Mike Maddock FVS

Mike Maddock — Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, United Kingdom Aerial Vehicles Ltd Mike Maddock is CEO and co-founder of United Kingdom Aerial Vehicles Ltd, a pre-revenue British aerospace company developing the H Series, a hydrogen-electric autonomous fixed-wing aircraft for persistent surveillance and mid-mile logistics. He leads the company from South Yorkshire. He comes to it from operating businesses at scale rather than from a research background. Before moving into innovation and advanced manufacturing, he spent over a decade in multi-site leadership for a major PLC and a venture-backed business. As Regional Operations Director he sat on the executive board, with responsibility for businesses turning over between £153 million and £400 million and regional teams of more than 3,000 people. He subsequently founded and led MAMC Ltd, a specialist consultancy which owns and operates PES Scanning and PES Performance, and holds a board position at Nixene Ltd, an advanced graphene materials business. That operating experience is matched by an unusually deep position in the UK manufacturing and innovation landscape, which matters for a company that has to build a supply chain, recruit engineering talent and navigate certification. Mike is Chair of Make UK's Yorkshire and Humber Regional Membership Board and sits on the Make UK National Membership Board. He holds a Visiting Professorship in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sheffield, working with the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, sits on the University's Technology Adoption Board, and holds a board position with Space Hub Yorkshire. He contributes to a number of government and industry advisory groups on manufacturing, innovation, business growth, technology adoption and AI. He is a Board Member of the Small Business Charter, supporting university business school accreditation and the national Help to Grow programme led by the Department for Business and Trade, and has represented the Department on international trade missions speaking on the global potential of UK innovation. Mike's route into aerospace is not a conventional one, and it is directly relevant to the work. He represented Great Britain for seven years in Skeleton bobsleigh, and served for thirteen years in the Royal Navy as a Clearance Diver and Bomb Disposal Operative. Both are environments where equipment either works or people are hurt, where planning is done before the event rather than during it, and where operational discipline is not a management theory. That is the standard he holds the company to.