What do you do?

I’m a Cooper Parry Innovation Manager, providing specialist advise to help innovative businesses to gain access to incentives that support future growth and development.  I work with clients of all sizes, both SME and large, across multiple industry sectors, to ensure that eligible companies submit a robust claim for the maximum R&D Tax Credit relief to which they are entitled to.

Why do you do it?

Having managed large-scale events in the international sports arena, corporate world and other sectors, including Chelsea Flower Show, Wimbledon Tennis, Manchester Commonwealth Games and the British Open Golf in the first half of my working career, after having twins 14 years ago, I must admit I did fall into R&D.  However, bizarrely the two worlds had commonalities – heavy on the financial side (and I love a spreadsheet!), client management & building relationships, as well as the essential ability to juggle multiple balls at once.  So the world of R&D was one I soon found that I enjoyed and found highly rewarding.

What kind of projects have you been involved in?

Having worked across multiple industry sectors and with clients of all sizes, both SME and large, I have always enjoyed meeting clients, especially in their working environment.  This has enabled me to understand the real mechanics of what they do and how they do it.  I have worked with a client in the world of rocket propulsion, developing and testing dynamic systems and combustion chambers for UK and European Space Agencies. I have worked with a chemist, undertaking research and development into new protein technologies and chemical formulations in the world of sustainably sympathetic hair products and dyes.  I have worked with a diversified forestry company working closely with the Scottish Forestry commission to develop innovative control techniques and processes for eradicating foreign plant species in such a unique and challenging ecosystem in the Highlands.

R&D claims can be found in a multitude of industry sectors, and that makes my job so fascinating to explore such diverse fields of science and technology.

What’s on top of your bucket list?

I love travelling and experiencing cultures, languages, wildlife and food from unique spaces around the world.  In my younger days I trekked for Gorillas in Bwindi National Park in Southern Uganda close to the Rwanda border; white water rafted on the exhilarating Class 5 rapids on the Nile; explored and camped in the beautiful Amazon jungle in Ecuador; Island-hopped on the incredible Galapagos islands; and took a 6-month work sabbatical travelling round Canada and North America in a campervan RV.  So what is next on my list?  This year I am hiking and island hopping in Hong Kong, visiting my sister, with a stop-off in Beijing on the way back to take a walk on the Great Wall of China. Can’t wait!