If you could only eat one item for every meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
 
Now that’s a hard one! Do I go for what I like, at risk to health and nutrition; or do I go for “good” food that will sustain me for a healthy life that maybe is not so attractive to eat every day. Hey, at my age, I’ll go for the former. I won’t last long on it, but fruit jello (jelly in the UK) straight out the fridge. Next to zero calories though, so I won’t last long on it.
 
Have you ever met anyone famous? How did it go?
 
I’ve met many famous people over the years – it's one of the things you have to get used to in Cambridge. But the two that stand out most were not directly related to work. One was Whitney Houston, who was staying at the same hotel in Tokyo. She really stood out as a beautiful person in every sense, and so full of life. It was so sad to see what happened to her later. The other was sitting across the aisle from Mick Jagger on the Concorde in my consultancy days. I let him be, but virtually everyone else on the plane was taking photos – overtly or secretively – and wanting autographs and photos together. It made me realize if that was happening with Concorde passengers, what the perils of being famous must be like with the public and never wanting to go there … not that there was much chance of that happening.
 
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
 
A pilot. I could have been getting ready to fly you to New Orleans for the Annual Meeting! Except, when I was about nine, I discovered on a visit to the Science Museum in London that I was red-green color blind, which is rather terminal for being a pilot – not good if you can’t tell the difference between ‘too high’ and ‘too low’ on the landing lights! Ever since, I’ve not had any career plan, which led me to the serendipitous career I’ve had.
 
What’s a skill you’d like to improve on?
 
Dancing. I’m hopeless, but my partner Ali is a great dancer and I’d love to be able to share the dance floor half-competently with her. I do get lots of looks on the dance floor, but for the wrong reasons!
 
What is one hobby you can’t get enough of?
 
None. A hobby is special because you look forward to finding some special time to indulge. As soon as you can do it all the time it becomes routine. I have seen several people destroy the hobby they loved by taking it up full time. A friend with a passion for sailing sold his company, bought a 60-foot yacht and sailed the Pacific for two years. At the end, he sold the yacht and it was ten years before he got back on one, but even then as crew; he said never again as Captain.
 
What’s something that surprised you about your chosen career path?
 
The way it happened. It was just a succession of serendipitous events – as one door closed, another one opened. I never planned to be a serial entrepreneur, but the opportunities presented themselves and I took them. I never planned to go into tech transfer. I had planned to take a couple of years off after exiting my third startup but after six months, the headhunters found me at about the time the family was thinking perhaps they didn’t want to spend more time with me! Which is how I came into technology transfer. After 10 years it was time to try retirement again. I phoned up Terri Willey at Cambridge Enterprise to ask if I could pop in and see her … only to find out she was moving back to the US, and could she introduce me to her Chairman? Well forget retirement, Cambridge is too good an opportunity to pass up, and the rest is history. But now, finally, I think I might just manage to retire – although already it’s a very active retirement, as seems the norm in our profession. As Steve Jobs said in his speech to Stanford graduates, you can only join the dots up looking backwards.
 
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received about tech transfer?
 
I’m indebted to Tim Cook, the founder of what is now Oxford University Innovations, who gave me lots of good advice when I first started in tech transfer, and later as a Board member at Cambridge Enterprise. The one bit of his advice that I remember above all else was the elephant and the rubber band. Bringing a university along with you is like moving an elephant with a rubber band. You must pull on it or the elephant won’t move. If you pull gently, the elephant will slowly start to move, but if you pull too hard the band breaks and the elephant wanders off somewhere else. But then, we are in institutions that think in terms of decades and centuries, rather than months and years!
 
As you’ve just retired as the Head at Cambridge Enterprise, what advice do you have for others moving forward in the profession?
 
A couple of perspectives. The first is to remember what we are here for. It’s not to negotiate the most lucrative contract or file the most patents. It’s to help create the best possible societal impact. The other things are just tools - don’t let them become objectives at the expense of the societal impact.
 
The second is the motto I have used throughout my life: “Have fun and make a difference.” We are very fortunate in having jobs that are fun and make you want to get up in the morning, constantly offering variety and challenge. And we get to work with the greatest minds and most fabulous ideas that can really change people’s lives for the better. Which means we also have a huge responsibility to make sure the potential is realized, particularly to the many less fortunate than us. You are in one of the few jobs in the world which give the satisfaction, whether back-office or front-line, of having helped make a positive difference in the world. So, make the most of the opportunity.