Gerry Thurgood - Executive Chairman, and CEO
Gerry started with the industry leader Texas Instruments. In 1979, he became CEO of Thermo/SVG Systems and went on to become President and MD of the European arm of Tokyo Electron Ltd (Japan). He later became co-chairman of Tokyo Electron Europe, and VP of Corporate Strategic Planning and Globalisation in Japan. In 2005 he went on to acquire Thermco/SVG from Aviza and set up manufacturing and world wide distribution of the Thermco product range of thermal diffusion solutions for the Semiconductor and Photo voltaic industries. Gerry brings over 35 years of semiconductor industry experience to the team and directs corporate strategy.

Ben Jensen - Chief Technical Officer
Ben Jensen has 15 years of experience in vacuum and thin film processing, and was a co-founder of CEVP in 1999, which has become a significant player in the design and manufacture of sputtering tools for both research and production, with customers including IBM, Motorola and Seagate. He played a key role in the development of the NanoGrowth tool during the joint venture period between CEVP and ATI.

Duncan Cooper
Starting with GEC Semiconductors in 1980 Duncan brings more than 25 years industrial experience to the company. Responsible for sales and marketing of microelectronics materials and capital equipment, he has worked for start-ups, as well as industry leaders Hoya and Tokyo Electron. With a background in dealing with strategic accounts, launching new products and sales into the semiconductor, laser, display, and photovoltaic markets, he brings a broad spread of high technology business experience to the company.

John Pontefract - Design Manager
John has over 20 years experience in the Semiconductor, High Vacuum and Ultra High Vacuum industries. He had a key role in the design of the successful Applied Materials 9500 & xR80 Ion Implanters where he supervised the Beamline Section and subsequently designed Ultra High Vacuum Systems for VG Scienta. John leads Development of the Hardware of the Nanogrowth Platform.

The board of directors

Gerry Thurgood, Executive Chairman (see above)

Ben Jensen (see above)

Professor Ravi Silva
Director of Advanced Technology Institute, and Head of its NanoElectronics Centre. The research within his group is backed by a £6 million EPSRC Portfolio Partnership award and a £4 million SRIF award. He has overseen much pioneering work in the nanotechnology field, including co-authoring the ATI's seminal paper published in Nature Materials on 'Large Area synthesis of carbon nanofibres at room temperature'.  He is the recipient of UNESCO's Albert Einstein Silver Medal and Javed Husain Prize, IEE Achievement Award 2003 and the IoP Experimental Physics Charles Vernon Boys Medal in 2002. He sits on the EPSRC Technical Opportunities Panel (TOP) and Nanotechnology Task Force.

Alan Aubrey
Alan was the joint founder and Chief Executive of Techtran Group Limited, the first Company in Europe to offer a complete out-sourced technology transfer function to universities. Techtran was acquired by IP Group in 2005. Alan is also the Non-Executive Chairman of Proactis, an AIM listed software Company based in York and the Non-Executive Chairman of Energetix Group plc, an AIM listed Company based in Chester. From 1995-2002 Alan was a partner in KPMG where he specialised in providing advice to fast growing technology businesses. Alan holds a BA in Economics from the University of Leeds and a MBA with Distinction from the University of Bradford. He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. Alan is also a Non-Executive Director of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Keith Robson
Responsible for the strategic direction of UniSdirect (a University of Surrey's unit which works to maximise performance in research, enterprise and knowledge transfer). Before joining UniS, he was Director of Enterprise at Brunel University. Previously, he had a career in electronic and instrumentation manufacturing, latterly in MD roles. He took one company to a successful trade sale, and set up a spin-out in vision systems - subsequently acquired by Sumitomo.

Luke Hakes
Luke is an Investment Associate at Octopus Ventures, previously he worked in both the scientific and Management consultancy sectors. After starting out as a research scientist he held positions in sales at Apple and as a consultant at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants where he acted as a business analyst at Goldman Sachs. He currently acts as a board observer for three high growth technology companies. Luke holds a 1st Class Degree in Biochemistry and Biotechnology, an MSc with distinction in Bioinformatics and a PhD in Computational Genetics from The University of Manchester.