IQE’s Nelson wins 2019 Bessemer Award
25 Nov 2019
The Bessemer Society has presented its Lifetime Fellowship Award to Dr Drew Nelson, co-founder and CEO of semiconductor supplier IQE plc.
Founded in 2015 in honour of the steel magnate Sir Henry Bessemer, the society provides a mutual support network for entrepreneurs who lead high technology companies that depend on manufacturing.
Nelson co-founded IQE in 1999, in Newport, South Wales. Since then it has grown under his leadership to become the leading global supplier of epitaxial wafers for compound semiconductor chips.
EPI subsequently became IQE in 1999, when Nelson was appointed chief executive officer.
The company operates manufacturing plants in the UK, USA and Asia. More recently it has established an additional foundry in Newport, where Nelson has helped to mastermind links between companies in the local value chain and universities under the CS Connected initiative.
The Lifetime Fellowship Award was presented by Professor Sir Colin Humphreys, the Director of the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride and Director of Research in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge at the City of London Club recenty.
Drew Nelson joined BT Research Laboratories in 1981, leading the group responsible for the development of advanced optoelectronic devices for optical fibre communications.
