Chief Technology Officer (Green Tech)

The Opportunity

A rare opportunity has arisen to join Fluenta in the position of CTO to grow the existing engineering staff of 8 to develop and support class-leading products and to create a road map to diversify a business from its traditional oil and gas base to a leading innovator in the field of environmental sensing.

The Company

Fluenta forms part of a large group of privately owned businesses under the Vista Holdings AS umbrella company, owned by the Norwegian-based Aase family. The group is made up of circa 4,500 employees across a diverse range of industries, including Kindergartens; ultrasonic sensing; enzyme development; oil production; MedTech devices; Wi-Fi enablers; logistics services; and Viking Long Ship fair, amongst others.

Founded in 1985, Fluenta is a global leader in ultrasonic sensing technology for flare gas measurement, primarily for the oil & gas sector. The company has a turnover of $15m and a staff of 50. It commands a leading position in the sector and offers class-leading technology. The business manufactures products out of a facility in Gdansk in Poland, supplied through sales offices in key oil & gas locations, including the UK, Dubai, Houston and Kuala Lumpur, as well as numerous distributors and agents across the globe. The company is located near to Cambridge in the UK, where the UK Head Office, Marketing, Quality and Design and Development teams are based.

Although centred around Fluenta’s technology, this role, and the associated development team, extend to involvement with other group businesses providing scope for a diversified and dynamic working environment.

This is a truly existing role for a talented and dynamic CTO to explore technology and play a key role in the development of the business to face some of the key environmental challenges that the world is facing.

The Role & Responsibilities

Reporting to Fluenta’s CEO, the main aim of the Chief Technical Officer is to work with external partners and the internal engineering team to bring new products to market. It is an interesting and challenging role for an experienced commercially focused CTO to shape the next stage in companies’ lifecycle.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Review the pipeline of R&D projects across Fluenta and other Group Companies, developing a plan to bring a new product to market with accelerated lead times.
• Building and developing relationships with industry (and academia) which will help uncover needs, promote and expedite the commercialisation and launch of new products.
• Reviewing and assessing the technical team structure to ensure the individuals are in the right position to develop effective ultrasonic sensing products for key markets (oil & gas, military and environmental).
• Developing formal procedures such as stage gate processes in order to prevent time being wasted.
• Injecting a sense of urgency in the internal (and external) teams without sacrificing the quality of development and process.
• Providing strong leadership to the internal and external teams to ensure they stay on track with development projects.
• Putting together a realistic short and medium term budget that can be communicated to the wider business.
• Providing regular progress updates to the board.

The Ideal Candidate

The following objective experience and character traits are important in this role:

• High level of education so the candidate is likely to have a degree (chemistry, mathematics or engineering would be ideal).
• Technical mastery of ultrasonics and signal processing within process metering or chemical detection (knowledge of Fluenta’s sectors is not important but the technology is).
• Strong leader of people with experience of achieving a result via a technical team.
• Evidence of successfully bringing new products to market.
• A strong understanding of how to manage R&D budgets, including burn rates and the need to perform.
• Experience of working within and having success in a small company.
• Exposure to intrinsically safe certification methodology would be ideal.
• Strong interpersonal skills and an explorer by nature.
• Commercially aware.
• Good problem solver.

Location

Cambourne, Cambridgeshire.

European travel is expected circa 20-30% of the time, inter-continental less frequently.

Remuneration

• Basic salary: Circa £80,000 – £105,000 depending on experience.

Other benefits:

• 10% of salary, designed to cover personal and company pension requirements.
• 25 days annual leave