Paul Madden

Paul is a Director with the Centre for Competitiveness and is experienced in promoting and managing advanced technology projects in various industrial sectors on a regional, national and international basis. He has strong inter-personal skills forged over many years of working in customer-driven industries in international business environments. He has proven ability to collaborate with colleagues from differing backgrounds, cultures and disciplines to achieve commercial success. He is an experienced Non-Executive Director in the public and private sectors.

Paul was General Manager of Rolls-Royce Aerospace in Northern Ireland from 1998 – 2015; he implemented a £6M investment plan to establish a technology centre of excellence with 50+ employees developing safety-critical software for the company’s suite of civil and military aircraft engines. He collaborated with regional and national government bodies to implement industry growth initiatives via his role as Chairman of the Northern Ireland Aerospace Consortium (cluster organisation) for 7 years.

Prior to his time with Rolls-Royce, Paul worked in the IT industry; he facilitated “consortium engineering” for innovative technology development projects resulting in industrial collaboration partnerships across Europe totalling £8M in value. In 2015/16 Paul developed a successful R+D project proposal valued at £6.5M for an optimisation upgrade to a leading Irish sawmill and, more recently, he acted as facilitator for an Industry 4.0 Collaborative Growth Network of manufacturing SMEs in Northern Ireland. Currently, Paul is co-ordinating a cluster of industrial companies investigating the feasibility of converting agricultural waste into biomethane on a commercially sustainable scale. Paul is also leading the Centre’s engagement with Queens University Belfast on the establishment of a £93M Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre and Factory-of-the-Future expected to be fully operational in 2025.