After 35 years deploying frontier technologies into production — from automotive electronics through vehicle electrification to battery systems — I founded Afseth Millar to provide independent, technically grounded advice and the practical support to act on it.
I am an electronics engineer by training and a technology leader by practice. Over thirty-five years I have worked at the sharp end of deploying emerging technologies into production — automotive electronics in the 1990s, electrical architecture and electrification in the 2000s, and battery systems from the 2010s onwards. Each was the frontier technology of its era.
The common thread is not any single technology. It is the gap between what the science promises, what currently exists, and what it takes to actually deliver. That gap is where I work.
In 2026 I was appointed Professor of Practice in Materials at the University of Oxford, working with Professor Nicole Grobert's Nanomaterials by Design group. It is the latest step in a decade spent working across the industry–academia interface — from the Faraday Institution's Expert Panel assessing UK battery research, to co-founding the Oxford Advanced Materials Network, to this formal appointment in the Department of Materials.
After fifteen years leading large multidisciplinary teams across some of the most technically demanding electrification programmes in the UK and internationally — from the Jaguar C-X75 and Formula E battery systems to electrified haul trucks for the mining sector — I could see the landscape shifting again.
Every decade of my career has been defined by a different frontier technology reaching the point of deployment. Automotive electronics in the 1990s, electrification in the 2000s, batteries in the 2010s. The next wave — AI-driven approaches to materials discovery, battery diagnostics, and energy system optimisation — is already forming. I wanted to be positioned at that intersection, free to work across the full landscape.
Afseth Millar exists to provide independent, technically grounded advice and the practical support to turn it into action — with the freedom to go where the technology leads.
The detail matters because it is the basis for the advice. This is not a consultancy built on secondhand knowledge.
The energy transition is generating an enormous volume of investment, policy commitment, and corporate strategy. The demand for independent, technically deep assessment far outstrips the supply. There simply aren't enough people with first-hand engineering experience who are also positioned to provide genuinely independent advice.
Afseth Millar was founded to help close that gap. We combine first-hand engineering experience with commercial and strategic rigour, delivered with genuine independence. Our advice is led by the evidence, not by commercial alignment.
That independence is the foundation of everything we do.
Depth across the technologies and markets that matter to our clients.
Whether it's a specific technical challenge or a strategic question you need a straight answer to — let's talk.
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