Arnab follows in father’s footsteps

Jul 23 2007 by James Barton, The Journal

The desire to emulate his father’s achievements and strike out on his own led Dr Arnab Basu to turn his back on a lucrative career in Calcutta and begin a journey which sees him now at the head of a successful Durham company. James Barton met him.

ARNAB Basu grew up watching his father build an engineering company from scratch to employ 120 staff in Calcutta in the early 1980s.

Basu’s father studied materials science in Manchester during the 1960s and rose to become a senior manager for British engineering company Cooksons at its plant in India.

He recalls fondly: “It was very inspiring to witness my father take a risk when he had already achieved so much in his career and launch a business that went on to become so successful.”

Basu was proud to follow in his father’s footsteps, going into the family business after university in Calcutta before winning an overseas scholarship to Northumbria University to study engineering in 1996.

“I wanted to get the same satisfaction out of life that my father enjoyed,” he explains, “and I realised I was never going to get that being the boss’s son, people were judging me because of my father’s position. I realised what I was looking for would only come from striking out on my own and building something from nothing, as he had done.”

So Basu resolved to embark on his own journey of self-fulfilment and landed in the North-East keen to make his mark.

Despite speaking three languages fluently, including English, at first Basu couldn’t understand North-East accents.

He says: “When I first came as a student in Newcastle, I struggled to understand the accent. I will never forget the man who came to install my phone in Newcastle who told me I spoke English like the Queen.

“It sounds a cliche but although I found the accent hard to understand at first, it was very telling to me just how warm and friendly the people were. It was a really good experience to be a student in the North-East.”

Basu worked hard, achieving first-class honours in engineering and studying for a PhD in physics at Durham University, where his thesis won the coveted Russell Grant prize for the best thesis in solid state physics.

“Although I enjoyed student life because of my background, I did approach my work as if it was a paid job and I was very focused on getting the most out of my academic experiences,” he remembers.

Basu became fascinated with the idea of commercialising leading technological developments and identifying how best research and development might work together to spin out into a successful business proposition.

While completing his PhD, Basu’s unique blend of commercial awareness and academic prowess were spotted by North Shields business Elmwood Sensors, a manufacturer of electronic temperature sensors, where he was offered work at the same time as completing his doctorate.

Basu’s relationship with Durham University’s research group also blossomed and he was retained as a consultant by the university to act as an ambassador, regularly travelling back to India lecturing students on the benefits of studying in the North-East and how to get the best from their experiences.

He explains: “I used to present on Durham University at various British Councils in India, promoting life in the North-East.”

On completion of his doctorate in 2002, Basu was offered a heavyweight investment banking job in London and was preparing to leave the region, possibly forever, when he was approached by leading figures in the university’s technology transfer department.

Professor Brian Tanner, founder of scientific measurement spin-out company Bede, and Dr Andy Brinkman, head of the university research group, approached Basu to head up a new spin-out company, Durham Scientific Crystals (DSC) focused on the production of crystals used in X-ray imaging.

Basu explains: “I knew of the exciting developments the university had made in the use of cadmium telluride crystals used in the highly sensitive X-ray imaging process.”

It has long been known that the properties inherent in these crystals lend themselves to vastly improving the digital images generated from X-ray scanning. The applications of this technology span industrial, medical and security sectors and have an estimated combined commercial value of about £20bn a year.

Historically the problem has been harnessing their potential because the manufacturing process of the crystals has been time consuming and hugely expensive.

The new DSC process makes production cheaper and the crystals are smaller and better quality than they have ever been before.

Basu quickly understood the significance of the opportunity presented to him and, although it in effect represented a huge pay cut, the long-term potential of heading up DSC was too tempting. Like his father before him, he was at the helm of a business he would be starting from scratch.

“Seldom do you come across something that has the potential to have such a huge impact,” he enthuses. “Everyone on the planet could potentially be touched in some way by the technology developed here at DSC. It cannot only see through things and identify the shape of objects, but can also identify types of material.”

The implications of this are significant, materials such as plastic explosives could be quickly identified by more precise X-ray digital imaging technology and types of cancer could be detected much earlier.

“We have been in talks in the US with regard to targeting the security sector.

“It will be a key market for us in the current climate.”

Basu’s background has served him well to control the disparate forces of commerce and academia and achieve the best results. He has guided DSC, now based at the NetPark near Sedgefield, through several rounds of funding since taking the helm, raising over £3m from private investors to support the development process. As well as negotiating for research money with big business, he oversees a team of physics experts from Durham University.

Basu is able to identify with both groups and believes receiving respect from both commercial and technical sides is a key element to the success so far of the business.

He expands: “If you take a strictly commercial view, yes, it can be frustrating dealing with technicians in academia who tend to work at their own pace.

“But what one has to remember is their motivations are different and those motivations must be respected as a vital part of the development process. Academia is there to promote free thinking and to take science forward.

