Wayne Harburn

Wayne started his career in the energy market in New York in 1990 and during the next 18 years worked in Singapore, Hong Kong and finally London. He held the position of European Head of Commodities Trading for BNP Paribas from 1998 to 2004 and after that he went on to build ABN Amro’s commodity business as Global Head of Commodities Trading for ABN Amro NV.  After retiring from banking, Wayne was one of the founders of the Corniche Group and as COO from 2007 till 2012 directed Corniche through the sale of Soho House as well as the purchase and building of London’s Bulgari hotel. During that time, he also directed Corniche’s purchase and sale of a South American copper mine. Wayne took a two year sabbatical after leaving Corniche and spent the time flying a helicopter around Europe.

In 2011, Wayne turned to his childhood passion of robotics, and founded his first drones (UAV) business – H Robotics where he was the CEO and Chief Designer and Architect as well as the builder of autonomous vehicles for industrial use.

He invented the H Frame HiSight aerial drone, the LoSight terrain autonomous vehicle and the HydroSight marine autonomous vehicle. He also designed and built all the software systems for H Robotics as well as the control system and the data management Flight Cloud. He is a qualified drone pilot and a qualified helicopter pilot.

Wayne comes from an entrepreneurial family which built a significant construction firm in Perth Australia where he first learned how to build industrial tools and structures.   He has been working on physical hardware and software since the 1980s.

H Robotics was shortlisted for the National Technology Award for 2020. Wayne also designed the drone system that won the Award for Innovation at COGX 2020.