BOB Coxon has been instrumental in changing the fortunes of the region and, in particular, the Tees Valley.

As chief executive of Synetix, he was head of a world-renowned catalyst business, building it up to employ more than 1,000 staff, including 400 at its Billingham head office, before its sale by ICI to Johnson Matthey for £260m last year.

He has since been moved upstairs at ICI, a company he originally joined in 1970 after obtaining a university degree in engineering at Brunel University, to become its senior vice president.

He is one of the candidates in line to take over as chairman of regional development agency One NorthEast, when a successor to Dr John Bridge is appointed in July.

Mr Coxon is already a board member of the agency, and is chairman of one of its new Centres of Excellence - the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), which will look after the interests of businesses working in the process industry, from food companies to chemical and pharmaceutical giants.

One NorthEast is working with business leaders and the region's universities to establish five such centres, to help plug the skills gap and try to ensure that the region retains its fair share of graduates.

They include Mr Coxon's CPI, as well as Centres of Excellence in renewable energy, life sciences, nanotechnology and digital and multi-media.

There will be a sixth centre, designed to bring together financial experts and venture capitalists, to help turn the processes and inventions thought up in the centres into marketable ideas, helping to generate new business opportunities.

Mr Coxon said: "The five centres of excellence represent an exciting opportunity for the North-East, helping to put the region at the forefront of new technologies.

"The centres are all about growing the knowledge economy of the region, as laid out in the regional economic strategy of One NorthEast."

He added: "We want the students who choose to study in the region's universities to stay here after they graduate, creating wealth and jobs for the North-East.

"At the moment less than 40 per cent of graduates from the region's five universities stay here afterwards."

Born in Wallsend, but living on Teesside for much of his 30 years in business, Mr Coxon, 55, has a passion for the North-East, believing it has huge untapped potential and a great future.

He said: "This region has a tremendous future if only we can unlock the potential of its people.

"We have to develop a unique approach to business clusters where companies work together with the region's universities and colleges to unlock this potential and create jobs and wealth.

"One of the region's priorities must be to increase its GDP (gross domestic product), which stands at £26bn, in comparison to the UK average of £32bn.

"An increase of around £2bn in the region's GDP, or eight per cent, would help create more than 90,000 jobs."

He added: "We also need to get the Government to spend more in the region.

"Of the £2bn it currently spends on research projects every year, just £2m comes to this region.

"Most of it goes to areas like the South-East and Cambridge."

As chairman of the CPI, Mr Coxon will work with industry and the region's academics to bring investment, and research and development projects to the North-East.

As chairman of the Pharmaceutical and Specialty Chemical Cluster (PSCC), he represents the interests of more than 100 companies in the North-East and North Yorkshire, many of whom will be involved in the CPI.

He said: "Companies like Proctor and Gamble, in Newcastle, Thomas Swan, in Consett, DuPont Teijin, in Wilton, and Avecia, in Billingham, are already heavily involved in the work of the PSCC.

"Along with the likes of Glaxo Smithkline, in Barnard Castle, County Durham, and numerous other businesses, they will be the kind of interests represented by the CPI.

"The thrust of the CPI will be about developing advanced manufacturing in the process industry, developing new products from new materials, which is where the expertise of the universities will come into play.

"Within five years I would expect the CPI to be a premier site in the UK, if not the world, for developments in the process industry."