Now 48, he became chief executive of the S&P Sephardi Community in 2018 and stayed there for three-and-a-half years prior to landing the top job at Work Avenue, the British Jewish community’s leading employment and business support organisation.

And a number of senior roles in Government and Civil Service, including as a project manager for the 2012 Olympic Games, stood him in good stead.

“I had been at the Cabinet Office for two years when I saw the role advertising for a new CEO at the S&P,” David told me from his Work Avenue office in North London.

“I hadn’t thought about leaving at the time, but felt that what better way was there to give back to the Jewish community than by working within it.”

But such titles are a long way from his scientific background.

Born in Brighton — where his London-born parents had migrated — he was raised at a time when the South Coast seaside resort was a hub of Jewish life, with synagogues, kosher butchers and delis aplenty.

To read more on this story, subscribe to our new e-edition. Go to E-edition.jewishtelegraph.com.

If you have a story or an issue you want us to cover, let us know - in complete confidence - by contacting newsdesk@jewishtelegraph.com, 0161-741 2631 or via Facebook / Twitter