Crescent Capital - Venture Capitalists in Belfast Northern Ireland

The Crescent Board of Advisors – 6th June ‘08

John Anderson

Professor John Anderson joined the University of Ulster as Reader in Electronics in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 1981. He had spent the previous fourteen years as Head of the Electronics Laboratories for the Regional Cardiology Centre at the Royal Victoria Hospital. In 1986 he was appointed Director of NIBEC. In 1994 he became Head of the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. He has published over 300 papers in the field of Bioengineering and has presented at over 40 different conferences. During recent years he has received research grants in excess of £12 million and holds some 20 patents in the field of Bioengineering Research. Professor Anderson supervises both PhD and MD students mainly focused in the area of cardiovascular research.

Professor Anderson is on the editorial board of Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry in the USA and Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry Europe. Also in the USA he sits on two committees for the Association of the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) for the development of US medical standards. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics in Engineering and Medicine (FIPEM) and in 2000 was elected as an Associate of the Royal College of Physicians (ARCP). Recently Professor Anderson was awarded a Distinguished Business Fellowship of the University of Ulster and at the same time received a UK Business Fellowship, one of 12 in the UK supported by the DTI.

Professor Anderson has been closely associated with University Technology Transfer and creation of Spinout companies. He is presently a consultant for Meridian Medical (Technology Transfer in the field of Body surface Mapping). He is Chief Technology Officer for Heartsine Inc. (A US company with it R&D and manufacturing in Northern Ireland in the area of portable defibrillators). He is also Chairman of ST&D (A University Spinout Company in the area of medical sensors).

Alison Rankin

Alison Rankin, a Chartered Accountant by profession, was appointed Interim CEO of UUTech Ltd in October 2006, having served on the board for two years. Substantively, she is employed as Deputy Director of Finance of the University of Ulster, monitoring and controlling the University’s financial operations and financial strategy. Previously, Rankin spent 10 years in the private sector, laterally, as a Group Financial Controller within the CRH group, during a period of significant growth and acquisition. Rankin serves on several Board of Directors, and specialises in strategic financial management and development.

Bryan Keating

Bryan Keating has been a company director for over 25 years. He is currently a director of 3 private and one AIM list company and a number of public sector organisations. In total over the last 15 years he has been chairman or a non –executive Director of seven high tech companies and six public companies, (QUBIS, University Challenge Fund Investment Committee, Investment Belfast, halo the NI Business Angel Network, Momentum and NICENT, the NI Centre for Entrepreneurship). As an Angel Investor he has extensive experience of both Corporate and Venture Capital issues. He is a visiting professor at the University of Ulster. Dr Keating received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion 2006.

Helen Kirkpatrick

Helen is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Helen is a non-executive director of Kingspan Group plc and of UTV Media plc. She works in the Corporate Finance division of Invest Northern Ireland.

Helen is also a non-executive director of CAUSE Limited and Chairperson of Crumlin Together Limited. She was formerly a board member of the International Fund for Ireland, a director of the Enterprise Equity Venture Capital Group and a non-executive director of NI-CO (Northern Ireland Public Sector Enterprises Ltd).

James O’Kane

Mr. James O’Kane is currently Registrar and Chief Operating Officer of the Queen’s University of Belfast. He joined the University in 1994 as Director of Finance and took up his current position in 1999.

Prior to this he had periods of employment with the Northern Ireland Staffs Council for the Health and Social Services and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. He was appointed Deputy Director of Finance at the University of Ulster in 1984 and became the North-Eastern Education and Library Board’s Director of Finance in 1992.

An advocate of technology and knowledge transfer he is a Director of a number of companies including QUBIS Ltd., QUHARS Ltd., NI Challenge Fund Ltd and NISP (Holdings) Ltd. He is also currently a Director of the Royal Group of Hospitals Trust and formerly the Chairman of the Belfast Metropolitan College, the largest provider of tertiary education in Northern Ireland.

He is an honours graduate in Accounting and a qualified chartered accountant.

John Galbraith

John is a qualified Accountant (CPFA) and qualified Chartered Secretary (ACIS) now retired. After some eight years as Vice-Chairman of Local Authorities Mutual Investment Trust (United Kingdom), John was recently appointed Chairman. Appointed Chairman of the Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee (NILGOSC) for the past eight years and recently reappointed by the Minister for the Environment of the Northern Ireland Assembly. John is on the supervisory Board of a number of small venture capital companies and was recently appointed by the Secretary of State for Health as a member of the National Health Service Pay Review Body.