David Gill is an executive director of Carbon13 Group Ltd, the venture builder for the climate emergency, with operations in Cambridge and Berlin and a portfolio of over 100 start-ups each capable of reducing CO₂e emissions by 10MT per year when at scale. He was previously CEO of the St John’s Innovation Centre in Cambridge (2008-24).

David ran the Innovation & Technology Unit at HSBC Bank in London (1997-2004) and has been a director of venture-fund manager ET Capital Ltd since 2005.  

Educated at Cambridge, he was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple before working in corporate finance for US and UK banks. 

A Sloan Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in California (2004-05), he is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Manufacturing (University of Cambridge Department of Engineering).  He formerly served on the boards of both the UK and European incubator associations. 

In recent years, he has been involved in advisory and training projects on ecosystem development for Poland, Libya, Kuwait, Thailand and China, and projects for Innovate UK (the UK government innovation agency) focused on investment readiness for high-potential, innovative firms. His publications cover innovation ecosystems, entrepreneurial finance and business incubation.