Dr Drew Nelson, OBE
Chairman, All Party Parliamentary Group on Semiconductors Advisory Board
Dr Nelson was educated at the University of Sheffield, where he obtained an Honours Degree (1st Class) in Electronic Engineering and subsequently a PhD in Semiconductor Technology.
From 1981 to 1988 he worked at British Telecom Research Labs, leading a group which pioneered the technology of high speed semiconductor lasers for fibre optic communications, now the fundamental backbone of the entire Internet.
In 1988 Dr Nelson co-founded IQE and held the role of Chief Executive Officer from 1996-2021. He led a management buy-out in 1996 and listed IQE on the LSE in 2000, growing the to become the world’s leading supplier of compound semiconductor wafers, with a global manufacturing presence in Europe, North America and Asia and revenues of over $200m. He has raised over £250m in growth capital and led IQE to become the UK’s first hard tech Unicorn in July 2017.
Dr Nelson has been actively involved in many Government and Industry Advisory Groups, has published over 130 papers and articles, made over 200 conference presentations and is the author of several patents. From 2000-2005, Dr Nelson served as Board Member of WDA, and was the Founder Chairman of the Welsh Electronics Forum, now Technology Connected. He also served as the UK representative of the European High Level Group for Key Enabling Technologies (HLG-KET) which determined the policy for what is now the EU CHIPS Act.
In 2015, Dr Nelson led the creation of CS Connected, the world’s first Compound Semiconductor Cluster in South Wales, which now employs over 2500 highly skilled engineers. As part of building the CS Cluster, he also led the rescue of Newport Wafer Fab from closure in 2017, saving over 500 jobs directly. In recognition of his achievements, Dr Nelson has received multiple awards including the OBE for services to the Electronics Industry in the Queen’s Birthday Honours (2001), Silver Medal from Royal Academy of Engineering (2006), Lifetime achievement awards from UK Semiconductor Industry (2007), European Electronics Industry (2013), the Katherine Burr Blodgett Gold Medal from the Institute of Physics (2019), and the Menelaus Medal (2020) from the Learned Society of Wales.
Dr Nelson is currently Chairman of the Advisory Board for the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Semiconductors and is an active Angel Investor in several UK deeptech early stage companies.
Sessions
Panel – Navigating the UK's semiconductor future in an uncertain global market
Wednesday @ 2:50 PM