Cameron Paterson
Cameron moved South after graduation in 1984, and is now in his 34th year in the Motor Industry. Joining Ford as a graduate trainee at their Dunton Engineering Centre in Essex, he spent the first 17 years alternating between various engineering and project management roles, including foreign service assignments in Belgium and the USA. His last role at Ford was as Head of the Electrical Engineering department in the UK — back where he had started as a graduate. Needing then to escape the large corporate culture for a while, he left Ford in 2002 and joined TWR (Tom Walkinshaw Racing) for what proved to be a fascinating, if short lived experience, ending when the business went into administration in 2003. A very educational experience! Cameron then joined Bentley Motors in Crewe, Cheshire (yes, gradually working his way back North!) and has spent the last 14 years working for this iconic luxury car brand, which has been part of the VW Group since 1998. He spent the last 4 years as Director of Whole Vehicle Engineering, and has very recently taken up a new post as Director of Technical Conformity — a new and fascinating position, created within all VW Group Brands as part of the fallout from “Dieselgate”.
A passionate and experienced automotive business leader, Cameron is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the IET (Institution of Engineering & Technology). He is also a great advocate of the imperative to get more young people into Engineering, and sits on the Board of the recently opened (and Bentley sponsored) University Technical College in Crewe. Finally, he also misses Edinburgh hugely, and was delighted in 2016 to come back to the University and bring a team (& of course some cars) from Bentley to sponsor the Engineering Careers Fair.