Ex-CDT chief embraces solar

Sara Ver-Bruggen - 05 Oct 2010

David Fyfe, who was chairman and CEO of Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) until March of this year, has joined the board of Konarka.

Fyfe joins the technology firm's board as independent director. The chemical industry veteran, who took the helm of CDT in 2002, will advise Konarka as the Massachusetts-headquartered developer of organic solar cells gears up to commercialise its technology.

During his tenure at CDT, which was founded as a Cambridge University spin-out in 1992, Fyfe led the company's floatation on the NASDAQ exchange in 2004, the setting up of a joint venture - Sumation - with Japanese chemical company Sumitomo in 2005 and the company's eventual acquisition by Sumitomo in 2007.

Directorship

Currently, Fyfe is a non-executive director at a developer of new fuel cell technology and a construction chemical company. He is a member of Soligie's advisory board and sits on the board of directors of the Organic Electronics Association in Germany. Fyfe has also served as a consultant to several venture funded companies.

In other board changes at Konarka, Alan Heeger, chief scientist and co-founder of Konarka, is scaling back his involvement at the company.

At CDT Jim Veninger, the company's general manager, runs day-to-day UK operations, where the company has offices and labs near to Cambridge University. CDT's core activity is the development and supply of polymer OLED chemistry for display and lighting applications. In lighting CDT's IP is being developed for commercial applications by Thorn Lighting and other partners, including Durham University, with the support of government funding. Display activity is led by Sumitomo in Japan.

Earlier this year, Eric Mayes, who joined CDT as its commercial product manager in 2006, left the company to join a nanotechnology start-up that is commercialising technology in the healthcare industry.

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