Steve is a successful manufacturing business leader – specialising in biomanufacturing, life sciences, the chemicals and process industries. He is Chair of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult – the government’s flagship network of advanced manufacturing innovation centres and Chair of the Industrial Advisory Group of BioYorkshire – a regional cluster focused on creating national economic growth from biobased feedstocks, wastes and using biological processes.
Over the past five years he has had a number of other senior board roles and was manufacturing advisor to the Vaccine Task Force during 2021/22. Before that he was CEO of Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies – a globally leading biopharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organisation – leading the company for 15 years and growing its UK presence from 150 people to over 1000 people on Teesside and globally to over 2500 people. He chaired the UK’s Industrial Biotechnology Leadership Forum for 8 years and was Co-Chair of the UK’s Bioeconomy strategy steering group when it was launched in 2018.
In 2020 Steve was recognised for his services to the UK Manufacturing and Biotechnology Sector with a CBE. He was also awarded the Peter Dunnill Award in 2020 and was part of the team awarded the Richard Wilson Award the same year. In 2022 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Teesside University. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.
