David Ager received a B.Sc. from Imperial College, London, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. In 1977 he was awarded a Science Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship that allowed him to collaborate with Professor Richard Cookson FRS at the University of Southampton. In 1979 he joined the faculty of the University of Liverpool as a Senior Demonstrator. This was followed by an assistant professor position at the University of Toledo in Ohio. In 1986, he joined the NutraSweet Company’s Research and Development group as a Monsanto Fellow. NSC Technologies came out of NutraSweet R&D. In 1999, NSC was sold to Great Lakes Fine Chemicals; Dave was a Fellow with GLFC, responsible for the development of new synthetic methodology. He then left GLFC and has worked as a consultant on chiral and process chemistry. He joined DSM at the beginning of 2002 as the competence manager for homogeneous catalysis and in January 2006, moved into the role of Principal Scientist.