Robot hospital workers might sound like a utopian future, but thanks to Mark Slack, they’re becoming an everyday reality. Slack is the British-South African co-founder of CMR Surgical, a billion-pound med-tech company building robotic systems for surgery.

Slack didn't start out in engineering. Born and educated in South Africa, he trained in medicine and graduated with the Gold Medal for Obstetrics and Gynaecology. It was only once he entered the workforce that his attention turned to technology: he grew fascinated by the potential for using robotics to support surgeons during minimally invasive procedures and frustrated by the skill barriers and equipment limitations that kept many would-be adopters on the sidelines.

In 2014, Slack co-founded CMR Surgical in Cambridge, teaming up with engineers, robotics experts and clinical colleagues to build Versius, a surgical robot. More than a decade on, the device has been used in over 45,000 procedures worldwide and earned regulatory clearance in over 40 countries.

In 2026, CMR Surgical earned paediatric approval in Europe and the UK to use the Versius surgical robot on children, one year after its upgraded successor, the Versius Plus, won US approval to perform gallbladder removal surgery. The company has also partnered with NVIDIA to develop simulation tools that could one day help surgeons make live decisions in the operating room.

Yet for all this progress, Slack's title tells a deliberate story. Rather than CEO, he's chief medical officer and still practises clinically, a choice that seems designed to anchor him to the everyday reality of hospitals and operating rooms. Not that it's blunted his business instincts, that is. Under his tenure, CMR Surgical has reached unicorn status and raised over £900m. Now could a robot do that?