Our people

Experienced and highly motivated

To realise the most promising ideas of our time, you need a professional services team of highly motivated and talented people, driven by innovation and your vision. With experience in problem-solving, operations, financial planning, commercialisation and strategy, we make it easy for entrepreneurs and academics to connect.

Collaborating to help you thrive with end-to-end support throughout the process.

Derek Watson MBE
Chief Executive

Derek Watson MBE
Chief Executive

Derek has been Chief Executive on a full-time basis since 1 January 2025 having performed this role on a part-time basis since the company’s inception. Derek provides strategic leadership, drives change and shines a light on St Andrews across the global stage. Derek joined the University of St Andrews in December 2002, before being promoted to Quaestor and Factor in June 2003 and brought with him many years of experience as Deputy Director of Finance at NHS Scotland and Property Development Manager of an NHS Trust. With his strategic guidance and support, St Andrews Innovation is increasingly answering difficult questions and meeting present day challenges with impactful solutions.

Derek was awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours in 2023 for Services to Entrepreneurship and Sustainability.

st-andrews-university-enterprise-portrait-of-Brett-Simpson

Brett Simpson
Chairman

An accomplished executive leader with over 35 years of global business experience, Brett drives growth in technology and manufacturing companies. He was Chief Executive of LBC Tank Terminals, Group CEO of Low & Bonar Plc, and CEO of Bridon-Bekaert Ropes Group. Since 2019, Brett has held a variety of advisory and board roles and is currently non-Exec Chair of St Andrews Applied Research, Chair of Bladon Micro Turbines, Executive Chair of Celtic Renewables and non-Executive Director of Wilkie Group. He is also a volunteer and Trustee of The Wave Project, a UK-wide mental health charity, and chairs RemCom. A chemical engineering graduate from Monash University, Melbourne, he holds an MBA from Columbia University, New York and is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors. He has lived and worked in Australia, Hong Kong, China, USA, Switzerland, Belgium and the UK.

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Keith Millican
Director of Enterprise

Keith is Director of Enterprise, nurturing individuals and teams to transform early-stage ideas into sustainable companies. A proponent for the start-up culture within the University, Keith has 35 years of financial and operating expertise, covering corporate finance, acquisitions, divestments, turnarounds and start-ups across industries. Keith is a Chartered Accountant, Chartered Director, and Fellow of the Institute of Directors. He also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship from Cambridge University’s Judge Business School.

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Kelly Maher
Head of Research Business Development

Kelly is an experienced Higher Education leader who joined the University in 2008 as a Business Development Manager for Life, Biological and Environmental Sciences. She has been Head of Research Business Development since 2010, supporting the University to grow research funding across all disciplines, providing strategic direction and specialist advice. Kelly has worked in various roles in Higher Education in Ireland and Scotland since 1999, with a 4-year interlude in the early 2000s on the JET graduate programme and working for municipal offices of the Ministry of Education in Japan. A graduate of University College Dublin, Kelly holds an MBA with Distinction from Dundee Business School.

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Christian Ziar
Head of Technology Transfer

Christian leads the Technology Transfer team and manages the University’s intellectual property (IP) portfolio, identifying innovation that can translate to market benefit and wider society. His ten years at a firm of IP attorneys and three years working for a semiconductor licensing company in Cambridge have equipped him for the task. His passion lies in supporting groundbreaking research and shaping that into impactful outcomes.

Joe Richards
Finance Director

Joe is the Finance Director of St Andrews Innovation, leading the finance team in providing full compliance services along with commercial support and problem-solving to our portfolio of subsidiary companies. Joe also works closely with the Entrepreneurship Centre and University colleagues to support new opportunities and projects arising through the ecosystem. Before joining St Andrews Innovation, Joe qualified as a chartered accountant with RSM (formerly Baker Tilly) with a focus on small companies.

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Karen Primrose
Director of Eden Campus

Karen is Director of Eden Campus, bringing tenants, industry, and our brilliant academics together to innovate and deliver a low-carbon future for Team Scotland. With a varied background in business and estate management, her expertise covers strategy, operations, stakeholder engagement, programme management and fundraising.

