Chris Earnshaw, FREng
Chris is the non-executive Chairman of Cranfield Ventures Ltd, the commercial arm of
Cranfield University responsible for exploitation of IPR owned by the university. He holds
a number of other non-executive board positions with technology based companies,
including chairman of Cranfield Aerospace Ltd.
Chris has more than 30 years experience of managing technology based businesses large
and small. He spent most of his corporate career in the telecoms and IT industry. He held
various senior executive roles at British Telecom including, Managing Director Networks
and Systems and Group Engineering Director. He was also Chairman of the R&D business
unit and the Corporate Venturing Board with a particular focus on innovation
partnerships. In his earlier career he was the founding CEO of a major telecoms service
joint venture company based in the US.
Today Chris's interests span many different industry sectors and he has acted as adviser
to a number of private equity groups as well as UK government on policy matters related
to telecoms and digital services.
Chris is a Fellow of the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering and past trustee and President
(2008-09) of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Europe's largest professional
body in the engineering sector.