New Project Director for Diamond-II

Matt Fletcher joined Diamond Light Source, the UK's national synchrotron on the 1st July in the position of Head of Programmes, to take on responsibility for driving the successful delivery of Diamond's full portfolio of projects, including Diamond-II in the role of Project Director.

Matt formerly held the position of Head of the Environmental Test Division at RAL Space where he was integral to the design and delivery of the National Satellite Test Facility – a world class set of co-located facilities for environmental testing of space payloads and satellites. He has also undertaken roles at other STFC facilities including 14 years at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source where he was Design Division Head with responsibility for the engineering design and delivery of the facility and serving as the Chair of the STFC Project Review Committee since 2012 (circa 60 projects totalling more than £1bn).

Gianluigi Botton, CEO of Diamond Light Source and Senior Responsible Officer for the Diamond-II upgrade programme concluded:

"Matt has strong commercial awareness and an extensive background in engineering and operations of complex facilities that gives us great confidence in his ability to take on the challenge of delivering our upgrade project. He brings a wealth of experience to Diamond in delivering large-scale programmes and has already integrated effectively with the structure of the organisation. He also brings best practices from other facilities that have run multiple complex projects, all this at a time when we move to the delivery phase of the Diamond-II project. I am also grateful to Richard Walker who has been interim Project Director for Diamond-II, for supporting a smooth transition with Matt, for taking the Diamond-II project to this stage and for the good progress made so far"

Provided by Diamond Light Source