Co-founder, IQE
With over 40 years of experience in the engineering industry, Drew Nelson is perhaps best known in relation to his role as founder and former CEO of IQE, which he built into a global leader in advanced semiconductor wafer technology.
After completing a PhD in Semiconductor Technology at the University of Sheffield, Drew began his industrial career at British Telecom Research Labs. Here, he pioneered uses for semiconductor lasers in optical fibre communications – a technology that now forms the backbone of the modern-day internet.
His work here led him to start his own semiconductor venture from South Wales: IQE. With just £2 million of seed funding from Shell Ventures, Drew supercharged IQE’s growth, establishing it as the leading business for advanced semiconductor wafers. It initially listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1999, and in 2017, became Wales’ first ever hard tech unicorn.
Drew created countless commercial use cases for his technology. Today, IQE technologies are used in over 95% of smartphones. They also have applications in military, industrial, and consumer technologies. He was also the founder of the world's first Compound Semiconductor Cluster, CS Connected, which now employs over 3,600 highly skilled engineers and technicians in South Wales, generating over £450 million GVA for the Wales and U.K. economies.
His work has earned recognition and accolades across industry, government and beyond. In 2000, he was awarded a Silver Medal by the Royal Academy of Engineering, while in 2011, Drew was elected President of the European Photonics Industry Consortium. He was made Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2004.
Since standing down as CEO of IQE, Drew has set up both an angel investment syndicate and formed a new company NetZero Semiconductors to commercialise compound semiconductor technologies . Investments include energy-efficient AI startup Finchetto where he serves as a non-executive director.
Dr Andrew Nelson OBE FREng FLSW FInstP
