OUR BOARD

Richard Moon

UKBIC Board Chair

Director of Property Services & Development, Coventry City Council

Richard is a chartered surveyor with over 30 years professional property experience in both the public and private sectors.

Richard has extensive expertise in delivering complex development projects and has considerable experience in taking projects from inception through the development process to hand-over and occupation.

Richard works with council colleagues and with stakeholders outside the authority, working closely with Coventry University, Warwick University, JLR and WMG. He is also responsible for the Council’s land disposal programme, working with national developers including Taylor Wimpey, Barratt’s, Bellway and Persimmon.



He also represents the Council on several external bodies, he is a director of a number of Council owned or joint venture companies including Friargate Joint Venture and he is the council’s appointed director to the board of UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, a joint venture between CCC and Warwick Manufacturing Group. In the past Richard has developed a number of high-profile schemes in partnership with companies such as Richardson Capital, Land Securities and Barberry Developments.

Carol Rose Burke CBE

Managing Director, Unipart Manufacturing Group

UKBIC Board Non-Executive Director

With a career spanning more than 30 years, and having joined Unipart in 1994, Carol is proud to be one of the UK’s most forthright advocates for the manufacturing and engineering sectors.

As Managing Director of Unipart Manufacturing Group (UMG), she leads on its ‘Manufacturing Partner’ strategy, as the automotive sector moves from the internal combustion engine to new forms of propulsion. UMG offers manufacturing capability to customers/partners, including bringing new technologies to market, and ultimately transferring this expertise into non-automotive sectors.

Integral to this strategy is the transition to electrification. UMG’s latest accomplishment is to bring together our expertise in Tier 1 manufacturing, with WAE Technologies’ design, to form Hyperbat Limited. This joint venture has successfully started manufacturing batteries for the world’s fastest supercar, the Lotus Evija.

Carol is fiercely passionate about the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME), a £40m collaboration with Coventry University, generating both new graduates and new business.

The engineering and manufacturing sectors are exciting places to be and UMG is positioned to take advantage of the changing technological and economic climate and to drive the transition to electrification.

Ian Constance

CEO, Advanced Propulsion Centre

UKBIC Board Non-Executive Director

Ian Constance joined the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) as CEO in September 2015 during his leadership APC has guided funding into 150 low-carbon projects projected to save over 260 million tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of removing the lifetime emissions from 10.2 million cars and creating or safeguarding over 50,000 jobs in the UK.

Ian’s approach at the APC has been to provide focussed support to anchor and grow UK research and development and industry insight to transition the UK automotive supply chain to clean propulsion systems. He has been instrumental in the development and deployment of the Automotive Transformation Fund.

Ian has held positions globally in the automotive industry with over 25 years’ experience. Prior to APC Ian worked with Ford Motor Company in Detroit where he was most recently Global Chief Engineer for Large Cars. Ian has also spent six years at Ford’s Asia Pacific HQ, first in Bangkok and then in Shanghai.

Ian gained an engineering degree from Aston University, an MSc in Advanced Automotive Engineering from Loughborough University and is a chartered engineer and in 2019 was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bath.

Sean Gilgunn

Managing Director, UKBIC

UKBIC Board Executive Director

Sean Gilgunn joined UKBIC as Managing Director on 2nd October 2023.

Sean brings an impressive background in strategic and operational leadership including over 20 years of international commercial and management experience in the B2B battery systems, automotive and chemical sectors.

Sean joins UKBIC from Johnson Matthey where he has worked across a variety of business areas, most recently as Global Procurement Director, Strategy & Operations.

Prior to this, he was based in Poland as General Manager and President of the Board of Directors for JM Battery Systems, a leading manufacturer of batteries across a wide range of applications. He has also spent a number of years leading global business units and key accounts focusing on critical markets including periods focused on South Korea, China and South East Asia more broadly. 

As Managing Director of UKBIC, Sean will be responsible for leadership of the UKBIC business and working closely with key stakeholders to ensure that UKBIC plays a valuable role for industry within the UK ecosystem.

Professor David Greenwood

UKBIC Non-Executive Director

Director for Industrial Engagement, WMG, University of Warwick

Professor David Greenwood, the CEO of the WMG High Value Manufacturing Catapult and the Director for Industrial Engagement, WMG, University of Warwick, was appointed to the board of UKBIC in January 2024.

