Board Members
David Lussey
CTO
After a 30 year career in the Royal Air Force David retired as a Specialist Officer and set up a civilian technical security business in 1990. It was from work in this business that the discovery of Quantum Tunnelling Composites (QTCs) came about, and he founded Peratech Limited in 1996 to exploit QTCs. David Lussey is an executive director and CTO.
Philip M J Taysom
Joint CEO
With a 25 year career in computing and telecommunications businesses, Philip started developing music and copy protection utilities for the early computer games industry in the mid 1980’s. This led to his appointment as Activision’s European Technical Co-Ordinator.
In 1994 at the naissance of the commercialisation of the Internet, Philip's experience and skills were in demand from organisations such as Reuters, Conde Nast and several other large publishing and retail groups.
Philip co-founded Planet Online – Europe’s largest business to business ISP – and later the creator of the wildly successful Freeserve service. In late 1998 Planet Online was sold to Energis plc for a total deal amounting to around £150m Sterling. Philip then co-founded VData – later floated into the InTechnology plc vehicle for a combined £454m Sterling and represented the most successful technology IPO in Europe during the year 2000. Philip Taysom is joint CEO and an executive director.
Christopher J Lussey
Joint CEO
Chris is a co-founder of Peratech and co-inventor of QTC. During his career with a number of national and international companies he gained a wide range of knowledge and experience in electronic and mechanical and electromechanical engineering. Chris Lussey is joint CEO and an executive director.
Doug Balderston
CFO
Doug has over 15 years experience in Corporate Financial Management across a broad range of private sector companies ranging from retail (John Lewis 93-99) to IT consultancy (Financial Controller for the Avalon group of companies 99-01). Since early 2001 Doug has created and built several businesses focussing on Mobile software technology. Doug originally joined Peratech as a consultant in October 2005 moving to the post of Finance Director in February 2006. Following a short break in 2008 where Doug continued to act as a Non-Executive Director, Doug returned to the Executive post early in 2009.
David Whitmell
Non-Executive Director
David is a Portfolio Director of the Venture Capital Fund Manager NEL. David holds the UK Society of Investment Professionals (UKSIP) Investment Management Certificate, the Institute of Directors (IOD) Diploma in Company Direction and is a Financial Services Authority (FSA) Approved Person. David is a non-executive director of Peratech.
Professor Cyril Hilsum
Chairman of the Scientific Board
Cyril Hilsum spent much of his career working for the Ministry of Defence, and left his post as a Chief Scientific Officer, the senior working scientist within UK government, to become Director of Research for GEC. He is now a Visiting Professor in Physics, University College London while also working as Corporate Research Advisor to Unilever and Cambridge Display Technology. His links with MoD remain through the Defence Scientific Advisory Council, where his prime responsibility is Electronic and Optoelectronic Materials and Devices.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Engineering. He has the Honorary Degree of DEng from the University of Sheffield and from Nottingham Trent University, and Honorary Fellowships from University College London, UCNW, Bangor and UMIST, Manchester.
His research achievements have been honoured by the award of many prizes and medals, including the IEE J Thomson Medal, the IEEE David Sarnoff Award, the IoP and German Physical Society Max Born Medal, the Society for Information Display Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize, and an IEEE Millennium Medal., plus both the highest honour of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the Faraday Medal , and the highest honour of the Institute of Physics, the Glazebrook Medal. No other person holds both of these Awards.
He was President of the Institute of Physics from 1988-90, and was elected an Honorary Fellow in 2001.
He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1990 for services to the Electrical and Electronics Industry and in June 2007, Cyril was awarded the Royal Society Gold Medal for Applied Science. The award recognises a long and distinguished career, spent largely in government service, during which Professor Hilsum led the development of significant technologies in semiconductors and flat panel displays.
His early research was on Infra-red devices, and then he specialised in semiconductors, including Gallium Arsenide, a key material in modern electronics and optoelectronics. He was responsible for the UK flat panel (LCD) display programme, and led the academic/industry/MoD group which developed and patented the liquid crystal materials used world wide, bringing in licensing revenue of over £100M to the UK Government.
Cyril is a non-executive director of Peratech.
Kek-Tong Chow
Non-Executive Director
Mr Chow is based in Singapore. He started his career in finance working in auditing firms in London and is a qualified Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered accountants (England & Wales). He left public accounting practice and worked for Imperial Group PLC for a number of years before returning to Singapore. In total he spent more than 10 years in London, England.
He continued his career with Black & Decker, a US Fortune 500 company for a period of ten years, where he held various senior positions in finance, purchasing management, and business development. In these assignments, Mr Chow also spent extensive periods covering the entire Asia Pacific region, including Australia and New Zealand. With the growing pace of business in Asia Pacific and the need for well trained corporate finance persons in Asian corporations, Mr Chow left Black & Decker in 2003 and since then has held various senior finance positions in major public listed groups in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Mr Chow is a non-executive director of Peratech.
Professor David Bloor
Chief Scientific Advisor
David Bloor is Professor (Emeritus) of Applied Physics at the University of Durham and has been actively engaged in research collaborations with industry for over twenty years. He is a Chartered Physicist and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He is a graduate from Queen Mary College, London with a BSc (1st class) in Physics and obtained his Ph.D. in ‘Low Temperature Physics’ from the same institution.
He has held a Royal Society/SERC Industrial Fellowship at GEC Marconi Research Centre in 1984-85, Humboldt Fellowships at the University of Stuttgart in 1975-76 and the University of Bayreuth in 1997-98, a Sir Derman Christopherson Foundation Fellowship at the University of Durham in 1996-97 and an Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury New Zealand in 1983.
He was Co-ordinator of the SERC and Department of Trade and Industry Molecular Electronics Initiative from 1987 to 1993. He is a member of the EPSRC College and has acted as Reviewer and Assessor of EC Framework projects. He has assessed grant applications for funding agencies in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Eire.
Between 1992 and 1995 he was Co-ordinator (project leader) of an ESPRIT Basic Research Action 7283 Tailored Oligomers and Polymers for Information Technology (TOPFIT) and between 1993 and 1996 a member of the ESPRIT Network of Excellence Organic Materials for Electronics (NEOME). He was a member of the Steering Committee and Exchange Programme Manager of the ESPRIT Network of Excellence on Artificial Olfactory Sensing (NOSE) between 1999 and 2001.
He is currently a member of the Selection and Executive Committees of the Canon Foundation in Europe. He was GEC Industrial Fellow and consultant to GEC, Marconi between 1984 and 1992. He has been undertaking collaborative research with Peratech since 1997 and undertook the original investigation and validation of the first samples. He is author or co-author of nearly 300 scientific papers.
David Boxen
Non-Executive Director
David Boxen spent his early career in International Business Development and General Management roles with Smith & Nephew plc and other leading companies in the medical devices sector and was then appointed as a full-time adviser on the sector to 3i plc. He now runs his own consultancy providing a range of services to institutional investors and the companies in which they invest. These vary from technical and commercial due diligence, to fund-raising and mentoring. He is a Director of a private equity backed manufacturer operating in France and Spain, and of a leading London based consultancy providing buy-side analysis in the field of healthcare services.
David is a non-executive Director of Peratech.