Our Innovative Team

Simon is an enthusiastic entrepreneur with a keen eye for great ideas who didn’t have to blink twice when learning of Ted and his team’s aspirations in bionic technology. He is the overall arbiter at COVVI and is responsible for getting our name out into the big wide world. With decades of business know-how under his belt, Simon is our corporate whizz at resource and operations management.

A Leeds-born and bred businessman, Simon has spent two decades building a highly successful commercial portfolio. Living and breathing business strategy, and with a true passion for valuing customers, he places both these elements as a central ethos in his entrepreneurial endeavors. His mission to develop leading brands is driven by a tenacity to achieve and build upon previous successes – the companies he currently oversees covers a diverse range of industries. A proud moment for Simon came in 2015 when he was chosen by The Insider as a ‘one to watch’ in their annual 42 under 42 list – a program that recognizes Yorkshire’s most dynamic and inspirational entrepreneurs, celebrating their success in helping to grow the regional economy.

Jane is qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG at their Bradford office in 1991. After that she embarked on an exciting career that has taken her from chemical distribution to insurance broking, pharmaceutical manufacturing to crane logistics, and Yorkshire to Australia. Her roles have included FTSE 100 companies, owner-managed and private equity-backed businesses as both Financial Controller and Finance Director.

This rich variety of experience has been great preparation for joining Simon’s team and leading finance for his portfolio of companies at a very exciting time. As CFO Jane’s role covers all aspects of finance, accounting, compliance and risk management. She has a great finance team supporting her and together live by a continuous improvement ethos in everything they do.

Ted is the design lead for the company and so oversees the plans behind COVVI products and their components, in addition to operational side of things, but does a fair bit of designing and tinkering himself. As the instigator of COVVI as a business, Ted ensured he found the right people to work in the right location and equipped with the right tools – all informed by his exemplary understanding coming from over 15 years of product development industry experience.

Over the course of his professional life, Ted has had a varied career, from Siberian drive surveys for Nissan, developing body and trim component for the MGSV, or doing the electro mechanical design for the steering column for the Mclaren MP4-12C. In 2009 he joined Steeper Group Ltd. and led the development of the award-winning bebionic hand. In addition, he became a member of the operational board, leading design, production, logistics, procurement, and quality for the Prosthetics Division.

As a member of the CIPD and over 15 years experience in Human Resources in industries ranging from financial services to consultancy in both the United Kingdom and the Middle East Lisa brings her wealth of knowledge of all things HR and Payroll and her passion for HR best practice to the Group to support management in developing and implementing a robust HR framework.

Working with the Covvi team Lisa is committed to recruiting and retaining the best in the bionic prosthetic industry to support COVVI’s continued growth and is excited to be part of the team.

As Group HR and Payroll Manager her role covers all aspects of HR and Payroll including recruitment and onboarding, employee engagement, compliance, learning and development, employee relations, change management and much more.

Martin is the mechanical engineering helmsman at COVVI and works to keep the other mechanical engineers all moving in a unified direction. He can often be found assembling 3D printed models of components designed by the team and making informed decisions about what needs to be altered before commissioning prototype manufacture. Martin brings a true appreciation for engineering into his leadership, demonstrating the art of being smart with materials within size, weight and cost restrictions.

Martin has more than ten years of experience in prosthetics, acute healthcare products, and space satellite technology. In 2006, he attained a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds, and later earned chartered status at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. Martin began his career in the space industry, working for EADS Astrium in various areas, and then moved into the healthcare sector in 2011 to develop intelligent patient beds for Sidhil Ltd.

In 2014, he became involved in prosthetics and went on to lead the mechanical design of the bebionic Small hand which was launched the following year to critical and commercial acclaim, being awarded New Mechanical Product of the Year in the British Engineering Excellence Awards. Martin was also a finalist that year for Design Engineer of the Year. He joined COVVI in 2017 for a chance to further develop the possibilities of bionic technologies.

I graduated with a 1st Class Honours degree in International Business Management, I speak fluent Spanish with academic exchanges in both Spain and Mexico. After graduating I decided to return to Mexico City in order to take up the opportunity of working as a Senior Buyer for Mexico’s leading department store chain with over 125 stores nationwide. The role allowed me to work with people from many different countries and develop organisational and interpersonal skills at a senior level.

