Holiferm’s team
Meet the Team
At Holiferm we are driven by our common goal to accelerate the transition to a bio-based economy by bringing biosurfactants to market. Our team is diverse and multidisciplinary, with people from commercial, scientific and engineering backgrounds who are united in our commitment to exceed customer and collaborator expectations.
Ben Dolman is a co-inventor of Holiferm’s technology. As well as bringing his technical expertise in biosurfactant production, Ben has developed links throughout the industry, enabling a series of collaborative projects and won the BBSRC Early Career Researcher Innovator of the Year award 2018 for this work.
Richard has grown an impressive chemical portfolio supporting multinational yearly revenue generation of £28.5 million, with proven organic growth, and growing EBITDA from 12% to 16%, between 2018-2019. Created the commercial business case to build a 36,000 tpa £3.5 million betaine plant and agreed supply contracts for 1000’s of tonnes.
James Winterburn is a Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering and world-leading expert in biosurfactant production and integrated separation of bio-based products. James focuses on improving processes via a bioprocessing and biochemical engineering route, including the whole value chain from feedstock to the application of biosurfactants. As a co-inventor of Holiferm’s technology he won the BBSRC Early Career Innovator of the Year 2018 award.
Magda joined us after her PhD at Ghent University, which involved optimising the performance of yeast during fermentation and tying the different stages of the process to subtle changes in the chemical and protein composition of the yeast cells and the surrounding broth. Now, she uses her expertise to help Holiferm make well-informed decisions on developing and refining fermentation processes.
Paul has over 22 years laboratory experience in a wide range of fields, primarily working in technical roles within plant and fungal research in both academia and biotech, and is a published author in both fields. Paul has also managed a UKAS accredited testing laboratory. He is currently utilising the skills he has acquired during his career to help run fermentations and assist in the downstream processing of fermentations at the Greenheys laboratory.
Lukas Froom
Laboratory Technician
Before coming to Holiferm, Lukas graduated from the Manchester Metropolitan University with a degree in Chemistry. He has also worked as a research assistant for a chemistry research project, and as an English teacher abroad, utilizing his exam-accredited Mandarin Chinese studies. Now, Lukas works in our R&D lab, making sure the analytics are running smoothly.
Beth arrived at Holiferm following an impressive track record of work in finance and company administration, with over 7 years of accounting and auditing experience. She has been in charge of managing a 22-company group’s finances and company strategy, and was instrumental in transforming a stagnating company into a profitable business. We welcome her expertise to help Holiferm maximize its efficiency and success as a company.
Connor joined Holiferm to drive the development and scale up of new and current downstream processes, providing chemical engineering insights to the development process. He will utilise his experience of delivering engineering solutions that contributed to sustainable EBIT improvement in the manufacturing industry, to contribute to the ongoing development of production capabilities at Holiferm.
James Wilding
Pilot Plant Technician
In the years prior to joining Holiferm, James has worked at a variety of positions in different industries, including as a QC scientist for foodstuffs and biopharmaceuticals, as a GMP clean room production operator for the gene therapy industry, and as a microbiologist working with mammalian stem cells for his MRes degree. At Holiferm, James is helping in the transfer and upscaling of our fermentation processes to the pilot and commercial plants.
Alice Robinson
Operations Director
Alice is a charted process engineer with over a decade of chemical manufacturing experience in positions spanning operations, projects, economics and executive areas. She brings her expertise to lead the Operations Team to deliver safe, sustainable and reliable manufacturing of Holiferm’s products.
Danail comes to us from an extensive background of scaling up fermentation processes, such as scaling a process up to a 17000L bio-reactor. He is currently based in Daresbury helping to operate and fine-tune the pilot plant reactor, preparing for the next scale-up.
Dave has joined us to help us ensure that our Sophorolipid product is well characterised and of the highest quality. He has had 15 years of experience as a QC scientist and 2 as a QA manager with a broad experience of different characterisation techniques and products.
Andrew comes to us as an experienced teacher who has trekked all over the world from the depths of the jungle in Borneo, to Vietnam and Malawi. He has been in a variety of teaching roles either teaching the art of teaching to improve education these developing countries or teaching English at international schools and English development centres. Currently he brings his formidable talents to helping us sharpen our presentations and streamline our internal and external communications.
Ali came to us after working for Ashland Inc for over 8 years on the characterisation of polymers and complex transient reaction mixtures. This work has made him a specialist in a broad suite of different characterisation techniques such as Gel permeation chromatography (GPC), Mass Spectrometry, and HPLC. At Holiferm, Ali utilises these skills to ensure our products are well-characterised and maintain their high quality as we develop and upscale our production methods.
Sid Palmer
Supply Chain Manager
Sid spent 2.5 years in both warehouse and transport functions. He was initially supporting the UK distribution of one of the UK's largest food retailers. He then moved into the Frozen and International export section of the same companies goods to markets in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Ewa Fic
Plant Operator
Before joining Holiferm, Ewa worked in a variety of roles within the pharmaceutical industry, including lab support, clarification, purification and centrifugation. She hopes to use the skills she has gathered over many years in this new and exciting adventure.
John Faber
Plant Operator
Following 7 years pharmaceutical manufacturing experience; with 5 years in Biologics manufacture, John answered the call as a Plant operator working to drive standards in quality, safety and sustainability throughout the operations department.
Tom Gwynne
Lab Technician
Tom joined Holiferm in February 2022.
Amy Wagstaff-Weston
Lab Technician
Amy joined Holiferm in April 2022. Amy came to Holiferm from DSTL having worked there for four years. Prior to that she worked as a teacher, before returning to university to complete an MSc in applied microbiology and biotechnology.
David Rice
HSEQ Manager
David joined Holiferm in May 2022
Lewis Wright
Assistant Accoutant
Lewis joined Holiferm in May 2022. Lewis has worked within Finance for the last 6 years starting as an Apprentice and has gained lots of experience and knowledge over this time. He will be bringing this to Holiferm to ensure the success of the organisation continues for years to come.
Tom Pallett
Team Growth Lead
Tom joined Holiferm in May 2022.
