Programme Speakers
Keith Robson
Keith is Director of Research and Enterprise Services at the University of Surrey. Since he started at Surrey in 2006, Keith has been responsible for a major restructuring of the research support, commercialisation and incubation functions of the university. The objective of the reorganisation has been to develop greater efficiency and impact from university resources by better focus and greater emphasis on working with external partners. Prior to joining Surrey he established the Enterprise Centre at Brunel University and Brunel University Enterprises Ltd subsidiary company which included raising capital funds to support Seed Corn Investment. Keith was founder Chairman of the WestFocus consortium of 7 London Universities and Chairman of the PARK Seed Fund. He was also responsible for Brunel's on-campus Science Park and Incubation Centre. He is now the Surrey representative on the Management Group responsible for the direction and operation of the SETsquared Partnership, consisting of the universities of Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey.
Prior to joining the academic sector, Keith's career was in electronic manufacturing industry. As Managing Director, he led the successful trade sale of a private electronic instrumentation company and carried out a number of turnaround operations as well as forming his own start up company in the field of vision inspection systems. He currently holds active directorships of 8 companies and has been involved in establishing a total of 24 companies to date.
