MIT Sloan School of Management

University of Birmingham

Edinburgh Napier University

Nottingham Trent University

University of Aberdeen

Innovation Lead at West Midlands Combined Authority

Translating the region’s economic policies and priorities to the commissioning and oversight of business programmes.

West Midlands Combined Authority

Delivery Manager - Business Programmes

•	To coordinate the early stage delivery of phase 1 of the West Midlands Innovation Programme. 
•	To provide direct support to the West Midlands Innovation Board in executing its action plan and policy goals – consistent with the West Midlands Local Industrial Strategy
•	To coordinate innovation activity and join up across different parts of the West Midlands Combined Authority and wider partnership, working closely with the LEPs, Innovation Alliance for the West Midlands, Science parks and others.

Innovation Lead

IXC UK Ltd

Associate Director

Delivering business development role to a graphic design agency which specialises in the design of augmented reality applications to clients alongside digital marketing and website design sales.

Areca Design

Digital Innovation Manager 

Vive Virtualities provides virtual reality experiences using the HTC Vive hardware, considered to be the most cutting edge immersive VR experience achievable today.

Vive Virtualities

Founder and Managing Director

Director & Innovation Intermediary

Acting as a commercially neutral, trusted intermediary service, IXC UK works to ensure that you are discreetly connected to the organizations, technology and collaborative opportunities you need to drive your business forward - without compromising your intellectual property.

IXC UK

Senior Intermediary

My role within the University of Birmingham was to provide a focus of activity which encouraged and promoted enterprise, innovation and entrepreneurship amongst staff and students through research, training and development.  Through management of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre I contributed to the generation of a culture of enterprise within the student and staff body throughout the University; improving the employability of students and alumni through training in enterprise skills and undergraduate, postgraduate and alumni start up businesses.  I have also assisted in the development of the enterprise strategy at Birmingham University for the last 3 years including writing the institutions HEIF 3 bid relating to the development of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre.

Entrepreneurship Manager

Funded in part by Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and partly by the University of Birmingham as the Regional Collaboration Manager my duties for this post were split between the Innovation Policy Team at AWM and Research and Enterprise Services at the University.  For both organizations the primary role was to act as facilitator and adviser to help promote and encourage universities to understand AWM strategies and goals and how these might be used to enable more university to business engagement.  I worked to transfer Higher Education Institution (HEI) knowledge and expertise to business to secure improved performance and competitiveness.

Advantage West Midlands

Regional Collaboration Manager

As Programme Manager in the Business and Innovation Unit at the BBSRC I was responsible for the stimulation of collaborations between academia and industry in the field of biosciences.  I managed the BBSRC’s involvement in several different programmes including the Teaching Company Associate Scheme (TCS now KTP), a scheme which provides postdoctoral scientists with a fixed term contract to work with an industry base in conjunction with an academic institution on a specific problem in the industry.  Whilst working on both the YES competition and the BBSRC Business Plan Competition considerable background knowledge was built up about all aspects of the commercialization of science including licensing, patent protection and Intellectual Property Rights in the biosciences.  I have also been involved in the production of the BBSRC Bioscience Exploitation Guide.

James Elliott