niab roger carline

Roger Carline

Crop research organisation NIAB has appointed Dr Roger Carline as commercial director.

Carline joined East Malling Research, now known as NIAB EMR, as managing director of its commercial subsidiary East Malling Services, in 2013.

He is credited with a long history of profitable and high-value business creation based on the outputs of research activity. This includes start-up creation, senior director and non-executive roles in high-tech SMEs and product and service creation in small and large organisations for sectors ranging from electronics, telecoms and aerospace through to food ingredients and agri-tech.

He has also spent a decade as a researcher, undertaking various advisory roles for business, academia and government.

Chief executive Dr Tina Barsby said:“NIAB is the UK’s fastest-growing crop science organisation, having trebled in size over the past decade through our strategic programme of investment, merger and acquisition. Roger is a tremendous asset to the organisation and, in the new post of commercial director, will play a central role in NIAB’s plans to further expand its commercial activities, including developing joint ventures and collaborations across industry, leading to a doubling of our scientific strength by 2025.”

Carline added: “This is a very exciting time to be joining The NIAB Group, which combines world-class research, innovation and leading-edge scientific services and products, delivered with the quality and efficiency that are essential to meet the growing expectations of customers across the public and private sectors.

'My immediate focus in this new role is to ensure that current customers continue to benefit from NIAB services, but this is a great opportunity to forge new connections across the marketplace as we continue to develop our activities in genetics, precision agronomy and data science.”