Professor David Gann CBE

Summary

David Gann CBE CEng FICE FCGI is Professor of Innovation and Technology Management at Imperial College Business School. He is a university and business leader with extensive international experience in innovation strategy and technology management.

He has a PhD in Industrial Economics, is a Chartered Civil Engineer, Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art and Fellow of the City & Guilds Institute.

David was Vice-President (Innovation) at Imperial College from 2013 to 2019, playing a central role in developing the vision, strategy and innovation agenda for Imperial College's 25-acre White City Campus and the development of new ventures such as Imperial College ThinkSpace, increasing and diversifying the College's income.

He is Chair, UK Atomic Energy Authority, non-executive board member, Directa Plus plc the world’s largest producer of pristine graphene and member of the Department of Health & Social Care Tech Advisory Board. David mentors start-ups and advises boards on innovation and technology management, including Citigroup, Gammon, IBM, Huawei, HS2, McLaren, NEC and Tata Group. David was Chair of the Smart London Board (2012-2017), responsible for London’s digital strategy, reporting to Boris Johnson and later, Sadiq Khan. He developed Crossrail’s Innovation Strategy, and was Group Innovation Executive, Laing O’Rourke plc (2007-2011).

David was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to engineering, and received the 2014 Tjalling C. Koopmans Asset Award, for extraordinary contributions to the economic sciences. He was awarded the Imperial College Medal in 2019.

RESEARCH

David's main research interest is innovation: he has written or edited eight books exploring why and how innovation happens, the ways it continually transforms the world we live in, and how it can be managed. He is a Professor in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Department of Imperial College Business School.

David publishes on technology management and innovation strategy in journals such as Harvard Business Review, California Management Review and Sloan Management Review, and on systems engineering in Ingenia, ICE Proceedings and Project Management Journal.

He writes a blog with Mark Dodgson for the World Economic Forum  and is author and co-author of eight books, published in eight languages including Arabic, Chinese, English, Italian, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese and Spanish.

In 2015 he led a review of Imperial's Technology, Transfer, Translation and Collaboration activities, Pathways to Societal Impact.

ADVISORY POSITIONS

• Chair, UK Atomic Energy Authority
• Non-Executive Director, Directa Plus plc. a graphene company
• Member, Innovation Expert Group
• Former Member, Department of Health & Social Care Tech Advisory Board
• Advisory Partner, Blenheim Chalcot
• Former Member, McMillan Task and Finish Group on Technology Transfer, Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
• Former Member, Steering Group, League of European Research Universities (LERU) Enterprise and Innovation Community (EIC)
• Former Chair (2013-2017), Smart London Board, reporting to the Mayor of London
• Former Member and Higher Education Representative, London Enterprise Panel.
• Former Member of the London Enterprise Panel’s Digital, Creative, Science & Technology Group
• Former Member, London Enterprise Panel's Economic Development Plan for London Advisory Group
• Member of the Smart Cities Forum
• Former Member of the Greater London Authority's Investment Infrastructure Plan Advisory Group

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES & Blogs

• July 2020 - latest World Economic Forum Blog: Great reset: what university entrepreneurship can bring to the post-COVID world
• April 2020 -  World Economic Forum Blog: How an entrepreneurial approach can help end the COVID-19 crisis
• World Economic Forum blogs
• Nov 2019 - FT: UK universities intensify efforts to develop start-ups
• June  2019 - FT: Fusion energy has a future - and it's hot! (response to FT article Thirty years later, the cold fusion dream is still alive)
• Nov 2018 - Guardian: It's a harmful myth that UK science can't translate ideas into practice
• Oct 2018 - FT: Business books of the month (featuring The Playful Entrepreneur)
• May 2016 - China Daily Europe: Smart city tech vital for China
• Sept 2015 - China Daily Europe: Perfect partnerships for progress
• July 2015 - FT China: Entrepreneurship, ivory tower and Great Expectations
• June 2015 - City A.M.: London tech has already surpassed San Francisco - and it can do better yet
• June 2015 - Architect's Journal: Architecture tomorrow - university buildings
• May 2015 - Telegraph letters: Profitable inventions
• Dec 2013 - FT: Building on London's scientific tradition

Imperial's new WHITE CITY CAMPUS

• June 2019 - Saab launches UK innovation hub at White City campus
• March 2018 - Innovation and enterprise spaces at Imperial College London
• Feb 2018 - Government welcomes new technology centre for growing technology businesses to open in West London
• January 2016 - Imperial celebrates topping out at new White City hub
• October 2015 - New UK-Chinese entrepreneurship hub planned for White City Campus
• July 2014 - Imperial West: London's new innovation district
• May 2014 - £40m gift: Michael Uren Biomedical Engineering Hub
• April 2014 - Imperial West as a world-leading Innovation District: A guide to best practice and feasibility
• March 2013 - Imperial West: Launching the vision

SELECTED REPORTS

• The Future of Smart: Harnessing digital innovation to make London the best city in the world. Update Report of the Smart London Plan, 2013. Smart London Board, 2016
• Smart London Plan: Using the creative power of new technologies to serve London and improve Londoners’ lives, Smart London Board, 2013
• Digital Money: A Pathway to an Experience Economy a report on Digital Money, by Imperial College London and Citi, 2015
• Getting Ready for Digital Money: A Roadmap a report on the Digital Money Readiness Index, by Imperial College London and Citi, 2014
• The Innovation Studies Centre: Impact Report 2003-2013 Imperial College Business School, 2014

SELECTED VIDEOS

• Imperial College Business School Executive Education Webinar, 21 May 2020 -  Coronavirus: responding and repositioning for success. 
• Imperial College Business School Executive Education Webinar, 29 April 2020 - Scenario Thinking: Navigating the Coronavirus Crisis
• Imperial Business Partners, Executive Insights Keynote with Paul Taylor, KPMG :Security in our cyber infrastructure 2019
• HKPC 50th Anniversary Keynote: Technological Innovation in a smarter future 2017
• BBC World News interview: London Technology Week 2016 Launch Report: What the world may be like in 2036, 2016
• People's Daily: Very Short Introduction to Innovation interview, 2015
• Thomson Reuters Techvision Higlights: New Patterns of Innovation in the Era of Big Data , 2014
• White City Campus Imperial West: London's new innovation district, 2014
• The Innovation Studies Centre, 2014
• FT: London’s big science experiment, 2013 
• White City Campus Imperial West: Launching the vision, 2013
• Research series: Digital City Exchange, 2012 
• Tech Foresight 2032 event: The future is coming, 2012
• Global Entrepreneurship Development Index (GEDI) conference, 2012 
• A Short History of Innovation, 2010

Selected Publications

Journal Articles

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