Simon Devonshire OBE joined NPL as a Distinguished Visitor (Entrepreneur in Residence) in 2017 to bring his entrepreneurial approach and zeal to support NPL in creating even more impact from its excellence in science and engineering.
Simon is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and non-executive director. He was the Entrepreneur in Residence for the UK Government reporting to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and manages a portfolio of Non-Executive Directorships and Board Advisory roles.
Simon brings a mixture of commercial experience that combines both large scale corporate directorship and early stage dynamic start-ups. For five years he ran the business division of O2 UK a €1bn pa company. He co-founded and ran Wayra Europe, the business accelerator that belongs to Telefonica, building seven start-up accelerators in five countries and investing in 234 fast growth digital businesses. He helped create the social venture One Water, and helped scale-up Zopa.com the world's first on-line lending and borrowing exchange. Devonshire was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty the Queen for services to enterprise, enterprise promotion and humanitarian issues, in the 2016 New Year's Honours List.