Press release: Ploughshare announces two new board members

The Ploughshare board is pleased to welcome two new members, Professor Penny Endersby and Dr Cerys Rees OBE.

Piers White, Chairman of Ploughshare Innovations, said:

We have worked hard to ensure we have the right balance of skills, experience and backgrounds to match the ambitions of the company. Penny and Cerys bring considerable energy and experience and I am sure their contributions will help us refine and deliver our strategy.

Professor Endersby is currently the Division Head of Cyber and Information Systems Division at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), where she has significantly developed the Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio. Penny has a well-established career in the defence industry, starting in the field of armour and explosives before broadening to run Dstl’s Physical Sciences Department. She has a degree in physics from Cambridge University, holds a visiting professorship in Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton University, and is a fellow and former council member of the Institute of Physics. She is also the Honorary Treasurer of Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.

Professor Endersby commented:

I am delighted to have the opportunity to serve as a Non-executive Director for Ploughshare. Having followed the fortunes of the company from its inception and worked for many years to encourage the generation of the IP, it will be fascinating to see the details of how it is taken forward. I look forward to a productive relationship and hearing about many more fascinating technological innovations.

Dr Rees is the Dstl Fellow for Chemical and Biological (CB) Analysis and Attribution with responsibility for the delivery of Dstl’s research and operational capability in this area to meet the requirements of defence and security stakeholders in the UK. She first worked at Porton Down as a university placement student in the early 1990s, and returned to Dstl in 1999 having completed a PhD to undertake research in microbial hazard assessment and the development of novel medical countermeasures before moving on to develop the CB analysis capability. Cerys is a Dstl Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Senior Scientific Adviser, trained to provide CB tactical and strategic level advice to UK police and military in support of operations; to date, she has supported prosecutions with expert witness testimony under both the Chemical and Biological Weapons Acts in the UK.

Dr Rees commented:

It is a privilege to have been selected to join the Ploughshare board as a Non-executive Director. Having worked in both fundamental research and in the exploitation of new technologies for many years, I’m excited at the prospect of being able to contribute to the full exploitation of the ground-breaking research which is conducted in government.

Professor Endersby and Dr Rees fill the vacancies left by Jenni Henderson and Dame Wendy Hall.