Britain’s Keith Jackson Named Top Corporate Director

Keith Jackson, the chief executive of Sheffield healthcare company JRI Orthopaedics, has been named the UK’s top Mid-Market company director.

The company, JRI Orthopaedic, is Britain’s largest orthopedic manufacturer, wholly owned by the charity Orthopaedic Research UK (ORUK). It has donated £12m over the last 10 years to fund research into bone and joint disease at centers of excellence across the country.

Upon receiving the award, Jackson said: “I am absolutely delighted to receive this award from the Institute of Directors. My inspiration comes from the thousands upon thousands of patients who benefit from the transforming implants that JRI Orthopaedics precision manufactures here in the UK. It is truly an honor to run such a fantastic British company.”

After graduating from the University of Leeds with a degree in mechanical engineering, Professor Jackson spent the first five years of his career as a design engineer for car manufacturer Jaguar. After a year of voluntary work in Africa, he returned to the UK to achieve an MSc in biomedical engineering.

A Chartered Mechanical Engineer and a Fellow of both the IMechE and the Institute of Directors, Professor Jackson worked in sales, product development and management at JRI Orthopaedics before becoming Chief Executive in 2010.

In 2015, he was appointed as the IoD’s branch chairman for South Yorkshire and this month also took up the position of Visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.