Ian Harvey was CEO of BTG plc from 1985 until his retirement in 2004. He oversaw the privatisation of BTG in 1992, its public flotation in 1995, a demerger of part of its business and three Rights Issues totalling £250 million to raise business expansion capital from its shareholders. BTG was the world-leading technology commercialisation company which had been patenting and licensing globally since the early 1950s.
Following a degree in Mechanical Sciences from Cambridge University as an undergraduate apprentice, his early career was as an engineer for five years with Vickers and Laporte Industries in the civil, aerospace and chemical industries. After an MBA from Harvard Business School, he was with the World Bank for seven years in a variety of roles in South Asia and French-speaking West Africa.
He is: Chairman, IP Center Advisory Board, Tsinghua University x-lab, Beijing; Adjunct Professor, Imperial College Business School, London and member of its IP Centre Advisory Board; Advisor to NTEM, Tianjin, China; and, a Fellow of the University of Nottingham. He is also a Member of: the Industry Joint Advisory Board, Center for IP Studies (CIP) Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg University, Sweden and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology; and the Advisory Board, International Intellectual Property Institute, Washington DC. He has an honorary Doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton.
Other appointments have included: Chairman of the UK Intellectual Property Institute (1999-2011); Chairman of the UK government’s Intellectual Property Advisory Committee (2001-2005); UK Prime Minister’s Advisory Council on Science & Technology (1989-93); Advisory Panel for Science & Technology Policy Research Unit of Sussex University (SPRU) – (1989-2003); Air Products & Chemicals Inc. European Advisory Council (1999-2005); Policy Committee of Cancer Research UK (2004-6); Director, Primaxis Technology Ventures Inc., Toronto (1999-2005); Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council Appointments Committee (1999-2008); Board, London Bioscience Innovation Centre (2006-14); Course Professor, Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, Beijing (2009-2018).
He has been a student for many years of the history and trends of global invention and technology development and the closely-related role of IP. He has written many articles and book chapters and lectures widely on global intellectual property and technology issues, particularly as they relate to business. He is currently involved with the development of intellectual property in China and working for the teaching of intellectual property as a fundamental component of strategy in business school programmes worldwide.