Dr David Fyfe
Chief Executive Officer

Dr Jeremy Burroughes
Chief Technology Officer

Dr Ilesh Bidd
Vice President, Research & Intellectual Property

Emma Jones
Vice President, Human Resources & Facilities

Junichi Sekihachi 
Vice President, Technology Planning & Coordination

Dr David Fyfe, a 30-year veteran of the global chemical and engineering industries, joined CDT as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer in September 2000.

He is experienced in driving commercial businesses and has extensive expertise in negotiating joint ventures, acquisitions and partnerships. Previous positions include senior executive roles in companies on both sides of the Atlantic, including ICI and BF Goodrich.

Dr Fyfe spent three years as CEO of Harris Speciality Chemicals (HSC), headquartered in Jacksonville, FL, USA. This $250 million turnover company had 900 employees, seven manufacturing plants in the U.S., and 11 locations in Europe and Asia. At HSC, Fyfe led a very successful turnaround and subsequent sale of the company to SKW - part of Germany's Viag Group - on behalf of Kelso & Company, one of the principal investors in CDT.

With a BA and MA from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences and a PhD for a dissertation in electrochemistry, Dr Fyfe has chaired and taken part in a number of industry focused government bodies. He has chaired the UK Chemical Industries Association Business and Trade Board, was a member of the UK Department of Trade and Industry's deregulation taskforce for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries and Vice Chairman of the UK CBI Northern Region.

After submitting his PhD thesis titled 'The Physical Processes in Organic Semiconductor Polymer Devices', Dr Burroughes discovered that conjugated polymers such as polyphenylene vinylene could show electroluminescence. A patent was filed by Dr Burroughes and his research fellows shortly afterwards.

With more than ten years' research experience in conjugated polymer science and semiconductor technologies, Dr Burroughes joined CDT in 1997 to manage its new research group. After holding the position of Technical Director for two years he was promoted to Product Business Unit Director in 2000, and then CTO in November 2001. 

Previously, Dr Burroughes spent six years with Toshiba in the UK and Japan where he worked on quantum electronic and opto-electronic devices fabricated using GaAs or InP regrowth technology.

Ilesh gained a BSc in Applied Chemistry from Salford and completed his PhD in Organic Chemistry at Bristol before moving to Strasbourg as a post-doc researcher at the University Louis Pasteur.

Upon returning to the UK, Ilesh joined ICI as a Research Chemist and later became Formulations Research Group Leader within the Colours and Fine Chemicals Division.  Ilesh then held a number of research management positions within Zeneca Specialities before moving to Avecia as Director of Research and Technology for their Ink Jet Printing Materials business.  

Most recently, Ilesh has held the position of VP, Research and Technology for Fujifilm Imaging Colourants.

In his role as VP, Research with CDT, Ilesh will provide strategic leadership and operational management for all the activities across Research.

Emma Jones is responsible for leading the Human Resources function as well as managing the facilities functions in the UK.

Prior to joining CDT, Ms Jones was head of Human Resources at Amgen Limited, where she was responsible for the management of the Human Resources function for the UK subsidiary of Amgen Inc, a US bio-pharmaceutical company. Ms Jones has a BA (Hons) degree in Business Studies from the University of Sheffield.

Junichi Sekihachi is responsible for the communication of the Technology Planning and support R&D collaboration between Sumitomo and CDT's technical functions.

Mr. Sekihachi has 20 years experience with Sumitomo Chemical in R&D, manufacturing and New York Office. Prior to joining CDT in 2008, Mr. Sekihachi was in charge of OLED business and held a management role within Sumitomo's Planning & Coordination Office. Mr. Sekihachi has a MSc in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from Osaka University (Japan).
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

With more than 20 years of experience in technology research and product development, Mr. Veninger oversees CDT's product and technology development operations, including enforcement and development of the company's intellectual property strategy. 

Prior to joining CDT in 2006, Mr Veninger served in various senior management and executive roles at Philips. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Operational Excellence for Philips Semiconductors Division. During his tenure at Philips, Mr Veninger served as Vice President and General Manager of its Emerging Display Technologies division from 2002 to 2005, the Philips entity responsible for the OLED and E-Ink displays businesses, and which commercialised CDT's technology in the form of shaver screens and cell phone sub-displays. In addition, he earlier served in a key manufacturing role in Philips' CRT business.

Yutaka Wakemi is responsible for leading the Financial and Accounting functions as well as managing the IT function in the UK.

Mr Wakemi has joined CDT in December 2007. Previously he was the group leader in the Business Planning Section for Sumitomo Chemical Company Limited. Mr Wakemi has gained a BA from Kyoto University (Japan) and has more than 10 years experience with Sumitomo Chemical.

Hilary Charles gained a LLB (Hons) from Lancashire Polytechnic before completing her Legal Practice Course at The College of Law in Chester.  From here she gained her Articles of Clerkship in private practice, qualifying as a solicitor in 1990. 

After qualifying, Ms Charles worked as a solicitor for Abbey National in their Commercial Litigation department, before joining ARM in 1995 as Senior Corporate Counsel.  Ms Charles worked with ARM until 2002, supporting them through their IPO on both the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.   More recently, Ms Charles has been working with nCipher, another Cambridge based hi-tech start up company, as General Counsel.

Dr Mayes is responsible for business development and licensing at CDT and co-ordinating commercial activities between CDT and Sumitomo.  Eric joined CDT as Commercial Product Manager in 2006 and was promoted to Director, Printing Development in 2007.  Following a year leading printed device performance and scale-up initiatives, Dr Mayes returned to head the Commercial team in 2009.

Eric has over a decade of experience in technology development and advanced materials companies.  Prior to joining CDT, Dr Mayes served as CEO of NanoMagnetics which developed materials for the data storage industry alongside a diversified applications portfolio.  For his role in NanoMagnetics, he was named the Royal Society of Chemistry’s “Entrepreneur of the Year 2003”.  Eric obtained a BSc in Physics from Arkansas State University (US) and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Bath (UK).