Meet the team

By providing access to great people, proven practices and strong networks we can confidently steer the growth of the businesses we work with.

Management Board

Andrew Finley

Andrew is the Commercial Director at Oxford Innovation Advice which specialises in business growth strategy and investment readiness.

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Dean Barnes

Dean is the Regional Director of the Manufacturing Growth Programme, providing dedicated support to SME manufacturers across England.

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Business support

Adrian Waters

Adrian is a Manufacturing Growth Manager in the South East Midlands region as part of the delivery for the Manufacturing Growth Programme.

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Amanda Johnston

Amanda is the head of Marketing for Oxford Innovation Advice, working alongside the other functions and programme marketing leads.

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Andrew Baxter

Andrew manages our unique business tool, GROWTHmapper as well as being a Business Coach with the Oxford Innovation Advice team in Cornwall.

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Angela Spenley

Angela is a Business Growth Advisor supporting companies to innovate as part of the South East Innovate UK Business Growth team.

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Bita Najafi

Bita is a Medical Scientist with extensive experience is setting up, running and growing businesses. Now supporting businesses as a Business Growth Advisor.

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Catherine Bray

Working as a Programme Delivery Manager for the Shropshire Manufacturing Growth Programme and the Dudley Business Growth Programme for their respective local authorities. Catherine has

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Chris Cotter

Chris is a Business Finance Specialist on the Access to Finance team. He has over 20 years experience of operating at senior management level, with the 10 years in the charity sector.

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Chris Oliver

Chris is a finance specialist who has worked in a number of different fields of finance within the last 15 years, operating within Fund Management, Private Equity, Business Advisory & Audit.

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Craig Gordon

Project manage global programme activities that form part of the Innovate UK Business Growth contract, including Global Business Innovation Programmes (GBIPs). Responsibilities include business development,

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Davies-Okeowo

Davies Okeowo

Support businesses across Birmingham, Solihull & Black Country towards becoming investment ready, accessing finance, and achieving their growth objectives. Founder of an SME accounting and

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Photo of Donna Watkins

Donna Watkins

Donna is working on the Business Growth West Midlands in Dudley project, helping SMEs in the Dudley area to identify opportunities for growth and offering

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Drew Abraham

Drew is a Business Growth Advisor supporting companies to innovate as part of the South East Innovate UK Business Growth team.

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Eileen Modral

Eileen is a Investment Manager supporting companies to innovate as part of the South East Innovate UK Business Growth team.

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Graeme Beever

Graeme is a Business Growth Advisor supporting companies to innovate as part of the South East Innovate UK Business Growth team.

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Graeme Owen

Graeme is responsible for the marketing of Innovate UK Business Growth in the South-East, ensuring engagement with innovative, ambitious SMEs to give excellent support and

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Hannah Clemit

Helping 280 ambitious businesses to increase their profitability, productivity, and sustainability through the Good Growth Programme. I have a background in business client relationship management

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Helen Fortune

Under the Investment Readiness – Access to Finance Programme Helen offers support to Pre-Start, Start-Up and Established Businesses, based in Birmingham, Solihull & the Black

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Irving Levy

Irving is a Business Growth Advisor supporting companies to innovate as part of the South East Innovate UK Business Growth team.

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Jakub Rakoczy

Jakub is a Business Growth Advisor supporting companies to innovate as part of the South East Innovate UK Business Growth team.

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James Bosworth

James is a Manufacturing Growth Manager in the Leicester and Leicestershire region as part of the delivery for the Manufacturing Growth Programme.

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Jas Hayre

My new role supports SME companies across the West Yorkshire region to access the new West Yorkshire Good Growth programme. I can effectively support companies

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Jeremy Boye

As a Digital Manufacturing Adviser, I support our ambition to help local economies flourish by designing, mobilising and delivering programmes of business support to ambitious

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John Whittaker

John is a Business Finance Specialist in the Access to Finance team and has worked in financial services sector for 30 years.

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Linda Cheung

Linda is an experienced business advisor, executive coach and board member, who helps innovative scaleup businesses achieve change and growth with lean startup methodologies.

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Lisa Whalley

1:1 diagnostic support to highlight business development areas Networking attendance to raise the programmes profile Facilitation of other regional and national business support delivery offers

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Lou Williams

Lou is a Business Growth Advisor supporting companies to innovate as part of the South East Innovate UK Business Growth team.