Bonnie Hacking
Programme Manager

As Programme Manager, Bonnie is responsible for the delivery of programmes and training that inspire and motivate nascent entrepreneurs. Bonnie advises and guides entrepreneurs and loves working with talented and enterprising minds. She supports creativity and idea generation, facilitation and action learning sets, leadership development and training, strategic planning and change management. Previous roles include Enterprise & Creativity in the School of Management, Director of Enterprise Educators UK, Management Development Officer for Oxfordshire County Council and People Programmes Manager for Unipart Group of Companies.

Cassidy Sorrie
Enterprise Manager

Cassidy Sorrie
Marketing and Events Manager

Cassidy builds the St Andrews Innovation brand internally to spark the entrepreneurial spirit and potential of University members. Through events and campaigns, she connects organisations with members and supports the development of commercialisation. Cassidy is passionate about people, nurturing talent and making sure everyone has a first-class experience of St Andrews Innovation.

Keira Scott
Marketing and Events Executive

Keira builds the St Andrews Innovation brand internally to spark the entrepreneurial spirit and potential of University members. Through events and campaigns, she connects organisations with members and supports the development of commercialisation. Keira is passionate about people, nurturing talent and making sure everyone has a first-class experience of St Andrews Innovation.

Jens Kellner
Rapid Prototyping Centre Manager

Jens manages the new state-of-the-art Rapid Prototyping Centre. He has over 20 years’ international experience in Research and Development, Engineering, Science, and Business Operations. Jens has lived and worked in over 50 countries and is passionate about emerging technologies, data science, robotics, automation, biology, and additive manufacturing. His expertise covers STEM and interdisciplinary research collaborating with global students, universities and industry professionals, supporting them to turn their novel research into new businesses, products, or services. Jens holds several degrees in Strategic Leadership, Management and Engineering on postgraduate level and is advancing to doctoral qualifications.

Stuart Duncan
Head of Commercialisation

Stuart has around 20 years’ experience in a variety of knowledge exchange and commercially focused roles. As Head of Commercialisation, he leads the commercialisation and exploitation of the University’s intellectual property (IP) portfolio via licensing and other IP-based transactions. Prior to this role, he led Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation activities within the School of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh for 7 years, focusing on creating multi-disciplinary opportunities for enduring long-term collaborative and strategic partnerships with industry. His career also includes a spell in Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, G.D. Searle (wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer), Sanofi, Servier, and the Foreign Office. Stuart studied Chemistry at St Andrews, holds an MBA from Durham, and has been a committee member at PraxisAuril, a world-leading professional association for Knowledge Exchange practitioners.

Adam Heikal
Innovation and Commercialisation Manager

Adam focusses on the commercialisation and exploitation of the University’s intellectual property (IP). He has over 10 years’ international experience as an industry-facing researcher and technology transfer professional working in the UK, New Zealand, and Norway, translating fundamental science into outputs that directly benefit society and the economy. This included helping to spin-out two companies, 3 Peaks Bio Ltd and AdjutecPharma AS, focused on novel antimicrobials for the dairy industry and overcoming carbapenem resistance in superbugs found in hospitals, respectively. He has led on and contributed to multiple successful translational funding applications and has worked with industry, potential investors, regulatory bodies, contract research organisations and government agencies to develop commercialisation strategies. He has a PhD in multidrug resistance and has peer reviewed publications and patents in the fields of antimicrobial resistance and drug discovery.

Rachel Scott
Technology Transfer Assistant

Rachel joined the team in 2014 and focuses on post license management and also leads on the financials of the university’s IP portfolio. Rachel oversees royalty payments and distributions and also maintains the technology transfer database covering agreements, technologies and IP. Rachel also actively drives and manages a number of key transformation projects for the team.

