Ron Petersen has been involved in the Boots Centre for Innovation since it’s inception. Ron has played an instrumental role in shaping the business model and has provided valuable advice on how to progress ideas received by the Centre.

In addition to his responsibilities with Boots Centre for Innovation, Ron is the CEO for CyDen and is also co-founder of Longbow Capital LLP, which is the venture capitalist partner of the Centre.

In his earlier career, Ron spent over 20 years with Armstrong World Industries, managing global businesses. In 1992, Ron began to specialise in turning underperforming, or early stage companies, into profitable and valued concerns. Ron has also been directly involved in the founding of a number of ‘high-tech’ companies, particularly in the nanotechnology field.

Louise joined the Boots Centre for Innovation in October 2007 as Marketing Manager.

Louise has a long history in marketing and has worked at T-Mobile, Wanadoo & Orange in all areas of the marketing mix including product development, brand marketing and customer relationship marketing.

Louise has a BA Hons in Business Studies with Marketing from University of Hertfordshire.

Louise’s role is to market the Centre by driving awareness through online and off line channels, exhibiting at key trade shows, events & conferences, and by building credible PR coverage.

Helen has been with Boots Centre for Innovation since its creation in April 2007.

Helen has worked at Boots for nine years and has vast experience in Supply Chain, Planning and Project Management. Helen was previously responsible for the supply of Nurofen and Strepsils worldwide and more recently, worked as a Project Manager for the manufacturing site in Germany involved in the delivery of numerous cosmetic and Christmas gift lines, including the relaunch of No7, 17 and Natural Collection cosmetic ranges.

Helen has a BA Hons in French from The University of Hull and is also fluent in German. Helen is currently studying for a PhD in Open Innovation.

Helen’s role as Business Development Manager is to assess the feasibility of products or ideas that are brought to the Centre and to identify the next steps to progress the product or idea to ensure commercial success.

Gail joined the Boots Centre for Innovation in November 2007.

Gail has a long history in retailing including over 18 years at Boots. She has gained a wealth of experience in product development, buying and brand management within UK and sourcing and production experience gained from 7 years based in Hong Kong. Gail’s experience includes working on own brand cosmetics, baby and Christmas product areas.

Gail studied Business Studies and Fashion Design at Northumbria University.

Gail’s role as Business Development Manager is to assess the feasibility of products or ideas that are brought to the Centre and to identify the next steps to progress the product or idea to ensure commercial success.

Gail has worked at Boots since 1997 and in October 2007 joined the Boots Centre for Innovation. Gail started her career in Boots on the Business Management graduate programme and has worked in a variety of roles providing her with a thorough understanding of the business.

Gail joined the Boots Centre for Innovation team in October 2007 as a project manager. Gail has vast experience as a project manager within Boots and was responsible for the seasonal gift new product development programme with over 2000 lines brought to launch each year.

Gail has a BSc in Industrial Design from Loughborough University of Technology.

Gail's role as Business Development Manager is to assess the feasibility of products or ideas that are brought to the Centre and to identify the next steps to progress the product or idea to ensure commercial success.

James has a degree in Microbiology from Liverpool University and a PhD in Biochemistry from Manchester University. James has worked for a number of university spin out companies specialising in the healthcare field. James also studied Intellectual Property law to help him in his career and to build further value into the group of high technology companies that he worked for.

James' role as Scientific Advisor is to work closely with the Business Development Managers offering scientific expertise to help evaluate ideas and develop exciting products for the market place. James will also work closely with Alliance Boots, academia and industry to leverage technologies and identify new product opportunities.

Ryan joined the Boots Centre for Innovation in November 2007.

Ryan has a bio-chemistry background acquired from working in the laboratories of Alberto Culver Plc and for Shield Medicare Limited. For the last 4 years Ryan worked for a small company, Shield Automotive Limited involved in every aspect of the business, focusing on product development and supply chain.

Ryan has a degree in BioTechnology from the University of Glamorgan and has recently acquired a Foundation Degree in Management & Business.

Ryan’s role as Scientific Advisor is to work closely with the Business Development Managers offering scientific expertise to help evaluate ideas and develop exciting products for the market place. Ryan will also work with Alliance Boots, academia and industry to leverage technologies and identify new product opportunities.

Yvonne joined Boots Centre for Innovation in April 2007 as the Office Manager.

Yvonne began her career as a secretary and accountancy clerk. In her next position as a legal PA at a solicitor practice in Oxford, she was promoted to departmental administrator where she managed a team of 15 people and was responsible for holiday, sickness, IT support and other departmental duties.

Yvonne’s role as Office Manager is to ensure the smooth day to day running of the Boots Centre for Innovation including client database management, budget management and management of 3rd parties such as IT support. In the majority of cases, Yvonne will be the first point of contact for companies approaching the Boots Centre for Innovation.

Gary joined Boots in 2008, working within the Technical Centre in Nottingham.

In his role as Open Innovation Support Manager, Gary is responsible for developing and managing Boots' long-term research partnerships with academia and suppliers and fostering the creation of new partnerships to support key business areas of Health & Beauty. Gary has also been responsible for developing processes that will further support Boots Open Innovation strategy, providing a gateway through which organisations can submit their ideas, concepts, technologies and products for evaluation.

Prior to joining Boots, Gary was employed as an Innovation Practitioner at Pera Innovation where his primary role was to stimulate innovation and access public funding support to provide new scientific knowledge and cutting edge technologies to a broad cross section of UK industry. Other companies that Gary has worked for have included QinetiQ Ltd and Smithers Rapra.

Gary graduated in 1993 with a degree in Chemistry and went on to gain both a Masters degree in Polymer Science at Lancaster University and a PhD from Loughborough University.

After graduating in Chemistry in 1977 Ed joined Holt Lloyd International as a Development Chemist. The role included all aspects of product development including chemical analysis of competitor products, QC, factory support, and sales support.

In 1982 Ed joined the Boots Company PLC initially in toiletries development, then from 1983 to 1999 Ed ran the Blue Sky Development team developing base science for Boots the Chemists health and beauty brands such as No7, Soltan. The team developed technologies internally and carried out joint research both with raw material suppliers and with academic groups around the UK. This resulted in an extensive portfolio of patents, publications and presentations.

In 1999 Ed took the position of Scientific Adviser within the Boots Company PLC acting as an internal consultant providing advice and insights to R&D and marketing teams on all aspects formulation science.

Today Ed is responsible for Boots external research programme, which involves developing, and managing long-term research partnerships with academia and suppliers. Ed has successfully managed partnership projects that have generated new businesses for our partners and delivered innovative materials for Boots. His role now encompasses Open Innovation.