Lab to Market Leadership with Chris Reichhelm
With over 25 years of experience in recruiting leadership teams and boards for advanced science and engineering companies, Chris Reichhelm, CEO of Deep Tech Leaders, offers an insider’s perspective on the pivotal decisions and strategies that shape the success of startups embarking on the lab-to-market journey.
This podcast doesn’t just celebrate innovation for its own sake; instead, it highlights what it truly takes to build, scale, and sustain a successful deep tech company. Through conversations with entrepreneurs, investors, executives, and other key players, Chris will explore the management disciplines, cultures, and behaviours essential for commercialising and scaling deep tech innovations. Each episode will aim to unravel the complexities behind turning rich, research-intensive IP into commercially viable products across various sectors like computing, biotech, materials science, and more.
'Lab to Market Leadership' is for those who are ready to learn from past mistakes and successes to better navigate the path from innovation to market. Whether you're an entrepreneur, an investor, or simply a deep tech enthusiast, this podcast offers valuable lessons and insights to enhance your understanding and approach to building groundbreaking companies that aim to solve the world's biggest problems and improve our way of life.
Learn more about Lab to Market Leadership: www.deeptechleaders.com
Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/deeptechleaders
Podcast Production by Beauxhaus
Lab to Market Leadership with Chris Reichhelm
Taking Over From a Founder CEO: Ian Temperton on Scaling Plastic Energy
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Ian Temperton became CEO of Plastic Energy in 2021 after five years as Chief Investment Officer.
He stepped in as the company moved from pilot to industrial scale – executing multi‑million euro projects with SABIC and TotalEnergies.
This is what happens when the external CEO works.
Ian spent five years learning the business before taking over. The shift came mid-deployment, when execution discipline and governance became critical.
The team stayed. The focus changed: from raising capital to deploying it.
The core challenge: delivering complex projects on petrochemical sites while scaling the organisation to match.
The proof: nearly a decade of continuous operations in Spain.
The lesson: separate innovation from deployment, and rebalance rigour as you scale.
Essential listening for anyone moving from pilot to industrial scale in climate hardware.
Learn more about Lab to Market Leadership: https://www.deeptechleaders.com
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deeptechleaders
Podcast Production: Beauxhaus