David previously led the Energy Directorate at WMG where he led a team of over 200 researchers and engineers, working on a wide range of projects on electrification of transport, spanning several fields, including cars, trucks, boats, off highway machinery, aircraft and motorcycles.

David moved into academia after 20 years in industry latterly as Head of Hybrid and Electric Systems for engineering consultancy Ricardo UK Ltd. His research spans batteries, electric motors, power electronics, and the integration and control of these for propulsion and energy applications.

Professor Greenwood holds advisory and board positions for the Advanced Propulsion Centre, Innovate UK (Faraday Battery Challenge), and the Faraday Institution, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Bob Joyce

UKBIC Board Non-Executive Director

An award-winning engineer, Bob brings a wealth of automotive industry experience from a career spanning almost 40 years in the sector. He most recently led Product Creation and Delivery programmes for Jaguar Land Rover as Executive Director prior to his retirement in 2016, and as Group Engineering Director for the ten years prior.

He previously worked for BMW, Rover Group, and before that, for Waukesha Engineering in the USA and Ricardo Consulting Engineers.

Since retiring from Jaguar Land Rover in 2016, he has become a non-executive director for several manufacturing and technology companies, and acts as a senior technical advisor to three technology companies.

Bob is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Leicester. In 2015, he featured in Debrett’s Top 500 most influential people in the UK, and in the top 15 for industry and technology development.

Marie Lowe

UKBIC Board Executive Director & Company Secretary

Finance Director, UKBIC

Marie Lowe first joined UKBIC as Financial Controller in March 2023, before becoming Finance Director and Company Secretary in April 2024.

She brings a wealth of experience to the organisation, having held senior financial positions in engineering, automotive, and medical technology companies in the UK and North America.

Marie is responsible for developing, implementing and overseeing UKBIC’s financial reporting and is part of the company’s executive team and board. She leads the company’s financial operations and strategy and plays a key role in supporting the centre's ambitious goals to accelerating the UK's development of battery technology and manufacturing.

Andy Williams

UKBIC Board Non-Executive Director

Director for Business, Investment & Culture, Coventry City Council

Andy is Director for Business, Investment and Culture at Coventry City Council. He has over 15 years’ experience working in the public sector to generate economic growth and development for Coventry and Warwickshire. 

Andy has played a lead role in bringing in over £500m of Regeneration funding to the City and wider conurbation and delivering regeneration programmes to bring in new Inward Investment, create jobs and grow the business base across the City.

Recognised for his broad experience of influencing government economic policy, Andy has worked with multiple government departments on wide ranging agendas including automotive and energy related initiatives with BEIS, local neighbourhood and regeneration with MHCLG and more recently regional economic growth and devolution with the Cities and Local Growth unit. 

Most recently securing over a £130m to locate the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre here in Coventry. 

Tony Harper

UKBIC Board Observer

Challenge Director, Faraday Battery Challenge

Tony Harper is The Challenge Director for the Faraday Battery Challenge at UKRI (UK Research and Innovation). In this capacity, he is responsible for the UK Government’s £541m investment in Scientific Research, Business-led Innovation and national scale-up infrastructure for Battery Technology.

Tony was previously Director of Engineering Research for Jaguar Land Rover.

Tony joined Jaguar as a Graduate Engineer in 1986 with an honours degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Imperial College London. He spent his early career developing the first Airbag-based passive safety systems and developing a number of sports car concepts including the first and second generation Jaguar XK8.

In the early 1990's, Tony led Jaguar’s development and use of pioneering Knowledge Based Engineering systems automating sophisticated rule-based Design tasks, something that today is referred to as Artificial Intelligence.

In 1999, Tony was appointed as head of Jaguar’s Vehicle Engineering team responsible for Vehicle Concept Design, Aerodynamics and Computer Aided Engineering in particular overseeing the early development of the first all-aluminium Jaguar XJ. After a period of secondment to Ford’s International Operations, Tony joined Jaguar Land Rover’s combined Product Development Operations in 2006 to head up the Research and Advanced Engineering group. In this capacity, Tony was responsible for the identification, development and de-risking of all new technology into JLR products for over 10 years.

Tony is a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering, Chartered Engineer, fellow of the IMechE.