Leadership
Clive Roux, CEO and Chief Marketing Officer
Clive Roux, CoFounder and CEO, started DNA Building System in 2021amidst “you know what”.
•14 years experience as CEO leading and successfully growing organizations
•Successful track record of producing record growth, customer satisfaction and financial results
•18 years experience in product management, marketing and leading brand & design
•Over 120 million consumer electronic products designed, developed, manufactured and sold
•6 Years designing and developing patented products
John Nesbitt, Chief Design and Technology Officer
John Nesbitt, Cofounder and Chief Design Officer (CDO)
•5 years developing a Mini Moto Racing Motorbike manufacturing factory (3Bore)
•Designed and developed a championship winning race motorbike
•Developed the factory to batch produce the motorbike along with a Chinese supply chain
•7 years experience building and renovating high end homes
•25 years producing successful designs for various clients as a consultant Industrial Designer
Advisors
DNA Building system’s approach is global, even though the USA market is the biggest and most important for us to develop first. Our solution is suitable for home building globally. For that reason, we have advisors in Europe, Africa and the USA to help guide us towards a globally acceptable solution.
Chris Smart is the Founder and General Partner of Acacia Capital Partners
Mr. Christopher Smart was the Founder and served as General Partner at Acacia Capital Partners. He served as Chairman at We Predict. He served as a Chairman at Krowd9. This was established as a buy-out of IDG Ventures Europe. Acacia is a venture capital company that invests in technology companies across Europe. He was a Board Member of Jukedeck. He is a founding partner in the fund. He currently has board roles in Automsoft International, Mirics Semiconductor, Shazam, and Solarflare Inc. In addition, he is on the Advisory Board of Aptivate, a not-for-profit company looking to solve the problems of information access in developing nations, and is on the Council of the Cambridge Society for the Application of Research. Prior to IDG he was Managing Director of Cambridge Research and Innovation which he established in the ’90s as one of the pre-eminent specialist early-stage technology venture capital companies in the UK. He was involved in funding from inception and the development of a range of ventures among which are Cambridge Display Technology, Nanomagnetics and Cambridge Positioning Systems, Cambridge Molecular Technology, and Brax. He held directorships in these companies. Before entering venture capital he held senior executive positions in the electronics industry, primarily in a product and software development environment. Mr. Smart graduated in Electrical Engineering and then obtained an MSc in Physics ( Cum Laude) from Durban University and an MSc in Management from Imperial College, London University. He is an honorary member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. He also serves as a Board Member at what3words.
Allistair Wessels is a seasoned Inventor, Designer and Entrepreneur
Allistair Wessels is an experienced Industrial Designer with a demonstrated history of working in the Design and Manufacturing industries. Allistair has strong professional skills in 3D Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Creativity, Scenario Planning, Project Management and Strategic Marketing.
Allistair’s product design expertise has developed from over 40 years of Design practice in commercial and industrial sectors.
Allistair is the recipient of many awards for his innovative work in South Africa and internationally in the USA and Japan. His Poolvac automatic pool cleaner machine has been a best seller in the USA for over 30 years.
Allistair has specific experience in developing IP, Engineering and manufacturing technology and the digitization of design and build services.
Virginia Driver is a partner in Page White Farrer patent attorneys specializing in European & Global IP Strategy and Innovation Capture in London, UK.
Virginia Driver is a qualified European Patent Attorney, Chartered Patent Attorney, European Trade Mark Attorney and Registered Trade Mark Attorney. Virginia joined the Intellectual Property profession over twenty years ago, with a degree in engineering science from Oxford.
Over the years she has registered thousands of patents in a wide variety of scientific fields. My clients come from a range of technical industries such as audio and video coding, computer architecture and applications, signal processing, visible light communications, network protocols, and user interfaces, telecommunications and e-commerce. Increasingly, the technologies are extending into data science: Fintech, Big Data etc.
In recent years, Virginia’s practice has extended to designing and building patent portfolios as a business asset for companies. As outside counsel she has been responsible for the development and growth of a number of high profile portfolios, since acquired by major companies at significant values. Alignment of IP with business strategy played a key part in building the value of each portfolio.
A large part of her work is international, and not only does she draft applications which can suit the USPTO, but she has a great deal of experience extending software inventions filed in the USA into Europe and other jurisdictions where ‘technical character’ is the byword for patentability.
Virginia has been called on by Government to consult in matters relating to patent law:
• Consulting to the Intellectual Property Director at the European Commission on the debate over copyright versus patents for software cases
• Intellectual Property Bill in 2013 (UK)
• Grace periods in UK Patent Law 2009/10
Virginia is a regular speaker at IP conferences, and can be found on YouTube explaining the benefits of IP protection: http://bit.ly/1XN9L36
In 2020, Virginia contributed to the intellectual property chapter of The Law of Artificial Intelligence, published by Sweet and Maxwell.