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Lucy Pimblott

Removing the uncertainty of where Good Growth efforts should be focused for ambitious SME’s in the West Yorkshire area. In the world of global corporates,

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Lynda Clark

To support ambitious SMEs by agreeing programme of support and develop and implement growth strategies to enable them to grow their business at pace.

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Marcus Pearson

Providing full scale diagnostic and action plan development to help SME manufacturers at every stage of their digital technology adoption journey to unearth their key challenges and barriers to growth.

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Marta Rybarczyk

Marta leads on the Client Engagement Team for Innovate UK Business Growth Programme steering initiatives in project management, business development and client engagement. Her role

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Matthew-Giles

Matthew Giles

Leadership and management of the D4M project. Supporting SME manufacturing businesses in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to adopt and implement tools and innovative

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Michelle Connor

Michelle is a Manufacturing Growth Manager in the Coventry and Warwickshire region as part of the delivery for the Manufacturing Growth Programme.

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Natalie Kay

Natalie Kay

Providing financial support, specialising in cashflow and forecasting for applications for funding and grants. Started as an accountant in practice for 7 years specialising in

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Nicola Wiley

Nicola supports high growth, innovative SMEs as part of the South-East Innovate UK Business Growth team, with over 20 years of business support experience.

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Paul Green

7 years at Barclays as Business Relationship Manager helping businesses of all levels over the 7 years, from Start Up to high turnover businesses. Last

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Paul-Henri Sampson

To help SMEs in the Dudley Borough to access relevant business support by developing solid relationships with owner managers including the use of business diagnostics

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Phillip Somers

Phil is a Manufacturing Growth Manager in the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire region as part of the delivery for the Manufacturing Growth Programme.

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Richard Butcher

Mentoring clients involved in innovation. Raise funds including identifying suitable grants, potential investors and reviewing grant applications. Supporting the validation of the innovation and the

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Richard Holmes

Richard is a Business Growth Advisor supporting companies to innovate as part of the South East Innovate UK Business Growth team.

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Robert Rabone

Supporting start-ups and scale-ups to develop a deeper understanding of available finance and resource support, to enable access to such finance and to provide wider

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Robin Simpson

Robin is a Manufacturing Growth Manager in the Solent region as part of the delivery for the Manufacturing Growth Programme.

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Rocky Moore

Rocky is a Business Growth Advisor supporting companies to innovate as part of the South East Innovate UK Business Growth team.

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Roope Aaltonen

Roope is a Business Growth Advisor supporting companies to innovate as part of the South East Innovate UK Business Growth team.

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Ross Clark

Ross supports selected High Growth and Growth companies across multiple sectors, mainly involving manufacturing and technology, assisting them in their business modelling and planning, funding, innovation management and removing barriers to growth.

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Ryan Davies

Ryan supports high growth, innovative SMEs as part of the South-East Innovate UK Business Growth team to identify their barriers to growth and support them through their growth.

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Sharn Haywood-Higgs

Under the Investment Readiness – Access to Finance Programme Helen offers support to Pre-Start, Start-Up and Established Businesses, based in Birmingham, Solihull & the Black

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Simon Hall

Management of a £1.7M programme of growth support for 288 West Yorkshire businesses offering coaching, masterclasses, and online learning. Simon has spent most of the

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Steve Dunn

To help SMEs in the Dudley Borough to access relevant business support by developing solid relationships with owner managers including the use of business diagnostics

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Tim-Bagshaw

Tim Bagshaw

Working with start-up and scale-up businesses in Cornwall – helping them to become investment ready, to look at their business as a whole and explore

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Will Westley

Supporting Manufacturing SMEs throughout Shropshire to grow by identifying, understanding and removing barriers to growth. Deploying growthMapper, a comprehensive business diagnostic tool and creating action

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Tap into our insights

Oxford Innovation Advice offers Insights into SME needs and policy effectiveness for policy makers, funders and business support commissioners. It draws on our 30 years’ experience of delivering positive economic growth by enabling scale-ups to achieve their full potential. Each edition concludes with an ‘Implications for funders and Policy makers’ section.

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Covid-19 Statement

Update – Wednesday 15th December 2021

Our Innovation Centres remain operational and accessible, and provide a safe environment for our staff and customers. We continue to assess the risk of COVID-19 alongside the latest guidance from government. In the meantime our Innovation Centre remains COVID-19 Secure and fully open for business. Our detailed risk assessment can be found here.