Bladon Jets | Key Members of the Bladon Jets' Team

Key Members of the Bladon Jets Team

Bladon Jets' senior management team holds an impressive collection of entrepreneurial and corporate skills with a proven track record to match. With several successful start-up companies under their belt, this exceptional team has the experience, drive and passion to make Bladon Jets an outstanding success story. Underlying the Company is the technical experience and expertise of Chris Bladon, co-developer of the Bladon Jets core technology, and Phill Heward, the world’s foremost designer and builder of micro-jet engines.

Paul Barrett

Chairman

Paul is a serial entrepreneur with over 25 years leadership experience in technology innovation and product and business development. He has a BSc in Electronics from Sussex University and an MSc in Computation from Oxford University.

Paul is a co-founder of Bladon Jets.

In 1984 he independently developed the world’s first high-speed implementation of the RSA crypto-system: the now widely adopted “Barrett Algorithm”.

From 1985 to 1989, Paul worked for Computer Security Limited in various roles including, ultimately, Director of International Sales.

In 1990, he co-founded authentication token business, SmartDisk, which he managed and led to a successful sale in 1996.

In 1997 Paul was recruited by 3i plc to run VDL – pioneers of cognometric authentication technology – which he restructured and relocated to the USA as Passfaces Corporation.

Philip Lelliott

Director

Philip is a chartered engineer with 20 years senior management experience in the engineering and automotive sectors.

He has served as Chief Executive and Vice President in a number of UK and American multinational manufacturing companies, both publicly quoted and private.

In 1995 he served as Chief Executive of Courtaulds Textiles Automotive Products, the automotive division of Courtaulds Textiles plc. The division supplied interior trim products into Europe and successfully exported directly into Japan.

In 1998 he was appointed President Europe and Asia Pacific for Safety Components Inc. the world’s largest independent manufacturer of automotive airbags.With plants in UK, Germany, Czech Republic and China and over 1,200 employees he led the successful transition of manufacturing into low cost countries.

At McKechnie plc he served as Chief Executive, Automotive. The division with sales of over £120m delivered highly engineered products into the Fuel Systems and Wheel Trim sectors. With 7 manufacturing plants and 2 Technical Centres in Europe and North America he again led a rationalisation and growth strategy improving operating margins in a highly competitive global environment.

Philip is a graduate in Production Engineering from Brunel University and fluent German speaker.

Chris Bladon

Senior Engineer

Chris has over 25 years engineering experience, and together with his twin brother Paul developed one of the world's first axial-flow micro jet engines – an innovation which led them to establish Bladon Jets.

Prior to this, Chris and Paul comprised the highly successful Bladon Brothers – a company with a world-wide reputation for motorcycle engine preparation and development.

Their customers included the Honda and Yamaha factory motorcycle racing teams and they were part of the design team for the Norton rotary powered motorcycle that captured the British land speed record in 1991.

*Sadly Paul Bladon died in 2008 after a long battle with cancer. However, his pioneering work in this unique technology is continued through his brother Chris and the rest of the Bladon Jets team.

Phill Heward

Principal Engineer

Phill has been successfully designing and building micro gas turbine engines for over 22 years.

As founding partner of Microjet Engineering Limited, he was the sole designer of all their turbo jet and turbo prop engines – used by customers world wide for model and micro light aircraft and for glider launch systems.

One of his engines recently powered a street luge to the world record speed of 112.7mph. Phill is a graduate in mechanical engineering from Sheffield University.

Adam Le Van

Finance Director

Adam is a qualified accountant with a MBA in International Trade & Marketing from the University of Birmingham.

As well as working for KPMG Mergers & Acquisition teams internationally, he has held a number of corporate development and start-up roles in UK / Europe and Australia, including as Finance Director of a new venture subsidiary of a FTSE 100 company, for which he wrote the original business plan.