Christopher Saunders – a truly remarkable entrepreneur
There was little Christopher didn’t know about how to build a company; more importantly he was always happy to share experiences and knowledge with others struggling with the finer facets of growing a business.
Christopher was that rare breed among early entrepreneurs – a brilliant academic and an astute businessman. He had true Oxbridge brilliance, mingling the light and dark blue effortlessly. Christopher read chemistry at Oxford, then did an MBA at Harvard Business School in Boston, Mass. before returning in 1950 to work for Pest Control Ltd – a pioneering agricultural chemical firm later bought by Fisons.
He was sent by the company to Australia and New Zealand for a spell, returning in 1958 to Fisons Pest Control in Cambridge where he became UK Marketing Manager.
Discovering that four people were doing 2 ½ people’s jobs, Christopher left in December 1966 to join McKinsey & Co, the management consultants, just starting out in London.
Then, in 1959, he and Malcolm Boston decided to set up Torvac, a vacuum engineering company, to produce high vacuum research and industrial systems. Christopher was a non exec director and investor.
After five years with McKinsey, he returned to Cambridge to work full time in Torvac. By this time the company was producing furnaces and electron beam welders.
Torvac bred several spin-outs, including Wentgate and Tecvac, and survived the ’70s recession and beyond before being sold to a plc. The company was identified in Segal Quince Wicksteed's study of The Cambridge Phenomenon as one of the original Cambridge Phenomenon companies.
After leaving Torvac, Christopher became a heavily hands-on and highly productive business angel, working with others and described himself as 'conducting the choir of business angels.'
Companies that benefited from his unique blend of pragmatism and enthusiasm included Astron Clinica and Applied Scintillation Technologies.
Back in 1996, he and two others – Walter Herriot and Dr Elisabeth Garnsey – developed the idea of the Cambridge Enterprise Conference, which aimed to bring together different communities interested and involved in early stage companies.
Participants included academics, whose technical developments were the seeds of the new products; policymakers who could create a positive or negative environment for early stage companies to develop; business professionals that serviced the early stage sector from lawyers to accountants to PR people; and entrepreneurs themselves.
Visitors to the conference regularly changed or added hats, so an entrepreneur would become a business angel and business adviser or an academic an entrepreneur as they founded a company. The Conference gained global recognition with speakers and delegates from every continent; winners of its business plan competitions have gone on to become well recognised names such as Brain Juicer and Fresh Minds.
Other contributions to Cambridge life included coaching rowing at Pembroke and King’s Colleges as well as being host and chairman of AMBA, the East of England's Association of MBAs. Christopher was father to three entrepreneurs – Philip Saunders, Kate Kirk and Lucy Saunders. One of the business people he helped – John Batten – contacted the family to express his sorrow at Christopher’s passing and gratitude for his early advice.
John told them: “Christopher helped me raise funds for my startup company Transmo Ltd. My vision was to develop a smart card that could be used by children on buses and for school meals. Hertfordshire County Council adopted it and later many more counties used it for bus fares. It was the forerunner of the Oyster card used by London Transport.”
• Christopher will be cremated at Cambridge Crematorium at 1 pm on Tuesday February 20, with a memorial tea afterwards at the Crown House Hotel, Great Chesterford. The family would like people to be get in touch to share stories about him.
Email Lucy Saunders – lucy.saunders@mahseer.co.uk
