Peter Folkman was appointed Chairman of the Nowgen Partnership Board in 2007. He is a venture capitalist. After graduating from Oxford University he studied in the USA for an MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. From there he worked for two American high-tech companies before joining the venture capital group 3i plc. He left 3i in 1989 to set up his own venture capital company, North of England Ventures. He was a member of the Council of the British Venture Capital Association. Peter served on the Council of The University of Manchester and was previously Chair of The Manchester Federal School of Business and Management. He holds a number of Non Executive Director positions including Chair of the Manchester Science Park and The Manchester Technology Fund, and is a non executive Director of the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust. He is a member of the Investment Panel of the Merseyside Special Investment Fund, a member of the Advisory Committee of the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change and an Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Manchester.