After joining Oxford Innovation (OI) in 2000 to open our first centre outside of Oxfordshire, I became Managing Director in October 2017. Prior to joining OI I worked in social enterprise business support and incubation, establishing the first shared workspace for social enterprise in England. OI was set up 30 years ago, by the founders of the first Oxford University spin-out and we do three things: provide flexible shared workspace โ everything from drop-in co-working to fully kitted out proof of concept life sciences laboratories and as the operator of 24 Innovation Centres in the UK, we are the leading specialist provider. Iโm a reasonably regular, (if slightly reluctant) speaker at events focused on best practice in shared workspace, business incubation and support to innovative SMEs, including as a guest speaker at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) 5th Annual International Business Incubation Conference in Moscow & the NBIA (National Business Incubation Association) annual conference in Boston. I have also delivered training focused on developing successful and sustainable incubation programmes to staff from the Bioincubator in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and worked with the Mauritius Government in preparing and implementing a project plan with the aim of setting up innovation centres & business incubator programmes in selected locations on Mauritius.
Iโm looking forward to learning what others are doing and sharing ideas.