Nigel Vaughan

Chairman

Nigel joins us as Chairman, having repeatedly devised global growth strategies and built senior teams. He has International Board experience (UK plc, US multinational, investor backed enterprise & German group) in an Executive & Non-Executive capacity.
Nigel has a career of building international technology companies and generating significant shareholder returns, including from early stage to IPO and building a pre-revenue company to $100M exit.

Professor Martin Booth

Founder and Director

Martin is Professor of Optical and Photonic Engineering at the University of Oxford. His research covers various areas of optical microscopy, laser machining and adaptive optics. In particular, his work has centred on the development of adaptive methods for compensation of aberrations in high resolution optical systems and the use of dynamic elements for laser beam shaping and parallelisation. This work has contributed to scientific and industrial applications ranging from biological imaging and neuroscience to quantum optics.

Professor Patrick Salter

Founder and Director

Patrick is a Lecturer in the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford. With a background in soft matter physics focused on liquid crystal display technology, his research now mainly concerns optical fabrication using ultrashort pulse lasers. The direct laser write processing platform enables high resolution fabrication inside a wide range of transparent materials. Patrick has developed techniques using adaptive optics for aberration correction, parallelisation and beam shaping to enhance the functionality and scalability of the processing.

Christopher Wiles

Foresight Group

Chris is a Director based in our London office. A core part of his role focuses on Foresight’s Ventures strategy. Before joining Foresight, Chris worked at Centrica Innovations. Chris holds a MBA with Distinction from Warwick Business School and a First Class Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Southampton.

Alun Williams

Parkwalk Advisors

Before joining Parkwalk in 2011 Alun spent 20 years managing debt capital markets at Natwest Markets (now part of RBS) and Royal Bank of Canada. Alun represents Parkwalk on the Boards of a number of portfolio companies, notably the University of Oxford spin-outs Oxford Flow, Mind Foundry and Proxisense.

Oliver Mahoney

Oxford Science Enterprises

Oli is a Principal at Oxford Science Enterprises, a billion-pound investment firm, created to find, fund and build transformational, IP rich businesses across deep tech, health tech and life sciences. Oli has a background of investing in both public and private markets, across all sectors and experience working in start-ups. He has a PhD in regenerative medicine from Imperial College London.

Jonathan Kendall

Non-executive Director

Jonathan was Chair at Opsydia between 2022-24 and now sits on the Board as an NED. He brings over 35 years experience in marketing, business development and senior general management to Opsydia. He has extensive experience in the diamond and jewellery industries having held a range of global executive board roles at De Beers. Today, he maintains his engagement in the industry as Executive VP of the World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO).

Jonathan is a keen entrepreneur founding various tech companies since 2020, including a digital bank, an AI software development company and a blockchain developer.

Dr. David Howells

Oxford University Innovation (board Observer)

David joined OUI in 2018 as a Senior Investment Manager. His role involves helping new companies spin out of the University, as well as managing a portfolio of existing spinouts and making follow-on investments. David represents the University on the boards of several spinout companies and is active in the investment and divestment decisions relating to the portfolio.