Meet the Team
EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT
Charles Curry
PROF CHARLES CURRY, BENG, CENG, FIET, FRIN, CHAIRMAN
Charles Curry is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN), and founder & Managing Director of Chronos Technology Ltd. Charles graduated in Electronics from Liverpool University in 1973 and started his career at GEC Hirst Research Centre working on silicon MOS boundary research, progressing to Racal Instruments where he was responsible for sales of test equipment including specialist frequency and time products such as Loran C and Caesium standards. Later with GSE Rentals, Charles was involved with some of the first civil GPS and laptop PC deployments into the North Sea offshore oil exploration industry during the early 1980s. He founded Chronos in 1986, a leading global system integrator, service solutions provider and manufacturer for synchronisation, timing, GNSS and GPS jamming, detection products based in the UK. Chronos has supplied and installed many thousands of GPS & Timing systems worldwide for mobile and fixed-line telecom operators. The Chronos Synchronisation MasterClass has been delivered to more than a 1000 delegates across the globe. Charles founded the International Timing & Sync Forum (ITSF) in 2001 and is past chairman of the Steering Group. He is also a member of the Workshop on Synchronization in the USA Telecommunications Systems (WSTS) Steering Group which meets annually. Charles is also a member of the Industry Advisory Boards for the Universities of Liverpool and Bath, Electrical and Electronics Faculties. In 2012 Charles was awarded Honorary Professorships from both the University of Bath, Faculty of Engineering & Design, Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering and the University of Liverpool, Department of Electrical Engineering & Electronics.
Joanne Akers
JOANNE AKERS, MANAGING DIRECTOR
Joanne joined Chronos in September 2001 from Fortis Insurance in Gloucester where she was responsible for 450 employees, initially as Personnel Officer before being promoted to Senior Personnel Officer after 18 months’ service.
Previously she was Personnel Officer for Gloucester based Dupont for 5 years. Joanne, who is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, is responsible for all the day to day business administration at Chronos.
Liz New
LIZ NEW, FINANCIAL CONTROLLER
Liz joined Chronos in February 2013 from Delphi Diesel Systems where she was Finance Manager. A qualified accountant, prior to Delphi Liz was Financial Controller with Stoneridge Pollak where she completed a postgraduate in Employment Law at the University of Surrey and qualified as MCIPD. Liz joined Stoneridge Pollak from Assureweb Ltd where she managed the transition of a small company into a division of a large corporation following the company’s sale. Earlier in her career Liz worked as an Operations Analyst for W H Smith News where she completed her MBA and prior to that she was Financial Controller and Company Secretary at Pirelli Power Transmissions.
Calum Dalmeny
CALUM DALMENY, BSC (HONS), CHIEF TECHNICAL OFFICER
Calum has nearly 40 years’ experience in the electronics industry, with 20 years’ experience specialising in all areas of timing and synchronisation for CNI market sectors. Over the years Calum has gained an in-depth knowledge of GNSS timing systems and a wide range of resilient PNT technologies.
Calum heads up the product development group within Chronos Technology and has direct responsibility for strategic direction and all R&D activities and serves as a member of the executive management team.
SALES & SALES SUPPORT
Steve Wells
STEVE WELLS, ACCOUNT MANAGER
Steve joined from Chronos’ major supply partner Microchip Inc, a leading timing and synchronisation manufacturer based in the USA, where he worked for nine years firstly as a sales engineer responsible for pre-sales support and then as Regional Sales Manager responsible for sales and business development for the EMEA region. Prior to this Steve was a network design engineer for Cable & Wireless responsible for core network sites and leading new design projects. He started his career in the Royal Signals where he spent seven years installing, maintaining and operating all types of telecommunications equipment and information systems.
Richard Elsmore
Richard Elsmore, Sales Support Engineer
Richard is part of the Chronos’ Sales Support Department with focus on Chronos products and the Microchip Frequency and Time portfolio. Rich works closely with customers on time & phase projects, demos and trials.
James Laing
James Laing, Account Manager
Jamie joined Chronos in March 2021 as Account Manager for the Microchip Frequency and Time portfolio and services and is responsible for some of our key UK customers as well as leading sales activities in Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. He joined Chronos from our longstanding customer Scottish Power where he was a customer facing Solutions Architect through Scottish Power’s carrier partners Thus, Vodafone UK and latterly Magdalene. Jamie has over 18 years’ experience in telecoms across a variety of client relationship and operational roles and brings a variety of technical knowledge across a wide portfolio of telecoms services.
Duncan Smith
Duncan Smith, Account Manager
Duncan’s career has been in telecoms from the onset, starting as Post Office telecom apprentice working on valve based relay sets. He has worked for multinational suppliers such as Ericsson, Alcatel, and Newbridge as well as two US-based start-ups in the Microwave world. He has experience of building and managing partners and resellers across APAC, Africa, Russia and the Middle East. He joined Chronos in 2014 and is responsible for business through our global network of partners and resellers. He also has a role in business development and marketing both in the UK and internationally.
