press releasesManagement Team
Professor Chris Toumazou, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer
Professor Toumazou has made outstanding contributions to the fields of low power analogue circuit design and current mode circuits and systems for radio frequency and biomedical applications. Through his extensive record of research he has invented innovative electronic devices ranging dual mode cellular phones to ultra-low power devices for both medical diagnosis and therapy. Toumazou was made a Professor at Imperial College at 33, one of the youngest ever, in recognition of his outstanding research.
Professor Toumazou is an advisor to many healthcare panels, including the Singapore Government in the field of medical devices. He is a senior Advisor to the Board of Grace Semiconductor in Taiwan, one of the largest Semiconductor Foundries in the World and Senior Advisor to Advanced Nanotech Inc. He is a member of the UK foresight committee on a report for infectious diseases as well as a member of the UK MOD Defence Strategic Advisory Committee on critical technologies. In order to realize the enormous potential of this technology, Toumazou led a campaign to raise £26 million in order to create an Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London focusing on Personalised Medicine and Bionanotechnology. This was achieved in 2003 and he became the founding Director of the new Institute.
As a result of this work, Toumazou was invited to deliver the 2003 Royal Society Clifford Patterson prize Lecture, entitled "The Bionic Man", for which he was awarded The Royal Society Clifford Patterson bronze medal. He was recently awarded the IEEE CAS Society Education Award for pioneering contributions to telecommunications and biomedical circuits and systems.
Mr Keith Errey, Chief Executive Officer
Keith Errey is the co-founder of Toumaz Technology Limited and an authority in the early stage commercial development of new technologies, particularly in the context of university spin-outs. Before Toumaz, he founded the technology transfer and management consultancy group, Oxford Synergetics Limited which since 1998 has been working with clients including Oxford Brookes University, Central London Business Link, several start-up companies and Oxtek Limited, the progenitor of Toumaz. Previously he was part of the founding team of Oxford Lasers Limited, an early spin-out from Oxford University having board responsibility initially for Engineering and subsequently for Sales and Marketing. He has worked in engineering positions at Telecom Australia (now Telstra) and the NSW Department of Mines. He holds a BSc from the University of NSW, an MSc in physics from Oxford University and for several years ran the Management for Engineers course at Oxford Brookes University.
Dr Alison Burdett, Director of Technology
Before joining the Company, Dr Burdett was a senior lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College. Her expertise is in the design of high frequency analogue and wireless integrated circuits. She has designed commercially successful silicon chips for Mitel (now Zarlink Semiconductor) and LSI Logic as well as collaborating on research projects with a number of semiconductor companies including Ericsson Microsystems, Philips Research Laboratories Redhill, Panasonic System LSI Design Europe (PSDE) and Nortel plc. Previous employment includes GEC-Plessey Semiconductors in the UK. Dr Burdett is the author or co-author of over 50 academic papers and articles and has extensive experience in provision of training courses in RF and Analogue IC design to industry. She is a Chartered Engineer, a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
Mr Richard McPartland, Product Group Manager (Marketing)
Richard McPartland joined Toumaz in 2004 to develop the sales and marketing strategy for the digital broadcasting tuner business for Toumaz. He is a co-founder of Tel Trak Ltd, a start up offering new low cost tracking and status messaging via SMS. Prior to forming Tel Trak, Richard was Deputy General Manager (Marketing & business development) at Sony Semiconductor & Devices Europe where he was responsible for Mobile Communication RF chipsets, growing sales to non-Sony customers to USD 25M in 2001. Before entering marketing in early 1991, Richard worked as an IC designer for ITT (Germany) and Plessey (UK). Richard is a Chartered Engineer, holds a 1st Class Honours EE degree from Southampton University, a Diploma in Management from Henley Management School and is a fluent German speaker.
Mr Paul Paddan, Design Group Manager
Paul Paddan joined Toumaz having worked as GPS RF Design Manager at ParthusCeva leading the development of the RF3000 chip and GPS modules. His past work includes several devices that have gone into production including streetlight sensor, gyroscope sensor, CCD video processor, GLONASS receiver, infra red multiplexers, water meter flow sensor and utility RF transceivers. Paul has over 25 years experience starting at Plessey Research as a Junior Scientist. He then co-founded a design house, WML, as Managing Director carrying out custom designs on CMOS, BiCMOS and SiGe processes and then moved to Thomson CSF and AMS. Paul has a BSc(Hons) in Electrical Engineering Science from the University of Warwick and is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers.
Nigel Smethers, Chief Financial Officer
Nigel has been with Toumaz since it was started and was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Toumaz in November 2000, following the first round of equity finance. Nigel is responsible for financial control, management and reporting. Prior to Toumaz, he ran an accountancy practice specialising in the portfolio provision of Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretarial services, primarily to small and medium sized businesses. His clients have included spin-out companies from both Imperial College and Brunel University. Nigel qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in 1979 having read economics at Cambridge University.
Other Staff
The Company has nurtured a very strong design team particularly in analogue/mixed signal/RF currently comprising 18 design engineers, 8 of whom have PhD's. Their skill sets cover ultra-low power weak inversion CMOS design, RF CMOS and BiCMOS design, mixed signal systems and digital hardware and software. We are now developing the customer facing team with applications, sales and marketing support.