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Jayshree Johnstone
Business Development Manager for Industry

An expert at bringing the right people together, Jayshree connects organisations to academic experts across all Schools. With industry expertise in intellectual property commercialisation and business development, she knows the pressures faced by academics and researchers and how to understand and interpret business needs. She has supported and managed large and complex bids, negotiated complex contracts and knows how to skillfully manage relationships with companies of varying size, location and sector.

David Stevenson
Senior Business Development Manager

David undertakes high level research business development with a focus on larger, interdisciplinary grant funding. He maintains a comprehensive overview of the research capabilities of the University and has a deep understanding of the grant funding landscape and how best to navigate it to secure research and innovation funding. David has a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Strathclyde and has worked for the University of St Andrews since 2004, initially lab based on biophotonics and optical tweezers, and then moving into research business development in 2011.

Lorraine Black
Business Development Manager

Lorraine is a Business Development Manager and our first point of contact for Horizon Europe and other European Union Programmes. A St Andrews graduate with post-doctoral research experience and previous roles in the third sector, including grant round management with a medical research charity, she brings knowledge from both sides of the research funding landscape. Working across the academic schools and with external organisations, Lorraine offers support in identifying and securing research and innovation funding.

Joanna Pulver
Business Development Manager

Joanna is a Business Development Manager supporting the Schools of Mathematics and Statistics, Geography and Sustainable Development and Earth and Environmental Sciences in securing research funding from variety of sponsors including UK and overseas funding bodies, governmental agencies, charities, and industry. Joanna worked as a Scientific Review Manager at SRA International managing peer review for Cancer Research and Prevention Institute of Texas and at the Royal Society as a Grant Manager. Joanna obtained a PhD in Biology from the University of Paul Sabatier in Toulouse and Jagiellonian University in Cracow after which she worked as an EMBO fellow at the University of Cambridge.

Sneh Jain
Business Development Manager

Sneh supports the Arts, Humanities and Social Science Schools in identifying and securing research and innovation funding. Before taking up her current role, she was the Operations Manager with the Hydrogen Accelerator project in the School of Chemistry. Sneh previously worked as a Business Development Manager for the Energy Technology Partnership where she focused on facilitating collaborations between academics and SMEs across Scotland.

Dagmar der Weduwen
Business Development Manager

Dagmar supports the schools of Biology and Psychology and Neuroscience in identifying and securing research and innovation funding. She joined the team in 2024. Dagmar completed her MSc and PhD in behavioural ecology at the University of St Andrews, thus forging strong ties to the local research community. Dagmar is an award-winning science communicator and public engagement expert and brings her passion for these subjects to her work to help academics create lasting impact beyond academia.

Kirsty Munro
Business Development Manager

Kirsty joined the team in June 2024 while completing her PhD in Surface Science from the University of St Andrews. She supports researchers in the Schools of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy, Computer Science, and Medicine as a Business Development Officer. With previous experience in University Admissions and Recruitment alongside her passion for science, Kirsty brings a diverse skill set to her role in helping to secure research funding.

Shannon Cullen
Trainee Solicitor

Shannon Cullen
Trainee Solicitor Technology Transfer Centre

Shannon joined the Technology Transfer Team as a trainee solicitor in October 2024. Having initially studied Commercial Music at the University of the West of Scotland, Shannon got an interest for copyright and intellectual property. She then went on to study the accelerated law degree and diploma at the University of Glasgow. Shannon is excited to be working in the Technology Transfer Centre helping research projects and innovators navigate and manage their intellectual property.

Fiona Ross
Innovation and Development Manager

Fiona is the Innovation and Development Manager at the Eden Campus, where she collaborates with industry and academic partners to scope, plan, and develop research and innovation facilities. With over a decade of experience in research support, management, and communication, she specialises in fostering impactful partnerships, driving strategic initiatives, securing funding, and translating complex ideas into clear, compelling narratives. Passionate about sustainability, Fiona is committed to bridging the gap between research and real-world solutions, helping to shape a more sustainable future for the next generation. Being a local and holding a Master’s in Scottish History, Fiona is invested in the transformation of the historic site at Guardbridge, ensuring its legacy supports innovation and progress.

Our people

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