Ian Cotts
Ian Cotts, Account Manager
Ian is Account Manager for GNSS, Government & Enterprise products within the Resilient Position, Navigation and Timing area of Chronos Technology with specific focus on GNSS vulnerabilities and mitigation, and our range of GNSS GPS repeater solutions and installations. With experience gained in the areas of Transportation, Air Traffic, Military and Civil Infrastructure he comes from a background in the GNSS Timing market and was previously Sales Engineer at Time & Frequency Solutions for five years.
Chris Boulton
Chris Boulton, Technical Sales Specialist
Chris joined Chronos in 2006 as an installation engineer. He moved to the sales team in 2014 as GNSS sales support engineer, helping design project specifications and advising on the equipment needed, along with working in many GNSS R&D projects. He also has a role as Customer Support Engineer.
Louise Davies
Louise Davies, Marketing Manager
Louise is part of the sales & marketing team and is responsible for website maintenance, SEO, public relations, customer communications, social media, and event management.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
John Lyons
JOHN LYONS, Engineering & Projects Manager
John started his telecommunications career in 1978 as an apprentice telecommunications engineer for Plessey. He has practical experience in TXE4A, System X, PDH, SDH, various network management and Intelligent Network (IN) platforms. Over the 21 years he was working for Plessey, GPT and Marconi Comms, he gained extensive commercial, technical and project management experience including involvement in strategic activities such as SLAs and chairing technical and performance review meetings with customers. His last role before joining Chronos was to manage Marconi’s international support contracts on switching and IN platforms. John joined Chronos in 1999 to head up the operations department and is responsible for pre-sales technical support, testing, installation and commissioning. He also project manages all live implementation and handover on all telecom contracts and systems.
Jason Meek
JASON MEEK, Customer Support Manager
Jason started his working life in the Armed Forces as a Signals and Rapier FSB2 operator in the Royal Artillery. Jason subsequently trained as a fibre optic and data installation engineer, working his way up to the position of Lead Project Engineer/Project Manager specialising in large scale private and government based installation projects. Jason has been a part of the Chronos Customer Support Team since 2006 and assumed the role of Customer Support Manager in 2017. His team is responsible for the 24/7 technical support of the network synchronisation hardware and software for many of the world’s largest and leading technology companies.
Darren Share
DARREN SHARE, CUSTOMER SUPPORT ENGINEER
Darren is part of our Customer Support Team. With over 20 years of IT technology experience, Darren provides technical assistance to our customers and helps maintain the reputation of this important Team.
Russell Jordan
Russell Jordan, Customer Support Engineer
Russell has been a part of the Chronos Customer Support Team since 2019. He is part of this important team which is responsible for the 24/7 technical support of the network synchronisation hardware and software for many of the world’s leading technology companies.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES & PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Chris Farrow
CHRIS FARROW, BSC (HONS), AMINSTP, MIET, TECHNICAL MANAGER
Chris has been “in sync” since the mid-1990s when he was involved in significant upgrades with the UK’s major network operators as they rolled out their first dedicated sync platforms. Chris joined Chronos from Marconi’s UK Technical Assistance Centre in January 2006. At Marconi Chris was a sync product specialist and emergency support engineer for Marconi’s entire product portfolio from PSTN to optical and packet. At Chronos Chris is responsible for professional synchronisation services including delivery of the Synchronisation MasterClass, Sync Audit, and Network Architecture Planning & Consultancy for customers rolling out 5G networks. He participates in the ITU Study Group 15, Question 13 (synchronisation) which sets the standards for sync in telecommunications.
Chris holds an Honours degree in Physics & Electronics from UMIST – the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology.
Ian Smith
IAN SMITH, PRODUCT MANAGER
Ian is responsible for managing the development and outsourced manufacturing of Chronos’ own range of products. He joined from Kohler Mira and prior to that Rank Xerox where he held various Quality Assurance, Supply Management and Product Management roles over a period of twenty years. He holds a Degree in Electrical/Electronic Engineering from the Polytechnic of Wales.
Tony Flavin
TONY FLAVIN, MIET, MANAGER - STRATEGIC RESEARCH
Tony joined the Post Office Research department (later to become BT) as an apprentice in 1974 and started his career in electronic and semiconductor design for early digital transmission systems. Later he helped develop the first optical fibre networks, before specialising in SDH and network synchronisation. He represented BT’s interests globally at ETSI and ITU for SDH and OTN/DWDM transport systems and gained experience across network design, procure, test, development and rollout. In the later years with BT he was responsible for BT’s Timing platforms supporting frequency time and phase across all of its platform domains. At Chronos, Tony is responsible for strategic research, technical support within the research projects and helping new products to emerge into the marketplace.