Executive Team
DR MARTIN STILLMAN-JONES, GROUP CHAIRMAN
MBA, MSC CEng
As Chairman, Martin empowers SMI’s talented global team, who’ve delivered 10 times growth over the past five years. A Chartered Engineer with a PhD in strategy, Martin has previously founded/acquired then exited over 50 enterprises. He worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers management consultancy division and Procter & Gamble; and as Worldwide Head of Marketing at Diageo he held Board responsibility for brands including; Smirnoff, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Bombay Sapphire, Gordons and others, collectively generating £12Bn in revenues.
JENNY SHAW, CEO
BSc Hones, FCIM, MIET, CEng
Jenny focuses on the long-term commercial needs of the business and entrepreneurial opportunities for growth, enabling us to deliver the 10-year growth plan. Jenny’s proven background with P&L responsibility in both public and private sectors, and her engineering background ideally place her to exploit market opportunities whist maintaining profitability. Highly respected and with outstanding leadership skills, Jenny’s passion is valued in both defence and renewable energy sectors and her expertise is drawn on by stakeholders ranging from the Ministry of Defence, Department for International Trade, industry bodies, clients and supply chain. Jenny has reshaped the nature of our client relationships into collaborative partnerships referenced as exemplars by the major defence players. Managing a global team of business development and marketing professionals, Jenny is ensuring that customers seeking lifetime reliability for their critical systems routinely turn to SMI.
GLEN RICHARDSON, ENGINEERING DIRECTOR
MIET
Glen has more than 25 years’ experience in thermoplastic moulding, building theory and practice from shop floor expertise to bring a synergy of design concept, engineering principles and manufacturing practice to bear into the fit and forget ideology of the company.
Highly respected in the industry, with an impressive track record for bringing innovative products to market, Glen is using his expertise and vision to steward critical technology developments in both marine and aerospace sectors. He is a subject matter expert for naval defence cable infrastructure providing many pioneering solutions for future platforms above and below the waterline.
A commercially astute professional, Glen communicates comfortably with academics, engineering specialists and non-technical stakeholders alike and regularly leads customer discussions in support of projects.
Glen heads a team comprising both design engineers and manufacturing engineers, ensuring synergies are leveraged to deliver repeatable and efficient designs into the production team. Glen is also providing strategic direction for migrating SMI’s manufacturing technologies into Canada and Australia.
CATHERINE JENNINGS, PEOPLE & CULTURE DIRECTOR
BA Hons, Chartered MCIPD, Prosci Change Practitioner, BPS Level A&B
Catherine is a driven and enthusiastic HR Director with over 25 years’ experience leading HR functions for a wide range of businesses encompassing SMEs and large complex matrixed organisations. Her experience includes talent acquisition, learning and development, coaching, engagement, compensation and benefits, HR information systems (HRIS) and financial planning of the department, delivering change initiatives and major projects. Catherine formulates personnel systems and culture strategies appropriate to the SMI’s mission and vision, providing strategic counsel on all people matters. She is also providing oversight and direction for diversity & inclusion and our ongoing commitment to the Women in Defence Charter.
A Chartered professional with a developed network of peers, Catherine ensures that SMI’s People practices are current and industry leading. She has conducted benchmarking activity to ensure that SMI is an employer of choice and provides a top-class employment environment.
As Head of Sustainability for the SMI, Catherine also champions environmental improvement policies.
CARL EVANS, MANUFACTURING & SUPPLY DIRECTOR
Carl leads, directs and monitors our operational teams with strong cross-functional leadership, including Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Compliance functions. He supervises manufacturing planning, scheduling, quality & security adherence, processing, materials management, testing and process control, purchasing and warehouse teams.
Executing the business strategies, Carl develops practices to constantly improve production capability, efficiency, quality and customer service goal; applying modern manufacturing practices and introducing automation where possible to successfully complete and smoothly integrate existing production stream.
Recruiting, and upskilling a fully engaged and talented workforce, Carl also drives performance management and succession planning in manufacturing.
Carl and his team also liaise closely with Engineering to ensure the smooth introduction of new products from R&D.
IOSH trained, Carl delivers strict Health and Safety Compliance in a complex manufacturing environment.
NICHOLAS ABBOTT, FINANCE DIRECTOR
FCCA
As Finance Director, Nicholas’s role combines operational and strategic responsibilities. Managing the accounting and financial control functions, he devises and delivers a financial strategy for the profitable long-term growth of the business.
Nicholas’s sharp commercial understanding of the SMI business and his versatility to meet a continually changing set of circumstances are invaluable. Nick manages the company’s liquidity, ensuring that it always has access to cash and sources of credit.
He has excellent analytic and financial management skills, with the ability to communicate complex financial information to both finance professionals and non-specialists. Working with Department Heads to set budgets and monitor income and expenditures, Nick prepares monthly and annual accounts for the leadership team. His responsibility for financial compliance sees Nick enforce policies to minimize risk and ensure that the company reports its financial position accurately.
Nick also oversees the IT function delivering high quality secure systems to the business.