Stuart Ager

Stuart leads the Finance East Loan Management team after a successful career with NatWest / Royal Bank of Scotland Group and UK Trade and Investment.

He joined NatWest (now part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group) in 1981. His career with the Bank was concentrated in the SME lending sector. He then joined the Technology Sector Group (TSG) in 1996, moving to the role of Head of TSG in 2000.

Stuart was seconded to the UK Trade & Investment Global Entrepreneur Programme for a period of 2 years from July 2006 and moved from the Bank to lead this Programme in 2008. The GEP focused on assisting the management teams of high growth technology businesses move from overseas to the UK to establish their global HQs here. Stuart was responsible for sourcing key funding lines, introducing professional service providers and assisting with market entry.

He has extensive networks across a range of funders – Grant providers, Business Angels, VCs and Banks – and amongst key professional service providers – Accountants, Lawyers, Executive Recruitment agencies and Intellectual Property specialists.

Marcie Bell

Marcie has over 20 years experience in PR and marketing. She now works mostly within the business/investment eco-system but her experience in planning and directing integrated marketing communications projects is broad. She began her career in financial PR in London and, after a move to Scotland, spent 7 years working on consumer and B2B PR campaigns for brands/companies such as Highland Spring, Famous Grouse, Bank of Scotland, British Midland (now BMI) and Scottish Enterprise.

Since re-locating to Cambridge, Marcie has planned and delivered a wide range of high profile projects including Running the Gauntlet, the East of England Development Agency’s investment competition and education programme which attracted approximately 400 applications each year for 3 years and won a Gold in the B2B category of the CIPR awards in two consecutive years. As a result of this and other similar projects, Marcie is experienced in planning and managing pitching events and their associated communications requirements which range from outbound PR/marketing to co-ordinating investor panels managing stakeholder relationships.

Marcie runs The Foundry House. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and a former board member of the MIT Enterprise Forum UK.

Richard Brooks

Richard is a chartered accountant with over 25 years experience of working with start ups and SME’s. Richard lives in Cambridge, UK. He is a co-founder of FD Solutions, a company based in London but with clients internationally. FD Solutions provides finance director services on a contract basis to companies. The company has been trading for 20 years and currently employs 27 full time experienced accountants who act as finance directors ( Client Finance Directors) at over 100 businesses including many SME’s, 8 AIM listed businesses. All employees have been finance directors and in some cases managing directors. The team brings a wealth of experience that would not be accessible from employing one full time FD.

Richard is Chief Executive of FD Solutions and in addition to managing the team holds a number of finance director positions. His specialist sectors include technology, manufacturing, and food. His particular skill set includes management information systems design and implementation for growing businesses. Richard is on the Finance Committee of the BioIndustry Association and represents FD Solutions as part of the Business Support Network at the London BioScience Innovation Centre. (LBIC). LBIC established the BSN to provide support and guidance to entrepreneurial start-ups and overseas companies establishing a base at LBIC.

Simon Crossley

Simon is a partner in the technology practice of Eversheds, with over ten years’ experience of advising technology companies and institutions investing in or collaborating with technology companies. Based in the Cambridge office, he specialises in transactions that involve the generation and exploitation of new technology and intellectual property rights including license agreements, R&D collaborations, joint ventures, co-promotions and other commercial arrangements.

Simon has particular expertise in and experience of the following industry sectors: pharmaceuticals and biotechnology (including regulatory); IT (including licensing, distribution, system procurement and integration, outsourcing, e-commerce and data protection); semiconductors and mobile/wireless. He also has extensive expertise of academic/commercial technology transfer arrangements, having acted for numerous startup companies spinning out of UK universities such as Cambridge, Imperial, Nottingham and others.

Simon has worked in-house with technology companies as well as in private practice, most recently as EU counsel to a NASDAQ listed US software house. He played an instrumental role in the establishment of ERBI, the leading Cambridge biotechnology networking organization, acting as secretary for a number of years and is asked regularly by Cambridge University to mentor pre-start up technology entrepreneurs.

Gary Hanson

Gary leads the BDO office in Cambridge and visits the US several times a year in his role as Country Coordinating Partner, presenting at seminars to transatlantic businesses and their advisors. Gary is a specialist in business advisory services, bringing 32 years of experience to his work. One of his principal skills is UK/US and international operations. He has particular knowledge of US GAAP and its implications – and works closely with the BDO member firm and Alliance network in the USA, as well as being responsible for the relationship and work flow between the UK and US member firms of BDO International. He is also responsible for inward referrals in the East of England region from the International network as a result of which he is currently working with BDO member firms in Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Belgium.

During four years in Cambridge, he has developed an extensive network of contacts across the technology sectors with a particular interest in healthcare and related products and services and advises companies varying in size and structure from early stage to fully listed businesses.

Philip Martin

Philip heads the Patents Electronics Practice in Cambridge. He specialises in matters relating to patents in the medical devices, electronics, software and telecoms fields, including drafting, filing, prosecution and infringement clearance searching. Philip also has experience of contentious matters including UK and international litigation and has significant drafting experience in the fields of analogue and digital rf circuits and systems, power supply circuits and power semiconductor devices, analogue IC design including A/Ds and amplifier circuits, display driver circuits, and organic semiconductor fabrication. He is a committee member of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys.

Philip graduated from Oxford University with a degree in Physics. After teaching for a year at Charterhouse he went to Cranfield, where he received the top PhD. During his time at Cranfield, Philip was short-listed as the UK’s first astronaut. He then worked for five years as an analogue and digital rf design engineer and latterly as a projects manager, prior to entering private practice, initially focussing on European prosecution work for advanced microprocessors and semiconductor fabrication processes.

Gareth Williams

Gareth specialises in biotechnology-related patent work, with particular expertise in genomics and peptides. For his doctorate he conducted research into human molecular biology and genetics, which was funded as part of the Human Genome project. His patent practice includes inventions relating to therapeutic antibodies and proteins, stem cells, pharmaceutical formulations, genetically modified organisms, diagnostic and screening methods, and research tools.

As well as filing and prosecution of patent applications worldwide, Gareth has extensive experience of attending hearings at the European Patent Office. His practice also involves advising on patent term extension, infringement matters and general intellectual property strategy.

He provides freedom to operate and other due diligence reports on complex IP portfolios for clients considering investing in or acquiring IP assets.