Dr Peter Ainsworth joined NHSIL in August 2009 as an Intellectual Property Manager after working for Imperial Innovations where he was responsible for commercialization of intellectual property from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Faculty of Engineering of Imperial College London.  He also managed Imperial Innovations proof-of-concept funding scheme.

Following his PhD in Organic Chemistry from Imperial College, Peter worked as a medicinal chemist at Smithkline Beecham Pharmaceuticals before doing an MBA.  After completion of his MBA he established the Technology Transfer Office at University of East Anglia where he we worked with regional collaborators to secure funding and setup the Iceni Seedcorn Fund before moving to Imperial Innovaitons.