UK appoints innovation chief after three year search
The UK has appointed a former NXP executive to restructure and run its £2bn (€2.3bn) innovation agency after a three year search.
Indro Mukerjee joins immediately from the Watchstone Group, a troubleshooter for insurance, telematics and healthcare software and services companies but has also worked at Plastic Logic, xcreating the FlexEnable spin out, and at C-MAC MicroTechnology.
His immediate task is to move Innovate UK from a grant funding body to an agency focused on driving economic growth by working with companies to de-risk, enable and support innovation while adding private sector investment into research and development. This follows the announcement of a potentially competing agency, Aria, also as part of the UK Research and Innovation framework (UKRI) which was seen as one of the reasons for the long search. The post has been open since InnovateUK was merged with UKRI in 2018.
Since 2007, Innovate UK has invested around £2.5bn to help UK businesses to innovate, with match funding from the private sector taking the total value of projects above £4.3 billion. The agency will play an important role in ensuring the government’s fulfils its commitment to increase R&D spend across the economy to 2.4 percent of GDP by 2027 and the budget for 2021 is increased to £2bn a year.
His main corporate leadership experience was based in the Netherlands with Philips Semiconductors (now NXP) with global board positions.
His earlier career included being Commercial Director within the leadership team which took VideoLogic (now Imagination Technologies) through an IPO, as well as senior management positions within Hitachi’s European semiconductor division.
Indro has a strong personal interest in the development of skills for industry and getting the best talent pipeline developed. He co-founded the UK Electronics Skills Foundation, which has developed into a successful partnership between industry and academia encouraging students to develop careers in the UK electronic systems industry.
He also served on the SEMTA (now Enginuity) board for 9 years, where he was also chairman of the committee managing their investment fund.
“I want innovation to be at the heart of our efforts to build back better, and to achieve this we need strong leadership from experienced innovators, with business know-how, who can help unleash the UK’s vast scientific and technological potential,” said Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.
“Indro’s vast experience and expertise working in technology and industry will be a real asset for Innovate UK and UKRI as a whole. Innovation matters more than ever before, and I look forward to working closely with him to deliver our vision of a flourishing research and innovation system,” said Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser.
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