Grahame is an organic chemist by training and has a business background in the Life Science and Healthcare sector, having worked for 30 years for Amersham International, now GE Healthcare. He spent most of that time based in their facility in Cardiff but worked and travelled extensively in the US, Europe, Japan and Russia and the ex-Soviet Block in Eastern Europe. Within Amersham and GE, he held senior management roles in the Commercial, R/D and Manufacturing areas of the company. He left GE in 2007 and set up Grahame Guilford and Company Limited soon afterwards.
Grahame has been involved in a number of groups and activities in economic development in the past:
- Member of the Council of CBI Wales 2001 – 2007
- Chair of the South East Wales Economic Forum 2008 – 2011. The Forum aimed to bring together the key stakeholders in the local economy, for example Business, the Universities, Local Authorities, and developed a 10 year (2005 – 2015) economic development strategy for the region
- Member of the Ministerial Advisory group in the Department of the Economy 2009-2010. This group produced a report as part of the process leading to the creation of the Economic Renewal Programme
- Member of the Governing Council of Cardiff University 2009-2015
- The All Wales Programme Monitoring Committee for the 2007-2013 European Structural Funds Programme
- Member of the Task and Finish Group, 2012, invited to advise of the creation of an Innovation (Smart Specialisation) Strategy for Wales, which was subsequently published as Innovation Wales in 2013
He remains involved in a number of other groups:
- The All Wales Programme Monitoring Committee for the 2014-2020 European Structural Funds Programme
- Member of the Board of SMaRT (Swansea Materials Research and Testing)
- Member of the Board of Swansea Bay Futures
- Member of the Board of Trustees of Techniquest
- Member of the Advisory Panel on Life Sciences to the Minister for Economy, Science and Transport
- Director at the Life Sciences Hub in Cardiff Bay
