was a partner with Arthur Andersen in the UK. He is a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford a graduate of the University of York and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Dr John Knowland
After graduating from Oxford in Biochemistry, and taking a doctorate in Zoology, John Knowland joined the Medical Research Council’s staff in Cambridge in 1972, and was a Research Fellow of St. John’s College. In 1976 he was appointed a University lecturer in Biochemistry in Oxford with a tutorial Fellowship at Pembroke College. In 2001 he moved to Brasenose College as the Bursar, retiring in 2009. In 1993, he showed that in sunlight some sunscreen ingredients decompose and generate free radicals, which can damage DNA in human cells. This led to the development, with the Oxford spin-out company Oxonica, of an alternative ingredient, which is photostable and minimises free radical formation amongst other advantages.
Professor Ewan McKendrick
Ewan McKendrick is Registrar of the University of Oxford, Professor of English Private Law, a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall and a Barrister of Gray's Inn. He undertakes advisory work as a barrister on general commercial matters, particularly in the fields of commercial law, contract, international trade and restitution. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of International Banking and Regulation Law.