Masthead
The Non-Executives Board
 

Charles Halle - Chairman, joined Keronite in June 2008 as non-executive chairman. Charles had a 23 year career with IBM in various senior Sales, Product and General Management roles, before becoming CEO of speech recognition company Vocalis Plc. He has since spent five years as Chairman and Non-Executive in a number of early stage technology companies and has extensive experience in turnaround situations.
 

Nick Habgood - NED,  Nick is Managing Partner of Azini Capital Partners LLP (www.azini.com) a private equity fund management firm specialising in the acquisition of shareholdings in private and public technology companies (secondary transactions).  Nick has been a technology investor for 10 years prior to which he held a number of senior roles in MasterCard International, Mars Electronics International and GKN.  He has a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering (M.Eng) from the University of Bristol.
 

Alexander (Sandy) Smart - NED, joined Keronite in October 2006 as a non executive director. Sandy has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Economics, is a Chartered Engineer and has previously been CEO of a small engineering group. He has been involved in private equity for over 30 years and was a director of Citicorp Venture Capital (now CVC) and PPM Ventures. Sandy is now a Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Westbridge Capital LLP and holds a number of directorships in engineering and technology businesses.
The Executive  
Steve Murphy - CEO, joined Keronite in November 2008. Steve graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 1984 with a Double 1st Class Honours Degrees in Engineering and Business Studies. After brief spells with Cummins Engine Company and Lucas Girling, he joined management consultants, Coopers & Lybrand, and was rapidly promoted to the position of Director – Manufacturing and Supply Chain Consultancy. In 1998, Steve participated in a management buy-out of business consultants, Rossmore Dempsey & Company where he transformed the approach to sales and introduced a new set of business principles. He then went on to join FTSE 100 company, Johnson Matthey PLC, heading up a number of global divisional business units including those supplying decorative coatings, precious metals and speciality chemicals. Proving himself as an innovative visionary, Steve was most recently employed as Business Development Director with Johnson Matthey’s Process Catalysts and Technologies Division where he completely redefined the long term strategy and quickly succeeded in delivering acquisitions to achieve increased profit targets.
Steve Hutchins - COO, Steve Hutchins studied at the University of East Anglia. He has a 1st class honours degree and was awarded a PhD in surface physics technology in 1985. Steve started his career as an engineering consultant in Cambridge working on a wide variety of technology projects. He then joined Lotus Cars Ltd as an engineer before being promoted eventually to Head of Sales and Project Management of the Engineering Division working with many of the world’s leading carmakers. He joined Keronite in December 2002 to reinforce the commercial effort, particularly in the automotive industry, before being appointed Chief Technical Officer and later Chief Operating Officer.
David Lewis - Sales Director, joined Keronite in July 2009. He is a Chartered Engineer and after graduating from Cardiff University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering he joined AEA Technology as a Business Development Manager before joining Management Consultants Deloitte where he performed various Business Development roles before joining a client, Cambridge Mechatronics and successfully helped them to win a number of key contracts. From here he was recruited by Sagentia in their Technology Consultancy business. He has extensive experience working with developing businesses with Intellectual Property at the core of the market proposition.
Mark Fletcher - Finance Director, joined Keronite in March 2010. He is an Associate Chartered Management Accountant with extensive experience working at board level in small and medium enterprises. He has helped business not only to manage and improve their day to day financial management he has successfully raised 'Series A' funding and helped businesses to list on the LSE.