Noel Botha

Background

About Noel Botha

I take pleasure in helping inventors and early-stage businesses to realise their ambitions in terms of value creation or the delivery of social good. It is wonderful to be able to work to build something of value from very modest beginnings. I previously spent many years as a management consultant focused on large-scale mergers and acquisitions - a different kind of growth - all too often focused on driving cost out of a business. I am a practitioner as well as an advisor and mentor to others. I have set up and run my own businesses and have supported others to do the same. I am currently VP Commercialisation at Ploughshare Innovations, where I share responsibility for commercialising intellectual property developed by UK Defence and Security research establishments. This involves me in a truly exciting range of innovations from cyber security and autonomous vehicles through to software used in Covid-19 response. We have a great remit – to deliver impact. This includes employment, economic growth and social good, as well as a financial return to the public purse. I was previously a Founding Director of Orion Innovations, where I successfully led new businesses through start-up and early stage development, and helped to turn-around and grow established businesses through market diversification, new ventures creation, and acquisition. I also worked extensively with government bodies, NGOs and innovation agencies to foster and accelerate innovation and growth by establishing, monitoring and refining innovation infrastructure, programmes and interventions. Going back many years, I was a founding member and Senior Manager of a fuel cell technology business … before it became so popular. Prior to this I held senior positions in leading international consulting firms, A.T. Kearney, KPMG and Chem Systems. As a consultant, I served blue chip companies in the process industries and utilities sectors and specialised in securing and delivering large-scale and complex programs of work. I worked as a project engineer within the chemicals sector before entering into management consulting. Please contact me if you think that there are opportunities for collaboration.