Enterprise Thinking Scotland and Northern Ireland winner: Advanced Sensors
Advanced Sensors has been selected as a regional winner for Scotland and Northern Ireland in the HSBC Organization Thinking initiative. 
Following its nomination as a Scotland and Northern Ireland regional finalist and Imagined Exchange go to to the New York, Innovative Sensors has been declared a regional winner in the HSBC Enterprise Contemplating initiative.
Khalid Thabeth produced a strategic switch from the telecoms sector into oil and fuel instrumentation after the dotcom bubble burst in the early element of the previous decade.
Now his business Sophisticated Sensors says it is a planet industry leader in procedure management and environmental monitoring instruments for the oil and fuel business, supplying firms such as BP, Shell and ExxonMobil and oil providers groups which includes Halliburton and Schlumberger.
“I was striving to do a PhD in Aberdeen, in which I noticed some investigation currently being completed in the oil and gasoline sector which gave me the thought that there was an possibility there,” says the former Nortel Networks director.
“When the telecoms bubble burst, I jumped ship with a amount of colleagues and started out analysis. Then we formed Superior Sensors in 2005 to consider to commercialise some of that study.”
Employing 22 people in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, Sophisticated Sensors had a turnover of £6m final 12 months and Mr Thabeth, its president, believes that will double this 12 months.
“We’ve been doubling our turnover year-on-year for the past four years. It is becoming driven by exports. Some 95pc of almost everything we do is exported. Our equipment goes to Brazil, Colombia, the US, Canada, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Australia, the Middle East and South Africa.
“A market place we just lately opened up is India and we’re hunting at doing one thing equivalent in Venezuela but the massive markets we haven’t actually started to penetrate are Russia and China. We’re organizing to make some inroads there.”
The Scotland and Northern Ireland Company Considering award will carry accessibility to lending of up to £6m and a financial reward of up to £120,000.
“I come to feel a small overwhelmed,” said Mr Thabeth. “I was asked if I thought we had a chance and thought that we did.
“But I considered it would go to 1 of the other finalists due to the fact they have great stories that are just inspirational. I am taken aback that we won towards such exceptional competitors.”
He plans to use the funding to set up offices and probably some assembly operations in the US, the Middle East and other markets.
“We’ve acquired very efficient agents representing us in those regions but we now feel a require to have a presence of our personal,” he stated.