AWARD-winning waste analytics company Topolytics has strengthened its senior management team with the formal appointment of Jane Stewart as a non-executive director.
A qualified chartered accountant, Jane has spent decades in the fields of investment, corporate finance, venture capital and private equity across Europe having worked for Baird Capital, SDF s and EY. Most recently she was strategy director and formerly chief financial officer at William Tracey Group, a leading waste recycling and resource management company. Here she was an instrumental part of the leadership team which scaled the business rapidly through organic growth, acquisitions and alliances prior to a successful private equity sale in 2017 . She is also chair of Zero Waste Scotland’s Circular Economy Investment Fund.
On joining Edinburgh-based Topolytics, Jane said: “Having worked with Topolytics over the past two years in an advisory board capacity, I am delighted to formally come on board as a non-executive director at such an exciting stage in Topolytics growth. Currently, over 70% of waste resource globally ends up in landfill or leaks into the environment. Through aggregating and analysing waste data at scale our technology creates greater visibility of the waste system and resources generating insights which enable organisations to unlock the value in the material and improve the outcomes for waste resources. My key role will be to guide the firm on strategy, funding and international expansion. The Topolytics platform is truly global and we are currently seeing huge potential in Asia and the Americas.”
Last year Topolytics was awarded a contract from DEFRA (Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs) to work with the Ordnance Survey to create a system to monitor and track all of the UK’s waste; this involves tracking more than 20 million movements of waste from their sources through to final processing or disposal.
In 2019, the firm also won the Google Cloud and SAP global Circular Economy 2030 Contest. Topolytics beat off 250 companies to win the accolade judged to be the best revenue-generating proposition that can unlock $4.5 trillion of new economic output through waste and pollution reduction. The firm has also been recognised by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation as a global circular economy innovator, by Cleantech Group as one of the leading ‘smart waste’ companies and was recently a semi-finalist in the Plastic Data Challenge which sought to advance plastic waste management and the circular economy in South and Southeast Asia.
Dr Michael Groves, CEO at Topolytics said: “Jane is an invaluable member of our senior management team. Not only is she highly skilled in finance and corporate strategy but she has an intimate knowledge of the waste and recycling sector through her work with the William Tracey Group and Zero Waste Scotland.”
