Darren Cairns
Director & Chief Executive Officer
Role
Darren was instrumental in the creation of the senior management team and has been involved in the transition of Helix into a volume supplier of electric drive systems.
Education
BEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering, University of Southampton and University of Portsmouth.
Experience
Joining Cosworth as a graduate in 1988, Darren ultimately became Chief Engineer for Design and Analysis following a period as Materials Manager at the company’s manufacturing facility. After building an advanced computer-aided engineering (CAE) capability, Darren left to co-found Integral Powertrain in 1999.
He also founded Intrinsys and has a deep passion for extracting the maximum potential from the application of business system software, including product lifecycle management (PLM), enterprise resource planning/ materials requirement planning (ERP/MRP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems. The selection, application and development of these digital tools has been a major enabler in allowing Helix to gain competitive advantage in its field.
Outside work
Darren is married with a grown-up daughter. He offsets working in the advanced world of vehicle electrification with restoring and then driving classic cars of 1960s’ and 70s’ vintage across Europe. In a last hurrah to the humble combustion engine, he is designing and commissioning a new four-cylinder engine for a 1958-based project while the world still allows such technology.