A PhD chemist by background, Rowena has 28 years of senior management experience in the chemical industry, having held responsibility for R&D, manufacturing, sales and marketing, and general management in ICI and Lucite International. This culminated in responsibility for Lucite’s €120M turnover EMEA Materials businesses with leading brands Perspex®, Lucite® and Diakon®. She led technical and IP functions through transition from ICI to private ownership and then played a key role in commercial integration of global materials businesses following acquisition by a Japanese multi-national. As the first CEO of Econic, her role is to lead the delivery of the complete suite of critical success factors required to achieve Econic’s strategic business objectives and secure the anticipated value returns. Since her arrival in 2014, the IP portfolio of the company and the team have trebled in size. In 2017 Rowena relocated the business from Imperial College’s London incubator to Alderley Park in Cheshire. A £2M Horizon 2020 SME award helped build the pilot scale Customer Demonstration Facility that opened in 2018.