The chairman of Tyneside subsea robotics firm Soil Machine Dynamics is among nine others to join the board of the newly established Global Underwater Hub, tasked with growing the UK's £8bn subsea industry.
Mike Jones, who has worked for SMD for more than 29 years in various roles including design engineer, project manager, managing director and CEO, is part of an "exceptionally strong" board that will help steer the organisation, which was born out of Subsea UK last year.
Mr Jones joins Sue Barr, chair of the Marine Energy Council; Rear Admiral Paul Halton, director submarine support in the Royal Navy, and Zander Bruce, subsea operations manager at bp North Sea, among others.
