Cyberhawk appoints Ian Marchant as Non-Executive Director
Cyberhawk Innovations, the world-leading aerial inspection and land survey company, today announced the appointment of Ian Marchant as a Non-Executive Director.
Ian Marchant’s experience as a Senior Non-Executive Director of the Wood Group, Chairman of the Energy Institute and former CEO of SSE, will greatly assist the company as its innovative services become widely adopted in the oil & gas, renewable energy and utilities sectors.
The appointment builds on their recent £1.25m investment led by Scottish Equity Partners (SEP), one of the largest and most successful venture capital groups in Europe, along with the Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise.
Speaking about Ian Marchant’s appointment, Aubrey Thompson, Cyberhawk’s Chairman, said:
“The recent equity investment positions us to better serve our growing customer base worldwide. We are now strengthening the Board to give us greater insight into our customer needs and expectations. Ian’s decision to join our board as a Non-Executive Director is a huge vote of confidence from someone who is recognised nationally and internationally as a leader in the energy industry. It’s this kind of expertise, experience, and wisdom, that will help the company give greater focus, understanding and delivery of our customer’s needs. It underlines the compelling nature of Cyberhawk’s inspection and survey services in the global energy market.”
Speaking of his appointment, Ian Marchant said: “I am looking forward to working with Cyberhawk. It’s a prime example of how new technology combined with high level engineering expertise and entrepreneurial drive can create something as innovative and comprehensive as Cyberhawk’s service. I am impressed with the management team and their plans for the future. Their ideas for creating increased value to their customers using new technology are exciting and I am relishing the opportunity to be involved in bringing Cyberhawk’s solution to more customers globally.”
Cyberhawk’s ground-breaking onshore and offshore aerial inspection and survey services using small unmanned aerial vehicles, has enabled the company to become a trusted supplier to multinational energy companies in the UK, Europe, Middle East and Asia.
The company, which plans to double its work force this year, continues to build its technical and commercial expertise by recruiting experienced professionals from across the energy sector.
Cyberhawk’s inspection service uses ‘Remotely Operated Aerial Vehicles (ROAVs) to conduct close visual and thermal inspections of industrial assets such as flare stacks, oil rigs, pylons, wind turbines and industrial chimneys. This means that high-value energy infrastructure can be kept operational during inspection, a vital consideration at industrial sites where asset downtime can cost millions of pounds per day. By contrast, traditional access methods using rope access or scaffolding require assets to be shutdown.
Blue chip international customers such as Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, SSE, Total, Centrica and Statoil have all recognised the value of the service, and not just in terms of its financial value. The use of ROAVs minimises health and safety risk by reducing or eliminating the need to work ‘at height’, a major cause of industrial fatalities. In addition to its inspection service, Cyberhawk also delivers state-of the art aerial surveying in the utilities, renewable energy and oil and gas sectors.
The company’s ground-breaking inspection service was recognised by the oil and gas industry in 2012, when it won the ‘Business Efficiency’ category at the prestigious UK Oil & Gas Awards in Aberdeen. The award was for a project to inspect the coating condition on an offshore oil rig. Delivered in partnership with asset management company Stork Technical Services, the project saved the oil company £4.6 million.
