Background and Career Journey

David Tetlow grew up in a family deeply rooted in the UK steel industry. His great-grandfather, grandfather, and father all worked in steelmaking around Manchester, which shaped his early outlook. If the industry had survived, he believes he would have followed them into it. Instead, as the industry collapsed in the 1980s, his family moved frequently with his father’s work, (Manchester, Kent, Scunthorpe, Cardiff), instilling resilience and adaptability at a young age.

Encouraged by his father to pursue higher education, David studied and gained a degree in Engineering in Nottingham, where he developed a strong interest in sustainable infrastructure and renewable technologies. He went on to complete a PhD in Applied Energy Engineering, specialising in renewable energy systems and efficiency optimisation. Alongside his studies, David gained early business experience by working part-time in telecoms sales and buying and renovating properties to support himself; an early indication of his entrepreneurial mindset.

Graduating in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis, David initially struggled to find a stable role, spending two years teaching secondary school maths before returning to academia. At the University of Nottingham, he became known as a reliable project deliverer, skilled at coordinating complex UK and EU-funded R&D projects across multiple partners. However, he became disillusioned with the university culture, pursuing funding and publications without driving technologies to market. This experience reinforced his conviction that engineering innovation should go beyond theory and be taken “to the top of the tree”, all the way to commercial impact.

Personal challenges during this period, including the sudden loss of his mother and raising two young children, further clarified his priorities. He wanted meaningful work, trust-based partnerships, and the chance to build solutions that mattered in the real world.

From 2017 onward, David worked increasingly with external partners, including Paul Kerby of PAK Engineering. Their collaboration grew through projects such as Project Welfare, where David’s organisational strengths and Paul’s technical focus complemented each other. By 2020, disillusioned with the bureaucracy of local government and academia, David joined Paul full-time. Together they set out a vision: to select promising technologies, build a structured project portfolio targeting key industries, and take them step by step through technology readiness levels until they became commercially viable.

That philosophy underpins Global Solutions Ltd today. David, as Operations Director, ensures projects move beyond ideas into delivery. His role is to align stakeholders, manage complex partnerships, and keep initiatives on track, always with the goal of building technologies that are not just clever, but scalable, repairable, and impactful.

In addition to his work at Global Solutions, David volunteers as a mentor through a government-sponsored programme, supporting aspiring engineers and entrepreneurs as they develop their careers and bring their own innovations to life.