Dr Duncan J Martin (PhD MBA)

Head of Entrepreneurship

Biography

Background

My career has focused on translating academic and scientific outputs to real-world meaningful impacts. Following my PhD and some post-doc work, I started out in the commercial world with 5 years at a global contract research organisation, gaining experience of “doing science for money”, plus the required Business Development work to support this.  I took this commercial experience back to the academic arena via the role of Scientific Business Manager role at the University of Edinburgh in 2008.  This role gave me 14 years of scientific operational management experience, eventually progressing to Head of Operations/Business Manager for University medical imaging facilities, and included completing an MBA from the University of Edinburgh Business School. During this time, and along with leading Imaging academics and NHS service managers, I created and grew the Edinburgh Imaging entity.

Prior to my current Head of Entrepreneurship at Bayes role, I spent a year back in the commercial world at EnteroBiotix (CEO Dr James McIlroy).  EnteroBiotix is a fast-paced commercial enterprise based on an innovative microbiome product; currently scaling up with an aim for IPO in the next few years. This was a brilliant, exciting and challenging role; being at the heart of a rapidly growing entrepreneurial commercial organisation that is creating/delivering strategy at a spectacular pace. This equipped me with first-hand insight into the challenges and opportunities of entrepreneurship and the critical role it plays delivering socioeconomic impact. 

Part of my current role is to act as a nominator for The Earthshot Prize, I act as a connection point between this initiative and our entrepreneurial ecosystem.  The Earthshot Prize was designed to find and grow the solutions that will repair our planet this decade. 

I am a graduate of Aberdeen, St Andrews and Edinburgh Universities.  Alongside the MBA, my academic qualifications are PhD (Neuroscience), BSc (Pharmacology) and PG Diploma (Vocational IT).

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