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COMPANY
Key Personnel
Prof Tao Wang is based at the University of Sheffield and currently leads the GaN team within the EPSRC National Centre for III-V Technologies. His principal research interests are based around the growth and characterisation of ultrahigh efficient III-nitride based devices. He received his Ph.D from Universität Würzburg in Germany in 1997 before he joined the world-leading III-nitride research group at the University of Tokushima in Japan. From August 2000 to August 2002, he worked at Nitride Semiconductor Ltd, Co. in Tokushima as director of R&D. In August 2002, he joined the University of Sheffield and in 2005 he was awarded the highly prestigious EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow. He has over 230 publications and 10 international patents on III-nitride materials. Within Seren Photonics Ltd he is the Scientific Advisor with responsibility for all aspects of product development, characterisation, technical marketing and some responsibilities for manufacture.
Dr Godfrey Ainsworth is the Chairman at Seren Photonics Ltd and has extensive knowledge and experience in the compound semiconductor industry having a twenty-two year relationship with IQE plc, where he has been Chairman since 1999. With a market capitalisation of c£250m, IQE is an AIM listed compound semiconductor epitaxial wafer manufacturer with four manufacturing plants in the UK, three in the USA and one in Singapore. IQE has recently increased its focus on nitride based products through the acquisition of NanoGaN from Bath University, UK. Dr Ainsworth, who was also the founder and Managing Partner of Gambit Corporate Finance, led the acquisition teams which purchased Peters Food Services from Grand Metropolitan and Prestwick Airport from Stagecoach plc. He also advised on the merger of Epitaxial Products Limited and QED Inc to form IQE Plc which was then floated on EASDAQ and a year later on the LSE TechMark. During his time at IQE they have made five further acquisitions making IQE plc the largest ‘pure play’ foundry for compound semiconductor epiwafer manufacture in the world.
Dr Carl Griffiths is the CEO for Seren Photonics Ltd. He is seconded from his Commercial Manager’s role within Fusion IP plc and is responsible for the growth of the business in the early years. He received his PhD in Solid State Physics in 1992 from Cardiff University before moving to BICC Cables Ltd. At BICC Cables he was a Principal Research Engineer reporting to the Group Director of Technology. Carl has more than 25 publications to his name and is a named inventor of seven international patents. He left BICC Cables after it was taken over by Pirelli and set up his own company; ORS Ltd. ORS Ltd designs and manufactures optical probes for the compound III-V semiconductor foundry industries including the growth of GaN which makes Carl ideally placed to run Seren Photonics Ltd. During his time as MD at ORS (2000 – 2008) he raised over £1M in investment money from institutional investors like NESTA and Finance Wales Investments Ltd as well as private individuals through the Xenos business angel network
Dr Peter Grant is one of the key executive officers of Seren Photonics Ltd and represents the interests of Fusion IP plc, the founding company behind Seren Photonics Ltd. He gained a Ph.D in Biochemistry from Cardiff University before embarking on his career in industry. He held research and development positions in Genzyme and Celltech before joining Enzymatix in 1988, his first start-up. He became head of R&D for Enzymatix and then a co-founder and director of Celsis in 1992, a spin-out from Enzymatix where he eventually became Director of Business Development and Technology on the Board of directors. During his time at Celsis, Peter was a member of the management and presentation team that floated Celsis on the LSE in 1993. Peter left Celsis in 2002 and co-founded Biofusion plc, listing this on the AIM in 2005. Biofusion has since been renamed Fusion IP plc and has exclusive agreements with Sheffield and Cardiff Universities to exploit University owned intellectual property. Peter’s role as Operations Director is to take an active position in the founding and development of Fusion portfolio companies, normally as Chairman/NED, and to head the Pipeline team that manages and evaluates the Fusion Pipeline of projects generated by the two Universities.
