RAPID INNOVATION GROUP - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder of Benchmark Capital
Ellen joined RIG in 2021, and is a member of the AgBio practice, where she works to support clients commercialise their IP-rich technologies, working on developing market and commercial strategies. In addition to client work, Ellen also scouts and engages with potential clients to grow the AgBio practice. She has just completed a bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of St Andrews, where she focused her research on microbiology and wrote her thesis on proteomic methodology.
Outside of RIG, Ellen enjoys brushing up on her Spanish, trying new restaurants and travelling.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Cambridge Development Initiative
- Engagement Director and Growth Lead
Georgia joined RIG in July 2022 with a dual focus of supporting RIG's clients and accelerating growth. Georgia was a senior project manager at Oliver Wyman, a global management consultancy firm. She was a core member of their People and Organisational Performance practice where she specialised in Strategy activation and Culture change. She worked directly with C-suite and senior management of large corporations to enable high-performing teams and create work environments where colleagues love Mondays.
Her passion for commercialising technologies developed when studying Manufacturing Engineering at Cambridge. With a particular interest in tech-for-good, she experimented with various projects, from mobility devices that tackled social exclusion to 3-D printed microscopes for Malaria diagnosis.
Alongside her work at RIG, Georgia is the Chairman of the Cambridge Development Initiative, a charity that works between the UK and Tanzania, seeking to pioneer a new model for student volunteering. Beyond work you'll find Georgia outside playing a multitude of sports or inside slowly making progress on her flat renovations.
Working across the industrial energy space since joining RIG in 2016, James' focus is on carbon capture and utilisation technologies that enable avoidance and removal of CO 2 to and from the biosphere.
A strong believer in collaborative approaches to successful innovation commercialisation, James looks to find the strategic motivation across an eco-system of partners and stakeholders to improve the likelihood of success and ensure the greatest impact of new technologies to market. He emphasises the criticality of validating value propositions throughout the value chain, and establishing the important roles that must be played in bringing an emerging technology to market. This, he sees as an essential part of structuring successful commercial deals.
James Evangelou joined Rapid Innovation Group in September 2015 after graduating from Cambridge and spending 6 month teaching English in Colombo. He spent a lunch with RIG Engagement Manager, Ffion Rolph, talking success, challenges, and his bid to take over RIG.
Job Titles:
- Chartered Accountant
- Manager
- Deal Manager
Matt joined RIG from Grant Thornton's Government and Infrastructure Advisory Practice in 2020. His previous experience of transactions in the renewables and waste management spaces provides a strong sector fit with RIG's clients in industrial decarbonisation and circular economy.
Matt is a manager in the Deal Team, collaborating with all of RIG's sector practices. His primary focus is on the fundraising process, ensuring clients are investor ready, identifying the ideal investor profile and executing the engagement from inception through to deal close. He also supports clients by delivering the tools they require to execute commercial negotiations successfully including in depth value analysis, financial modelling, and business case development.
Matt is a chartered accountant (ACCA) and holds a MEng from University College London in chemical engineering. This grounding in both finance and technology enables him to better understand the challenges facing the IP led technology companies that RIG works with.
Outside of work, Matt is a keen foodie and active sportsman.
Patrick joined RIG in 2021 as a member of the Decarbonisation & Circular Economy Practice. Prior to joining RIG he worked in a variety of roles in the pharmaceutical industry as a quality control and process chemist for both start-up and larger corporates. He has also worked as an English teacher in Chile and has worked for non-profits in education, public health, and environmental protection.
His professional interests include deep industrial decarbonisation technologies, grid optimisation, decentralised energy production and decarbonising heat. At RIG he is interested in working with technologies across all TRL levels and finding the niche market for technology to establish a dominant position and then move laterally.
He holds a BA in chemistry from Trinity College Dublin specializing in catalyst design and a MSc in advanced materials science from University College London with a focus on solar energy and physical carbon capture technologies.
Outside of work he is an avid cyclist, golfer, loves to travel and enjoys amateur drama.
Working at the nexus of food, water and energy, Peter is a partner in RIG's Agrifood practice. Much of his work is driven by the twin imperatives to simultaneously decarbonise and increase food production.
His specific interests lie in commercialising technologies that improve producer returns; address the challenges of food safety, waste and traceability challenges; bridge the protein-sustainability deficit-divide; improve animal health; and reduce water demands and improve land quality.
Well versed in the key enabling skills of strategy development and market validation, Peter has in-depth experience in commercialising technologies via distribution partnerships and licensing agreements.
He has extensive experience in critical activities related to investor readiness and fundraising including: shaping the composition of the investor syndicate; qualifying investors and establishing investment criteria; building comprehensive data-rooms; and supporting the management of the investment process.
Peter began his career at Enterprise Ireland where he supported the internationalisation of Irish companies in the technology and industrial products sectors. Subsequently, he joined the international strategy consultancy, Kaiser Associates, rising to Senior Manager where he worked in the Industrial Products and Healthcare practices developing growth and market entry strategies. Following this, he joined the innovation firm Inzenka, leading ideation initiatives, developing new propositions, creating sales pipelines and designing transactional learning pilots.
A fluent French speaker, Peter has a first-class honours degree in International Commerce and French from University College Dublin (Ireland) and a degree in International Management from the Nancy Business School (France). Outside of work he is a Dad, a keen squash player and enjoys boxing.
Sameer has been with Rapid Innovation Group since its inception having previously worked for Mercer Management Consulting in New York.
In his capacity as RIG's Commercial Director, Sameer's role is to drive the global cross-industry deal-making that sits at the heart of RIG's work with our clients. He takes an enabling role in executing major licensing, high value product transactions, and offtake deals. He has a particular skill in commercial negotiation.
As precursory activities to effective deal making that optimises value, Sameer has extensive experience: of orchestrating market / application discovery and validation exercises; in strategy development; and in business model selection.
He also has a particular interest in driving growth for European technology companies in the Asian market.
Sameer has a double major in International Relations and History, with a minor in Economics, from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Sameer has lived in six different countries and speaks Hindi and Bengali fluently and can order from the menu in French.
Trained in physics and molecular biology at Cambridge and Harvard, Simon has spent 25 years in technology commercialisation and finance. At Rapid Innovation for the last 9 years, Simon has worked with companies in the areas of sensor technologies, alternative energy generation and agricultural biotech. He also works with companies across RIG's client portfolio on challenges associated with investor readiness and fundraising. He has a special interest in helping RIG clients enter the Chinese market.
Previously, he was a director at a niche private equity company for 12 years where he invested in a range of technology-related businesses, in parallel with which he conducted international M&A and fundraising for technology-related businesses.
Simon has an MBA from INSEAD and speaks French, Chinese and Italian. He is a keen jazz pianist.
Job Titles:
- Research and Process Manager
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder of Entrepreneurs' Organisational