United Kingdom
I'm working in Senior Advisory roles at the intersection of innovation, investment and technology. Previously, I was the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security for almost four years until March 2025. Before my time in public service I was a serial technology entrepreneur and then a Venture Capital investor focused on early stage ‘deep technology’ start-ups. I'm a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, an Honorary Professor of Computer Science at the University of Manchester, and a member of the Royal Society’s Science, Industry and Translation Committee. During 2019 I was the Visiting Clore Innovation Professor at the Royal College of Art. In the 1980s I participated in the development of the BBC Microcomputer & Acorn Electron at Acorn Computer. I subsequently co-founded and led several technology companies, including ANT Software plc and nCipher plc which achieved listings on AIM and the London Stock Exchange, respectively.
Photonic is building the world’s first commercial-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer, powered by a unique qubit technology and designed for unlimited scalability from the start. Scaling quantum computers is the grand challenge—not just achieving quality, but quantity—because only at scale can we unlock exponential speedups for the world’s most critical problems, from drug discovery and climate modelling to secure communications and advanced AI. At the core is Photonic’s Entanglement First™ architecture, which prioritizes entanglement distribution across nodes. Systems are engineered to scale seamlessly and deliver the performance required for breakthrough quantum applications. This architecture eliminates traditional and quantum-specific bottlenecks that limit scale.
Paladin is a global investor that supports and grows the world’s most innovative cyber companies.
Contributing to the development of Cyber Security teaching at the University of Manchester, as well as supporting the Innovation and Business School activities here.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the main funding body for engineering and physical sciences research in the UK. Our diverse portfolio ranges from digital technologies to clean energy, manufacturing to mathematics, advanced materials to chemistry.