Marty is currently the Executive Director of the SETsquared Partnership, a long-standing enterprise collaboration between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton, and Surrey, which provides a world-leading ecosystem to support the creation and growth of startup and spinout companies developing ground-breaking technologies.
Marty led the Partnership’s work on engagement with government, investors, and industry, leveraging an understanding of shared institutional strengths to create opportunities to secure funding and drive greater impact.
His previous roles include Director of Engine Shed, Centre Director for the Future Space Innovation Centre, and Corporate Strategy Manager at Rolls-Royce.
In his new role, starting in March, Marty will provide leadership to innovation activities across the University ecosystem, supporting researchers, industry partners, and investors to collaborate on bringing pioneering new technologies, products, and services into the market to drive societal, economic, and environmental impact.
The University of Bristol has made significant impact through commercialising research in recent years, being named in the top 10 in Europe for value created by spinout companies and has growing recognition as a leader in social sciences spin outs. Marty will be building on capabilities like the University’s Business Accelerator SETsquared Bristol and partnership with Science Creates to help shape and grow the next generation of innovative businesses.
He will also be exploring opportunities for new partnerships with industry to accelerate research and development, particularly through the world-leading expertise and facilities in centres such as the Smart Internet Lab, Isambard-AI supercomputer, Quantum Technologies Innovation Centre, the National Composites Centre, and Bristol BioDesign Institute.
One of his key priorities will be leading on the development of the Bristol Innovations Zone (BIZ) at the University’s new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, which opens later this year. With flexible co-working and event spaces, specialist labs, and state-of-the-art equipment, BIZ offers start-ups, scale-ups, and corporations a gateway to in-depth interdisciplinary collaboration with expert researchers from all faculties of the University of Bristol – working on high-impact innovation to address critical business challenges.
Marty said: “It's a privilege to be joining the University of Bristol in this role at such an exciting time. Government, industry, and investment communities are all strongly aligned around the opportunity to realise the full potential of our world-leading university research and Bristol has all the elements to play a major role in this story.
“Our university has a depth of talent and leading innovation facilities in frontier technology areas which will grow the future economy and reshape our word, such as advanced connectivity, semiconductors, quantum technologies, AI, and engineering biology, but also some exciting emerging cohorts of social ventures.
“We have an outstanding track record of translating our work into real business impact, with growing investment in our spinout companies and many examples of flourishing innovation partnerships with global industry.
“Impact at this kind of scale only happens when a depth of brilliant innovative talent is backed by a strong support ecosystem built by dedicated and collaborative people over many years. I’m really looking forward to joining a great team and exploring where we can do even more to support our incredible talent and industry partners.
“As someone who calls Bristol home, I also personally feel our civic responsibility to ensure that we're supporting sustainable growth and jobs in our city, which means that the benefit of pushing all this incredible innovation out into the world is also being felt by the community that we're part of.”
Dr Sophie Collet, Executive Director, Research, Enterprise and Innovation at the University of Bristol said: “Marty brings a deep understanding of the innovation ecosystem and an established network of relationships with universities, government agencies, investors, and businesses across the technology sector.
"Marty is joining us at a really exciting time and we are delighted to welcome him to the team to support in the delivery of the University's strategic research, enterprise and innovation ambitions.
"It has been fantastic to see the impact the SETsquared Partnership has delivered. From driving forward the spinout investment vehicle to creating the Deal Readiness Toolkit, which is smoothing the path to commercialisation, and providing high-quality support to so many deep-tech companies, the Partnership has demonstrated real strength and ambition. We look forward to seeing the Partnership’s continued progress and the next phase of its development as it builds on this success."