Having returned to the UK, I am extremely excited to be part of the COVVI team working with distributors across Europe to deliver our world-class hand to as many people as possible.

In addition to designing components and supporting his fellow mechanical engineers, Simon is concerned in making sure all parts and assembly methods comply with health and safety standards, taking our international client base into consideration. This involves a whole lot of research and dynamism, as product recalls and new technological advances occur at a rapid rate. However, COVVI is determined to keep its titanium fingers on the pulse and so Simon’s contribution allows us to feel confident that user safety and comfort takes precedence alongside material and technology innovation.

Simon has a decades-worth of post-graduate experience working in a variety of engineering disciplines, including projects for Jaguar and Land Rover, HVAC-design temperature control units for Vodafone and the London Data Exchange, and designing intelligent mechatronic systems that tackle gas supply issues within the Energy sector. He obtained his master’s degree in Medical Engineering in 2008 and went on to study a PhD in prosthetics in 2012. From then, in 2016 he achieved chartered status from IMechE then and went on to become a member of the External Advisory Board for the University of Sheffield’s Bioengineering department. He has worked in bionics since 2014, after becoming a member of the design team that launched bebionic Small.

Rob works alongside his mechanical engineers in figuring how components will fit together within a compact design. Coming from a science background, he is very much the meticulous inquisitor of the team and holds great value in precision and favors refining simplicity from initial complex and elaborate component plans. Joining the team at a similar time to his colleagues, Rob has benefited from COVVI starting from the ground-up as this has allowed him to implement processes that tests components at every stage of their development.

Rob started his career in more traditional heavy-engineering roles, but an interest in modeling and simulation led to further study and employment with AEA Technology where he developed fluid dynamics software. He was subsequently offered a research position at the University of Bradford, modeling the flow of polymers within the extrusion process. After completing his PhD, Rob conducted further research into material characterization and optimization which drew him away from simulation, and into a more hands-on engineering role. His continued interest in process imagining combined with commercial projects in developing medical devices, requiring novel injection molding toolsets, steered him towards a design-based position. Now a Research Fellow, and with 20 years of industry experience, Rob moved away from academia and joined began working on prosthetics in 2014 where he can apply his background in materials, testing and design to a worthwhile product.

Chris is a mechanical engineer with a passion for concept development and bringing new ideas to fruition. He can be found sketching ideas on scraps of paper and then working through the maths to ensure things all work correctly. With a background in high performance actuation design and project management, Chris uses his experience to choose when to try something untested and when to utilize proven methods to get the project completed on time.

Chris graduated from the University of Warwick in 2011 with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, and later became a chartered engineer and a member of the IMechE. Chris started his career with Reliance Precision Ltd which provided a wealth of experience across many sectors. During this time, he was responsible for developing new products for the life-science, scientific and aerospace sectors; running a research project to develop a new alloy for the aerospace sector and leading the development of the mechanical systems of an electron-beam 3D printer. Chris was a finalist for the Design Engineer of the Year Award in 2016. He joined COVVI in 2019 for a chance to work in a new environment and further hone his creative development skills and experience with exciting new products.

Zayd is a mechanical design engineer alongside Martin, Simon and Rob, and as part of his role produces drawings that describe component parts accurately in their size and material for the benefit of COVVI suppliers. His creative skills have proven an invaluable contribution when presented with the challenges of ensuring parts assemble in a way that is cohesive with overall product design.

In 2017, Zayd graduated from the University of Liverpool with an MEng in Mechanical Engineering, and has a keen interest in innovative product development, embracing challenge and change. A self-described creative individual who loves to learn with a proactive attitude, Zayd has a passion for design which grew in school from attending workshops in design and technology. University taught him various aspects of engineering which developed a technical understanding that supported his creative ideas – he is eager to enhance his skills and strengths amongst a team of experts in the field of prosthetic design.

With the freedom to be creative and flexible at COVVI, along with his ‘make things work’ attitude Paul is a valuable asset to the electrical engineering team. He designs circuit boards and firmware alongside his colleagues, which brings to life the motor control of the fingers along with various background functions. Paul sees the team at COVVI being uniquely positioned to be highly responsive to patients, and personally endeavors to listen to user feedback and experience, constantly adapting and developing according to their needs.

