New Team Members

DEScycle, a deep tech company pioneering technology to recycle metals from electronic waste (“e-waste”), welcomes new hires and appointments to its Board of Directors.

Steve Dobson, a senior leader in the Chemicals and High-Tech Materials Industry, joins the Board as an Independent Non-Executive Director. Following a 40-year career in the chemical industry, Steve retired from the then €10B global chemicals company, Solvay. Steve served as Head of the “Electronics Business” - a more than €220m turnover speciality chemicals business, with five business lines and 14 plants around the world.

Steve has first-hand experience in start-ups and spin outs, funding rounds, investor engagement, lab to pilot to full plant scale up, commercialisation and internationalisation. An experienced Non-Executive Director, Board Advisor and Trustee, Steve also sits on the Boards of Fluorok Ltd, Nexeon Ltd and the Tullis Russell Group as well as holding supporting roles in the Institution of Chemical Engineers, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the University of Chester.

DEScycle also welcomes Rowan Bird as a Non-Executive Director, representing BGF as lead investor of DEScycle’s Series A round. Rowan joined BGF in 2019 and is a member of the Early Stage investment team in London, focused on opportunities across climate tech and deep tech. Rowan's responsibilities include helping to establish and refine BGF’s Early Stage Climate Tech investment strategy, identifying and executing new investment opportunities, and supporting an ever-growing portfolio of companies. Focused on the intersection of strong technological differentiation and compelling commercial and scale-up potential, he has in invested over £100m across more than 20 transactions, to date, across late Seed to Series B. Prior to joining BGF, Rowan spent several years at Lazard, working across its Restructuring and M&A advisory teams.

To accommodate the additions to the Board, Founders John Murray and Geoff McNamara have stepped down as Directors. DEScycle is grateful to both John and Geoff for the leadership and support, which was fundamental to the founding and success to date of DEScycle.

DEScycle has also strengthened its technical team with two senior technical hires. Dr Andrew Ballantyne, a chemist and DES specialist, bolsters the inventive expertise at the company. He is an author of 3 patents, outlining applications of DES chemistry in manufacturing and metals recycling technologies. Formerly, Dr Ballantyne was an Associate Professor at the University of Leicester, Imperial College London and the University of Northampton.

Aaron Evans, a chemical engineer, has extensive experience working within the circular economy, leading engineering processes and commissioning activities on plants up to £200 million CAPEX. Aaron brings experience in all aspects of the engineering design process.

DEScycle Chair, Ian Cockerill, commented: “I’m delighted to welcome Steve and Rowan to the Board of Directors. Their experience and insight will be highly valued as we drive forward with commercialization of our ground breaking e-waste recycling technology. It is also a pleasure to see the DEScycle team grow and strengthen with the additions of Andrew and Aaron.

I would like to say a special thank you to John Murray and Geoff McNamara for their tireless support of the Company since its inception. They were instrumental in steering DEScycle thorough its early years and we are highly appreciative of all of their contributions during their time as members of the Board of Directors. John and Geoff remain significant shareholders in the business and we look forward to a continued, productive relationship with them both.”