Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), the investment company established by University of Oxford, was already an impressive beast long before Alexis Dormandy took over its leadership. Having raised £613m ($845m) from a diverse set of global investors, OSE has helped build more than 100 spinouts, playing a substantial role in the foundation of more than 60 of these. So far, it has invested £360m into its portfolio.
In large part, this is thanks to the foundational work laid by Dave Norwood, the university and the capable hands of chief financial officer Jim Wilkinson, who served as interim chief executive between the departure of Charles Conn and the arrival of Alexis Dormandy in January 2021.
Dormandy’s career to date could not be more impressive if he tried: having originally trained as a medical doctor, he moved to consultancy McKinsey in 1993 and joined diversified holding group Virgin in 1995. At Virgin, he launched several new subsidiaries, including the world’s first virtual mobile phone network – Virgin Mobile. He eventually rose to chief operating officer of Virgin, before joining telecoms firm Orange’s executive leadership in 2004. He subsequently helped raise $120m as European chairman of charity RED from 2006 to 2008.
His most recent stint before coming on board at OSE was four years at venture capital firm Atomico, where he was a partner focused on the enterprise, consumer and deeptech industries.
That wealth of experience has meant that since taking over at OSE, Dormandy has not only kept up the pace at which OSE was moving but has stepped it up. There are the obvious changes, first and foremost the rebrand from Oxford Sciences Innovation to Oxford Science Enterprises in September.
In a statement at the time, Dormandy said: “Six years ago, OSI was just an idea. One year ago, OSI was a startup celebrating its fifth birthday. Today OSI has entered the next phase of its journey – an ambitious business that recently passed its £1bn valuation.
“The Oxford Science Enterprises team past and present, should feel incredibly proud of what they have achieved, in such a short space of time – it is truly amazing.”
There is also the expansion of OSE’s team to include new leads for life science, technology and late stage portfolio companies – Katya Smirnyagina, Alexis Zervoglos and Ceri Morgan. There is the addition of people like Lilly Bussmann, who was hired to build value across portfolio companies, and the appointment of a scientist-in-residence, Sarah Leonard, who works with the life sciences investment team to generate portfolio companies in areas with unmet needs.
Then there is the behind-the-scenes activity. Within weeks of joining, Dormandy initiated an internal survey to understand how diverse OSE is and how this can be improved. Such a survey is now also being rolled out to the largest portfolio companies.
And then there are the headline-grabbing news stories, most remarkably the fantastically successful flotation of UK-based DNA sequencing technology spinout Oxford Nanopore in September 2021. The company raised $478m in proceeds, fetched a $4.7bn valuation and did it all, notably, on the London Stock Exchange and not on Nasdaq.
If anyone thought OSE had reached its peak, Dormandy’s arrival has made it clear that the company has barely begun climbing the mountain. And under his leadership, it is doing it all with a newly refocused energy on putting impact before money. As Dormandy himself put it on a recent episode of our Talking Tech Transfer podcast: “We need to be an organisation that we will be proud of in 10 years’ time, not one we could have got away with 10 years ago.”
The other nominees in this category were:
- Brian McCaul, Qubis
- Markus Wanko, IST Austria
- Moray Wright, Parkwalk Advisors
- Sara Wallin, Chalmers Ventures