Paul is an engineer with more than two decades of electronics-industry experience within the biomedical, instrumentation and surveillance sectors, he has designed electronic circuits and writing firmware for quadrupole mass spectrometers, thermal imaging cameras and infrastructure CCTV systems. He was also instrumental in designing the surveillance system used by Network Rail to monitor unmanned crossings. Paul, who considers himself to be creative with a strong practical approach to design, development and testing, first established a position within the prosthetics industry in 2014 to work on the bebionic hand, and other assistive technology products.

David is one of our electrical whizzes at COVVI and so spends a lot of his time designing circuit boards, coding firmware (microprocessor-level software), and developing electrical accessories that enables COVVI products to be compatible with smartphones, tablets and their corresponding software. He has been instrumental in developing top-tier electrical components that improves upon the limited functionality of prosthetic predecessors and applying updatable, multi-purpose technology that invests in our product’s future.

David is an experienced engineer with over ten years’ experience, having graduated in 2003 from studying Electronic Engineering at the University of Bradford. He has worked with companies of various sizes on a variety of unique products, from iPod accessories, image scalers, tensile testers, electronic looms, vibration white finger monitoring equipment, and most recently upper-limb prosthetics for the medical sector.

David believes completing the full life-cycle of development has been both challenging and rewarding, having not envisioned working with the healthcare industry on such ground-breaking products – looking back on his career he feels privileged to have experienced working with such technological variety, and is certain the best is yet to come as COVVI now looks to the future.

Wayne has worked in IT industry for the last 26 years, 10 of those years have been working with us as Group IT Manager, reporting into the CEO and managing the IT function across five group companies.

Working as part of the Group has provided Wayne with a number of exciting challenges in what is a fast-moving environment which operates a dynamic portfolio of businesses which include telecoms, Nursery, Hotel and Prosthetics, all of which are extremely varied. In turn the last 10 years has helped Wayne further develop and demonstrate his skillset across multiple platforms. Wayne has seen it as a real privilege to work with such a dedicated team of friendly people who all aspire drive growth and service our customers across the portfolio.

In his spare time, Wayne has spent the last 13 years being heavily involved in coaching junior football, achieving a Level 1 FA Coaching award. He spends a lot of his spare time following his two sons in their sporting activities. Wayne’s youngest son plays for the junior team he currently coaches, with his eldest achieving many accolades throughout his athletics career; and hopes to go on to compete for the Irish National Team in the future.

John has joined COVVI with the task of bringing the COVVI hand to production in a calm and controlled fashion, drawing on his experience in high precision manufacturing in the Medical Device and Biotech industries. He has previously worked for York Instruments, leading a team on the pre-production build of a Neuro-imaging device based on a technique known as Magnetoencephalography (MEG) – mapping the magnetic signals generated by activity in the brain. John spent a lot of time developing production build methods to allow for speed, quality and efficiency, and played a pivotal role in delivering an electronics upgrade to an existing MEG machine based at the University of York’s neuro-imaging centre. This upgrade allows them to take at least 20x more brain data per second than before.

Prior to that, John worked for a company producing cutting edge Biotechnology that measured thermal stability of proteins for early stage drug research. It was in this role he learned most about production controls before a promotion to Production Manager. After the product was sold to a US company, John facilitated the transfer of the Production department and delivered training to production staff and service engineers alike – the product now sits in the Unchained Labs portfolio as the upgraded version ‘Uncle’.

He obtained a Batchelor’s Degree in Physics from the University of York in 2008 and acquired a Level 3 Diploma in Manufacturing and Production in 2017.

John prides himself on high quality, efficient, reproducible Production and having worked in ISO 13485 accredited environments, you can be assured he won’t rest until the COVVI hand is perfect.

Christine has come to COVVI for a new challenge in helping create and build our most innovative products.

Christine brings a wealth of shop floor experience and knowledge of the industry, having spent the last 28 years in the artificial limb industry. She initially trained as an electronics technician acquiring various qualifications in this field. She then progressed to other roles, from programming personalised aids for the disabled to specialist footwear prosthetics. For the last 10 years Christine has worked solely on the bionic hands. She really is ‘hands on’, building the hands from scratch with quality precision.

She has remained in this industry because she ‘believes’…especially in products that have the ability to change peoples lives!