Pragmatic Semiconductor appointed Dr Paul James as its Executive Vice President (EVP) Manufacturing and Operations on 8 September 2026, effective immediately. The Cambridge headquartered company is one of the very few volume producers of NFC chips in the UK, so a hire pointed squarely at scaling manufacturing capacity matters to anyone specifying NFC inlays, labels or smart packaging.
Pragmatic designs and manufactures FlexICs, ultra-thin flexible integrated circuits built on a thin-film process on a flexible substrate rather than conventional bulk silicon CMOS. That process difference is the basis of the company’s claims on cost, cycle time and environmental impact. Its RFID relevant products are NFC Connect, a near-field connectivity line launched in March 2025 for item-level intelligence in mass-market goods, and NFC Protect, a tamper detection part used in applications such as anti-counterfeiting for cosmetics. Both are made at Pragmatic Park in Meadowfield, County Durham, which houses the UK’s first 300mm semiconductor fabrication line and is intended to become the highest-volume semiconductor manufacturing facility in the UK, with capacity to produce billions of chips a year. The company also runs R&D and production at Sedgefield.
A fab operations career, aimed at ramp
Dr James is a PhD-trained physicist with 25 years in the semiconductor sector, covering fab operations, technology transfers, industrialisation and business transformation, plus senior roles in engineering, commercial strategy and site leadership. He spent his most recent 10 years as Managing Director of Vishay Newport Limited, formerly Nexperia, where he led the site’s move from IDM to independent foundry. An IDM, or integrated device manufacturer, designs and makes its own chips end to end; an independent foundry instead manufactures wafers to order for other companies’ designs, which is a different commercial and operational discipline. He also restructured the site’s commercial and operational capabilities. Earlier senior technical and operational roles span MAX I.E.G, Plessey Semiconductors and Zarlink Semiconductor.
David Moore, CEO of Pragmatic Semiconductor, said: “I am delighted to welcome Paul to Pragmatic. His depth of high-volume semiconductor manufacturing and operational leadership, together with his experience of successfully leading complex industrial transformation, makes him an outstanding addition to our leadership team. Paul joins at an important point in our continued growth to lead our manufacturing operations at Pragmatic Park, our flagship production site in the North East of England, as we expand capacity, strengthen operational excellence and scale our unique and sustainable manufacturing to meet increasing global customer demand.”
James said: “I am thrilled to be joining the Pragmatic team at such an exciting time in its 16-year journey. The innovative flexible semiconductor 300mm technology is truly revolutionary with many advantages over standard Silicon processing including cost, cycle time and environmental impact. I look forward to working with the talented team to accelerate the next phase of growth and technology development in the UK’s only 300mm semiconductor fab.”
Following the ramp-up phase
James succeeds Shane Geary, who held the role for nearly three years and oversaw the official opening of the site and the ramp of high-volume manufacturing and production. Pragmatic framed the handover as the start of a phase focused on scaling capacity to meet customer demand, which reads as a shift of emphasis from getting a new fab running to getting more chips out of it.
The capacity behind that ambition was funded in December 2023, when Pragmatic raised GBP 162 million. The UK Infrastructure Bank, now the National Wealth Fund, provided GBP 60 million of direct equity alongside M&G’s Catalyst, Northern Gritstone, LocalGlobe, Evolution Partners, British Patient Capital, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Prosperity7 Ventures. The expansion was expected to support or create 500 highly skilled jobs. On 26 August 2026 the company’s NFC product portfolio took the RFID Product Gold Prize at the IOTE 2026 Innovation Awards.
More coverage of near-field products and the companies making them is in our NFC and manufacturer sections.
