Jon Horsley

Jon has both a strong and varied technical background as well as an impressive record of innovation & team management together with a deep appreciation of forming successful business collaborations.  

Educated in Nottingham in electronics, software, and embedded systems, Jon has worked in a number of industrial electronics sectors including telecommunications; professional TV broadcast; and, for most of his life in industry, automotive. Jon has designed powertrain control systems for sports-cars and electric/hybrid-vehicle drivetrains for road as well as racing cars.  

In 2008, Jon achieved a Distinction in his full-time Carbon Management MBA at the University of East Anglia, which gave him a deep understanding of climate change; its mitigation; carbon trading; and how carbon can be managed by business to become an opportunity rather than a threat.   

Having spent several years in Innovate UK helping direct the BEIS and OLEV funding for automotive to new sectors with novel market interventions, Jon then took the helm of the BEIS-funded Digital Engineering and Test Centre within Loughborough University London on the QE Olympic Park. DETC brought new digital technologies and processes into automotive design & manufacturing for SMEs and large OEMs alike, and bridged across to aerospace to align with their similar efforts to digitise.  

Most recently, Jon has been running his own consultancy (InnConA Ltd) which has been serving the automotive, digital, and clean energy systems sectors.  

Jon brings into his role at Cranfield a deep understanding of industry needs and working practices and is looking forward to engaging the many innovative technology companies in automotive, aerospace, and digital with Cranfield’s unique set of capabilities and research strength.