James E Brathwaite, CBE

Chairman of SEEDA

Jim is Chairman of SEAL Ltd an environmental company based in Burgess Hill, whose equipment is used to test nearly all the drinking water in the UK. He is also Chairman of four other small businesses in Sussex, Community Alerts, Morgan Everett and the local radio stations in Worthing, Splash FM, and Brighton, Brighton and Hove Radio Ltd. He is also a director of RSTV Ltd in Maidstone. After graduating in Zoology and Physiology at Sheffield University, Jim's early career was in accountancy, marketing and sales with Beecham and Bayer Pharmaceuticals until he started his own business designing training videos for industry in 1982. This led him on to form Epic Interactive Media in Brighton in 1989, which he built up to become one of Europe's largest multimedia companies, and a listed company, employing 150 staff. He floated the company in 1996 becoming Britain's first Black CEO of a publicly quoted company.

He was appointed to the Board of SEEDA the Development Agency for the South East of England in December 2001 and in August 2002 was appointed Chairman. Jim is a member of the Court of the Sussex University, the DTI's Manufacturing Forum and Small Business Investment Taskforce, Strategic Supply Chain Group, and until April 2006 DEFRA's Sustainable Procurement Taskforce, and until June 2005 of the UK Trade and Investment's International Trade Development Advisory Panel, when he was then appointed to the new International Business Advisory Panel until October 2006. From June 2006 he became a member of the DTI’s Environmental Innovations Advisory Group and from November 2006 became a member of DeFRA's Commission on Environmental Markets and Economic Performance. He is a director of the University of Greenwich, Farnham Castle Trustees Ltd, Environment Agency, Public Catalogue Foundation, and until August 2004, was a director of the National Business Angels Network Ltd.

Jim was a member of the national Small Business Council until June 2004, with responsibility for dealing with the Inland Revenue, and of the government's Export Advisory Committee for the 'Americas', and the DTI's Investment Committee until March 2006. He was a director of Sussex TEC Ltd from April 1993, which then became Sussex Enterprise in 1995, and he remained on the board until December 2002. He was the founding Chairman of Business Link Sussex, holding the post from 1996-2001, and also a founding Director of 'Wired Sussex'. He has been: Treasurer of the Caribbean Advisory Group at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Chairman of the Arundel Festival; Governor of Brighton & Hove 6th Form College; a member of the Council of the University of Sussex. He is also Patron of the Asian Business Council. He was awarded the CBE for services to the Sussex economy in the New Year's Honours 2001. He was also awarded an Honorary Degree from University College Chichester in 2003 and became an Honorary Fellow of City & Guilds in February 2006 and a Councillor in September 2006.

Jim lives in Angmering, with his wife Barbara and their four children. His interests include music, skiing and watching all sport especially football and Man Utd.