Wilkie waves goodbye to Birmingham

James Wilkie, the chief executive of University of Birmingham’s tech transfer arm University of Birmingham Enterprise, has retired after more than 14 years leading the institution’s knowledge exchange activities.
He has also stepped down from the Midlands Innovation Commercialisation of Research Accelerator (Micra), an initiative of eight universities in the UK’s Midlands region.
They include – apart from Birmingham – Aston University, Cranfield University, Keele University, Loughborough University, University of Leicester, University of Warwick and University of Nottingham.
University of Birmingham Enterprise was originally known as Alta Innovations, and the tech transfer office owes much of its success to Wilkie.
Among his many achievements is the establishment of the university’s biomedical incubator Biohub in 2015, a vision that took five years to realise and that originally did not have many proponents, Wilkie revealed to GUV in a 2016 interview.
On several occasions, Wilkie was an insightful speaker at GUV events both in the UK and internationally. In the GUV Powerlist 2018, he came in 14th place and was a celebrated awardee at our gala dinner in Houston, Texas.
In a valedictory interview published by Micra, he noted that he was now looking forward to taking a gap year, adding: “If I cannot travel physically, I will travel mentally, catching up with books and articles I have intended to read, maybe taking some online courses, learning music theory and reaching out to old friends I have lost touch with.
“At home there is always the family, guitar, garden and an old classic car to keep me busy. After that I will look for things to do that I am really passionate about and actively interested in supporting.”
– Image courtesy of Micra