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Many of you know our CEO, Philip Aldridge, but may not know the important role he plays in implementing initiatives across the North East that aids the success of business growth throughout the process industry.

Working strategically and focussing his efforts into helping our 350-strong membership, Philip works closely with the NEPIC board to ensure the organisation is running efficiently to best help its member companies.

Philip has a first degree in Biochemistry from York and a Process Engineering degree from UCL. He is a Member of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (MIChemE) and a Chartered Engineer. Most of his career has been spent in large scale pharmaceutical manufacturing plants operated to GMP and under COMAH regulations. He also has biopharmaceutical manufacturing experience in California.

Philip has been with NEPIC for over 10 years with half that time spent as CEO.

The NEPIC team has four foci: building a community, innovation, influence and investment. Operations director, Joanne Fryett, is responsible for building our membership community and Ryan Siddall, head of technical, is responsible for innovation activities. Philip leads on influencing regional and central government, and its agencies, for the benefit of the NE process sector. He also leads on increasing investment in NE process sector.

Influencing activities in 2023 have included speaking at two House of Commons events and having two questions asked in the House on behalf of the NE process sector. Philip has also attracted two departmental visits to the region by HM Treasury and Dept. Business and Trade. Both these visits helped London-based officials to better understand the needs of our sector and for NEPIC members to influence government policy.

Philip helped NEPIC members influence the shape of the Teesside Freeport ensuring the chemical industry benefited from its creation. He has also played an important role in shaping the decarbonisation agenda in the region to make sure the sector benefits from this significant opportunity.

Philip works closely with TVCA, NE-LEP and Dept. Business and Trade on inward investment activities regularly meeting companies considering a NE process sector investment.

Philip believes that the NE process manufacturing sector is a major industrial asset for the UK which can be leveraged for the benefit of both the region and the county. We see this happening with increasing pharmaceutical exports to the USA, the growing EV Battery supply chain and the emergence of a novel fuels cluster on Teesside.

Committed to his role and the success of our member companies, Philip’s ethos is to ensure we share world-class capability and best practice through collaboration, connections and innovation across the cluster. He also aims to influence government and increase inward investment to ensure it thrives now and in long into the future.