Directors and Responsibilities
Dr Alison Fielding – Non-executive Chairman
Dr Fielding is currently the Director of Technology Transfer at IP Group plc, the intellectual property commercialization company. She has five years’ experience in identifying and commercialising a diverse range of new technologies encompassing electronics, software, remote power sources, speciality chemicals, medical devices and pharmaceuticals, and over eleven years’ experience of managing companies in a senior capacity.
Previously, she spent five years at McKinsey & Co where she consulted on issues such as business strategy, international growth, organisational design and financial turnaround. Prior to McKinsey, Dr. Fielding spent four years as a development chemist for Zeneca, where she worked commercialising new technologies in the speciality chemicals and agrochemicals divisions. She holds an MBA with distinction from Manchester Business School, a PhD in organic chemistry and a first class degree in chemistry from the University of Glasgow.
Anton Elsborg BSc (Hons) MSc - Non Executive Director
Anton Elsborg was appointed as a Non Executive Director of COE on 19th March 2008. Anton is an experienced CFO and Non Executive Director. During his career Anton was the Financial Director of David Brown Group plc from 1990 to 1998 during which time he was involved in its restructuring and return to profitability which lead to a flotation, and the eventual take-over by Textron Inc. Anton holds BSc (Hons) in Chemical Engineering and MSc in Industrial Management.
Ian Jefferson MSc ACA - Chief Executive Officer
Ian, who was appointed Chief Executive Officer on 7 July 2008 having initially joined COE on 20 February 2007 as Finance Director, has an extensive background in finance and operational roles in industrial businesses. Ian joined COE from the 600 Group Plc, a £70 million turnover LSE-quoted technology business operating from some 30 locations world-wide, where he was Group Financial Controller. Prior to this, Ian was at Heywood Williams Plc for 7 years. During this period he spent 5 years as Finance & Operations Director of Mila Hardware Ltd, a £40 million turnover wholly owned subsidiary of the plc. Ian qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Robson Rhodes and holds an MSc in Applied Radiation Physics and a BSc in Physics and Electronics.
Mark Marriage IEng MIIE – Technical Director
Mark was a co-founder of COE Ltd in 1989 and has held several key positions including Production Manager and Technical Manager where he developed the technical support and applications teams across the company. Mark began his career in fibre systems at STC where he gained significant experience in the design and delivery of the
Mark Norton - Global Sales Director
Mark brings several years experience in technology sales to COE. Marks highest profile role was participating in the founding of Compaq Computer Corp in the UK. Joining as one of its first account executives he rose through account management, channel management and commercial roles for the UK and Ireland. Mark then took responsibility for integrating digital equipment into Compaq.
Mark's final role was that of Group Sales Director UK and Ireland, and within 2 years in this role he delivered substantial growth to a turnover of $3.2b (50% hardware and 50% services).
Since leaving Compaq, Mark has applied his experience to smaller global technology businesses and his roles have included; Sales & Marketing Director at Amaze, VP at Stratus Technologies Inc, and VP and GM of International Operations at Clear Cube Technology Inc with responsibility for all operations outside of North America. Mark holds a BA (Hons) in Marketing and Engineering.
Senior Officers
Gary Osborne - Engineering Manager
As Engineering Manager, Gary is responsible for all COE's R&D, and for delivery of major projects. Gary joined COE in 2007. Prior to this he spent 11 years at Pace Micro Technology plc with part of that time managing project teams delivering various projects in South Africa, Holland, Australia and Asia. He also managed the team which developed the first ever DVB integrated digital TV and several other ground breaking digital TV projects.
As Engineering Manager he was responsible for managing all development resources and CEM relationships to deliver multi-million pound digital TV set top development from concept to delivery and service launch.
He also held software quality, marketing and M&A roles at Pace and was most recently New Business Development Director.
Gary's initial experience was as Software Development Manager at Apricot Computer. During over 10 years in this role he designed the world's first dual-processor Intel; i486 PC, developed systems for GCHQ, and worked on development projects with Intel Corp. Gary has an MBA, an MPhil in Corpus Linguistics and a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science.
Mark Waddington - Chief Engineer
Mark a co-founder of COE in 1989 and has worked full time for the business since its inception. He has held numerous roles including Technical Director and, most recently, Chief Engineer. Mark has been involved in detail in most of COE's major successes, and most recently has project managed COE's larger projects in Asia (Singapore SMRT, Circle Line Singapore). He has also been central to the development of the X-Net Product range.
Before founding COE, Mark was a Senior Design Engineer at STC in Leeds, working on fibre optic transmission systems in the cable TV and military fields. Mark is a Chartered engineer, member of the IEE and originally graduated with a 1st Class honours' degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
