Rob Cocks
Biography
Rob Cocks was appointed Chief Finance Officer (Interim) at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) in January 2025.
Prior to joining Dstl in 2007, Rob started his career at HMRC, before going on to train as a Chartered Accountant in Public Practice. It’s there that he gained a wide range of experience in finance, supporting businesses across multiple sectors.
Upon joining the Dstl finance team in 2007, Rob initially supported Dstl’s physical sciences department, before going on to gain an extensive knowledge of Dstl by supporting other areas including information management, biomedical sciences, sensors and countermeasures. In 2012 he moved into Dstl’s Senior Finance Leadership Team, playing a significant role in both Dstl’s status transition in 2017 and merger with the Centre of Applied Science and Technology in 2018. In 2020 he was appointed Dstl Head Of Finance, overseeing the implementation of the Finance module as part of Dstl’s journey to the Cloud.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and has a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Exeter. As downtime from his studies as Exeter, he worked in English China Clay’s testing laboratories, giving him a first-hand experience of a working science laboratory.
Chief Finance Officer
The Chief Finance Officer is responsible for Dstl’s Finance, Strategy and Governance Division.
The purpose of this Division is to manage and oversee all aspects of financial management within Dstl, to develop Dstl’s corporate strategies and plans, to maintain and operate the governance framework within Dstl, including Dstl’s approach to risk management, to oversee Dstl’s corporate performance regime, and to deliver a complete intellectual property management service for Dstl.