Andrew Rickman

Andrew Rickman OBE is an entrepreneur in the field of silicon photonics. He is the founder, executive chairman and chief executive officer of Rockley Photonics based in the UK. As CEO, he took Rockley Photonics public through a SPAC merger with a valuation of over one billion dollars in 2021 and the company went private again in 2023. [1] He was Britain’s first Internet billionaire.[2]

Rockley Photonics is using its breakthrough photonics technology to revolutionise health monitoring, including continuous non-invasive monitoring of glucose and blood pressure.

Education

Rickman has a mechanical engineering degree from Imperial College, London;[3] a PhD in silicon photonics from Surrey University (supervisor: Professor Graham Reed) an MBA from Cranfield University and honorary doctorates from Surrey, Edinburgh Napier and Kingston Universities. He is a Chartered Engineer.[4]

Career and business ventures

Rickman was previously the CEO and Chairman of Bookham Technology, the first company to commercialise silicon photonics.[5] He founded Bookham Technology in 1988, and it grew rapidly from a start-up to a FTSE100 company before its valuation crashed as the dotcom bubble burst in 2000.[2] Intel was an early investor in Bookham and Gordon Moore was involved.


In February 2000, Jack Kilby an inventor of the integrated circuit, joined the board of directors of Bookham Technology Ltd. (Abingdon, England).

“Looking back we can see that 1958 was a crossroads in the development of technology,” said Kilby. “It's possible that in 40 years' time we'll be looking back at a similar crossroads, the development of optical ICs. I see strong parallels between what I set out to achieve with the first electronic IC, and what Bookham Technology has achieved."

Rickman was also Chairman of Kotura Inc.,[4] a silicon photonics company which is now part of Nvidia.

Honours and awards

Rickman was awarded an OBE for services to the telecommunications industry,[4] and is a winner of the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal for his outstanding contribution to British Engineering.[6][7] In 2000, Rickman was named UK Technology and Communications Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young.[4]

Other achievements

In 2011, Rickman was awarded an Honorary Professorship at SIMIT, Chinese Academy of Sciences.[3] Rickman has held advisory board positions with the East Asia Institute of the University of Cambridge and Applied Science and Technology Research Institute of Hong Kong.[4][3]

References
  1. "Rockley Photonics closes 'several million dollar' first funding round". Optics.org. 22 April 2014. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  2. Smale, Will (2020-03-09). "The tech boss who lost more than a billion". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 2022-08-28.
  3. Rickman, A. 2021. Andrew Rickman’s profile page. [LinkedIn]. [Accessed 30 September 2021. Available from: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewrickman
  4. "Executive profile: Andrew G. Rickman OBE". Bloomberg Business. Archived from the original on 2016-03-08. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  5. "Angels' wings help with take-off". Financial Times. 2009-01-27. Retrieved 2021-09-30.
  6. "Engineers receive silver innovation awards". theguardian.com. 29 May 2002. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  7. "Silver Medal - 1995-2014 winners". Royal Academy of Engineering. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
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