“But in my role as chief executive, it is all about money, making sure wages are paid at the end of every month. My job is to provide an environment where free-thinking can prosper but also that deadlines and other commercial objectives are met. Because of my background, I speak the language of both groups.”

Basu often chairs meetings between the university research group and DSC, which can result in tension with the more commercially focused DSC staff always wanting to get things moving. “But I think as long as there is a common goal, there is always a way to work together effectively,” he remarks.

The company has a number of private shareholders. Principal among them is US technology investor Amphion Innovations, and Basu believes their continued support has come through DSC hitting all its development targets so far.

“We have a number of commercial contracts with niche customers like the US Space Agency and locally with Cenamps (Centre of Excellence for Nano, Micro and Photonics Systems) where we supply them with a limited quantity of our crystal material and we have always delivered on time.”

But Basu has shrewdly steered the business away from becoming simply a materials company and is instead looking to develop the equipment that will best utilise the crystals’ properties.

“It has been very much a conscious decision to build more value into the business by prototyping the detection systems (used to produce a much-enhanced digital image) that rely on our crystals and we are in talks with a number of major international businesses to license out our technology so they can develop bigger complex machines that will best use those detection systems.”

By doing this, DSC is able to keep control of the development process which will enable it to retain enough unique knowledge (often referred to as intellectual property) to fully benefit from the new sector it hopes to create.

“The first level of detection mechanisms we aim to produce from early 2008 and the licensed agreements to develop more complex machines should be in place soon so that production can be begin over the next two years,” he explains.

So with the success achieved so far with DSC and the potential for the business, does Basu feel that he has stepped out of his father’s shadow?

“Absolutely,” he exclaims proudly, “it is not for me to say how my father feels, but I know that he is happy with my achievements in the UK.”

His father at 72 has now retired and sold his business several years ago.

“It is strange that now I have settled here in Durham that when I go back to India I feel almost like an alien in my own country. The pace of development, both economic and social, is so fast now in India that the country I remember is no longer one that exists, I am in effect living in the past.

“Even popular culture in India has completely transformed and I no longer recognise the music that is played when I return there to see my family.”

Basu has a Belgian wife and a 10-month-old son and loves his adopted home here in Durham and claims to harbour no regrets about turning his back on London.

“Everything I love is here, I may have taken a huge cut in earnings when I took over DSC, but I enjoy the excitement of steering a company at early stage development and being on the verge of something so potentially huge is a unique experience,” he says with his characteristically inexhaustible enthusiasm.

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CV

Doctor Arnab Basu

Age: 34.

1989 - 1992 Calcutta University, India. Graduated with first-class honours degree in science.

1992 - 1995 Akrun Metallurgicals, Calcutta, India. Various management roles in father’s company.

1996 - 1998 Northumbria University. Graduated with a first-class honours degree in engineering.

1998 - 2002 Durham University. PhD in physics, thesis awarded Russell Grant prize for the best thesis in solid state physics.

1998 - 2002 Held technical role with Elmwood Sensors, North Shields.

2003 - Present Durham Scientific Crystals (DSC), NetPark, Sedgefield. Chief executive officer.

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The questionnaire

What car do you drive?

VW Passat Estate.

What’s your favourite restaurant?

Coyote Café, Santa Fe, USA, and nearer home Café 21, Newcastle.

Who or what makes you laugh?

Chris Moyles.

What’s your favourite book?

A Wall of the Plague by Andre Brink.

What’s your favourite film?

The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

What was the last album you bought?

Paolo Nutini, New Shores.

What’s your ideal job, other than your current one?

Wine grower in Bourgogne.

If you had a talking parrot, what’s the first thing you’d teach it to say?

It’s a great day out there, make the most of it.

What’s your greatest fear?

Regret later for not spending enough time with my family.

What’s the best piece of business advice you have ever received?

Cash is king.

Worst business advice?

A year into Durham Scientific Crystals (DSC): "DSC should have a mission statement".

l What’s your poison?

Blonde Belgian beer and a good bottle of Bourgogne red.

What newspaper do you read, other than The Journal?

Financial Times.

How much was your first pay packet and what was it for?

450 rupees (about £5) as a typist in our family business when I was 14.

How do you keep fit?

I don’t – running DSC and having a 10-month-old son doesn’t leave you with much time. Does golf count?

What’s your most irritating habit?

State of my desk.

What’s your biggest extravagance?

Every holiday – when I have one.

Which historical or fictional character do you most identify with/admire?

People who made a real positive difference – Wright Brothers, Francis Crick (discovered DNA) and numerous others.

And which four famous people would you most like to dine with?

Juliette Binoche, Bill Gates, Jon Snow (Channel 4) and Heston Blumenthal (owner of The Fat Duck, the famous three-Michelin-starred restaurant).

How would you like to be remembered?

I will still be here for a long time to come.