Brian Cantor is Vice-Chancellor of the University of York.  He is acknowledged as a world authority on materials manufacturing and is a Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering.  He was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List.

He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Christ’s College, Cambridge University.  He has worked at universities including Sussex, Oxford and York, and for companies including Alcan, Elsevier, General Electric and Rolls-Royce.  He has advised organisations such as NASA, the EU, and UK, Dutch, Spanish and German government agencies, and was a member of the Sainsbury Review of UK science and innovation.

He has chaired and been on the board of many companies and agencies, including Isis Innovation, the Kobe Institute, the UK Universities Pensions Forum, the White Rose Consortium, Yorkshire Innovation, Leeds and York Economic Partnerships, the Chambers of Commerce, the National Science Learning Centre, the Centre for Low Carbon Futures, and the Worldwide Universities Network.  He founded the Begbroke Science Park at Oxford and led the Heslington East campus development at York.

His research has investigated the manufacture of materials and has contributed to fundamental scientific advances as well as improvements in many industrial products.  He has supervised over 130 research students and postdocs, published over 300 papers and books, given over 100 invited talks in more than 15 countries, and is on the ISI List of Most Cited Researchers.  He was awarded the Rosenhain and Platinum Medals of the Institute of Materials, and was recently given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the York Press.  He is an Honorary Professor at Shenyang, Zhejiang and Nanjing Universities, an Honorary Member of the Indian Institute of Metals, a Member of Academia Europaea and the World Technology Network, and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, the Institute of Physics, the Chartered Management Institute and the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Kersten England joined City of York Council in October 2009 as its chief executive. She began her career teaching history at Manchester University in the 1980s before moving to work in the voluntary sector for four years.Kersten entered Local Government as a Gender Equality Officer for Kirklees Council in 1990, moving successively to become Head of Training, Head of Strategic Personnel, and then Director of Policy and Performance for Bradford Council. Kersten drafted the council’s first Cohesion Plan and led recovery work after the disturbances in 2001.

After two years with central government as Director for Local Government for Yorkshire and the Humber, Kersten took up the post of Group Director of Community Services with Calderdale Borough Council in May 2007 with responsibility for housing, community safety, arts, museums and libraries, parks and customer services.

David is Vice-Chancellor of York St John University. He has wide experience of university leadership, most recently as Deputy Vice Chancellor in the North East of England. He has an outstanding track record in the higher education sector within specialist areas of student experience enhancement, learning and teaching, international collaboration, research, third-stream initiatives, and widening access and participation. David also worked for a number of years in professional practice in the commercial sector before entering education.

In addition to his role on the Board, David is Chair of SCY’s Audit and Finance Committee. David is Chair of Garbutt & Elliott Ltd, a regional firm of chartered accountants with offices in York and Leeds, where he focuses mainly in advising family companies in strategic matters, including corporate governance, family succession and exit strategies.

A Newcastle University Economics graduate he qualified with KPMG, where he went on to become head of the owner-managed business team in Yorkshire. He is a non-executive director in two successful owner managed businesses and for a number of years he has been a Business Angel in early stage knowledge based companies.  In addition to acting as Treasurer of the University of York, David, who is a great believer in putting something back into the community, is currently a director and trustee to several regional organisations in both the business and educational sectors.

Mark is Managing Director and Co-founder of York Data Services, one of the regions leading business ISP’s specialising in High Speed Fibre connectivity, Cloud Services and IT Support, and have built an enviable client list such as Thomson Reuters, IBM, NHS and York University. Mark is also a founding Director of IXLeeds a new Internet Exchange which allows public peering in the North of the UK, and is a board member of Science City York.

Marcus Romer is Artistic Director of Pilot Theatre, the national touring theatre company based at York Theatre Royal, his most recent production being the hugely successful The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Silitoe, adapted for the stage by Roy Williams. Marcus also directed and wrote the screenplay for the Universal Pictures upcoming film The Knife That Killed Me which is due for release in May 2013.

Marcus was a delegate at the TED conferences in LA in 2007, 2011 and 2013 and was the organiser of TEDxYork in 2011. He is the founder of the Shift Happens Conference in the UK, focusing on technology and the arts, which is now in its 5th year. Marcus was responsible for the live streaming of the York Mystery Plays 2012 on the BBC platform The Space - thespace.org.

Chris Danks graduated from The Nottingham Trent University in 1995 after receiving a 2.1 in Applied Biology. He began a career at the Food and Environment Research Agency (formerly Central Science Laboratory) building on the practical experience gained from industrial placements at Rothamsted Research Station, Zeneca and the Veterinary Laboratories Agency.

After over 10 years at FERA he led the commercial spin out of the team he managed, developing and commercialising lateral flow devices for plant diseases. Following successfully negotiating private investment this team became Forsite Diagnostics Ltd, a company dedicated to the contract development and manufacture of lateral flow diagnostics, equipped with state-of-the-art automated production equipment, capable of delivering batches of between up to 10 million lateral flow immunoassays annually. After 5 and half years as CEO at Forsite a new round of investment was sought, and this was recently completed following the 80% acquisition by Abingdon Health Ltd in June 2012, consolidating Forsite’s ambitions in the healthcare sector. For the last 5 years Chris has been the Bioscience Sector Chair for Science City York and now resides as a non-executive Director on the SCY Board. 

As Chief Executive, Nicola has overall responsibility to the Board for leading the SCY team and the delivery of its programmes and outputs. Prior to joining the company in 2010, Nicola was Chief Scientist at the Food and Environment Research Agency at Sand Hutton, near York where she was responsible for science strategy and quality.

Fay is Company Secretary for SCY and is an executive member of SCY’s Audit and Finance committee. As one of Yorkshire’s leading ERDF specialists, Fay leads on securing major revenue and capital investment for both SCY and its clients, playing a leading role in securing significant funding for the region.

As Chief Executive, Nicola has overall responsibility to the Board for leading the SCY team and the delivery of its programmes and outputs. Prior to joining the company in 2010, Nicola was Chief Scientist at the Food and Environment Research Agency at Sand Hutton, near York where she was responsible for science strategy and quality.

Fay Treloar is Director and Company Secretary of SCY Enterprise Ltd. As one of Yorkshire’s leading ERDF specialists, Fay leads on securing major revenue and capital investment for both SCY and its clients, playing a leading role in securing significant funding for the region.