Tony McBride, IOP Director of Policy and Public Affairs

As well as overseeing the IOP’s policy work, and our work in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Tony is the executive lead for our net zero pathway and the Challenge Fund. He is also the executive lead for the IOP’s Productivity Programme, which seeks to ensure the UK and Ireland can realise the full benefits of a new industrial era, powered by science, technology and engineering.

Before joining the IOP full time in 2020, Tony had worked in the UK non-governmental sector for more than 20 years, gaining experience of designing and implementing successful strategies for influencing national and international decision-makers.

Tony first came to the IOP in 2018 as interim director of policy and public affairs and helped to develop a new five-year strategy for the organisation. At this time, he was running Futura Consulting Ltd, which he set up to help charity leaders develop and deploy their organisations’ powers of influence. During this period Tony worked with the British Academy, the Microbiology Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Federation of European Academies of Medicine, as well as the IOP.

Before setting up Futura Consulting, Tony was director of the Science Policy Centre at the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science, and a senior policy advisor at the CBI, the UK’s leading business organisation. He also held positions at the Charities Aid Foundation, YoungMinds and the Haemophilia Society.