Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top London based CEO’ operating in the Sports space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Raf Keustermans
CEO of Sportlight Technology
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About Sportlight Technology: Sportlight Technology is a sports analytics startup that renders relevant and accurate information to professional sports organisations.
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Humphrey Cobbold
Chief Executive Officer of Pure Gym
Humphrey Cobbold is the chief executive officer at Pure Gym. He is a former chief executive officer at Wiggle. Humphrey holds an MBA from INSEAD.
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About Pure Gym: PureGym is a gym operator that provides affordable and convenient access to fitness facilities in the U.K.
Eric Min
Co-Founder and CEO of Zwift
Zwift Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zwift. He was the Vice President at JP Morgan before co-founding and working as Chief Executive Officer at Sakonnet Technology, a commodities trading and risk management platform.
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About Zwift: Zwift operates an online fitness platform used to transform monotonous solo indoor cycling into dynamic and social adventures.
Frank Sagnier
CEO of Codemasters
Frank has been in the games industry for over 20 years. He started at Acclaim Entertainment as Head of European Marketing. He then moved to Electronic Arts Limited where he successfully managed the European marketing and Third-Party Publishing teams. Frank was also part of the global leadership team that drove the company into the online and mobile era. After many years in the corporate world Frank spent several years running a number of game development studios backed by venture capital firms and focused solely on digital free-to-play business models. Frank joined Codemasters in 2014, when he was recruited as Chief Executive Officer to implement the Group’s strategy. Frank is also an Ambassador for BAFTA Games and a Vice President of ‘SpecialEffect’, a UK based charity which uses video games and technology to enhance the quality of life of people with disabilities.
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About Codemasters: Codemasters is a developer and publisher of interactive entertainment products for a global audience across multiple gaming platforms.
Ivan Gazidis
CEO of Arsenal Football Club
Ivan Gazidis was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Arsenal Football Club in January 2009. He was previously deputy commissioner of Major League Soccer in the United States. Ivan, an Oxford-educated lawyer, was a member of the founding management team of MLS and central to developing the stature and reputation of the league. Ivan has developed Arsenal Football Club within the football community and international commercial markets. He sits on the European Club Association (ECA) Executive Board, which represents the interests of Europe’s leading 207 teams. He is chairman of the Legal Advisory Panel for the ECA, and is a member of FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber. Ivan contributes to the domestic game’s development as a member of the Professional Game Board (PGB), FA Council and the Premier League Working Group for Elite Player Performance. He also serves as the Chairman of the FA’s International Committee.
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About Arsenal Football Club: Arsenal Football Club is a multi media production company representing a diverse & exciting international talent roster including Director.
Sam Browne
CEO & Co-Founder of Let’s Do This
Sam Browne mainly work on hiring and developing relationships with distributors. If you’re a Javascript engineer I will definitely buy you dinner! I love races in the wild from ultras to adventure races and I used to be a race director at an expedition race series.
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About Let’s Do This: Let’s Do This is an online marketplace that features almost every endurance event on the planet.
Sam Mathews
Founder & CEO of Fnatic
Sam Mathews is an entrepreneur most known for his exploits in the gaming community. Best known for founding Fnatic, the worlds number 1 professional gaming team, managing over 25 professional video gamers with big name sponsors such as title sponsor MSI. He founded UGAME in 2008, a focused social network providing a complete gamer profile, as well as linking niche gaming content sites together through one user base and offering a platform to share user content around gaming.
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About Fnatic: Leading esports performance.
Aidan Cooney
Chief Executive Officer of InCrowd Sports
Aidan Cooney is a Chief Executive Officer at InCrowd Sports.
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About Ellipse Data, InCrowd Sports: Incrowd builds sponsorship activation platforms to give fans an in-stadia experience.
Nick Smith
Founder & CEO of SportStack
Nick is the Founder & CEO of SportStack – a sports focussed fin-tech company pioneering a revolutionary exchange to speculate on and trade professional athletes. Prior to founding SportStack he was an Executive Director within the macro trading division at Goldman Sachs & CitiGroup.
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About SportStack: The revolutionary betting exchange making fantasy sports REAL
Fausto Zanetton
Co-Founder & CEO of Tifosy
Fausto Zanetton is an Italian raised in Belgium, has spent his career in the finance Industry, where he worked with many media, sports & internet companies globally, most recently at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Seeing sports clubs struggle to get traditional funding, and the growing tech, social and crowdfunding revolution, sparked the idea of Tifosy in his mind. Fausto has an MBA from London Business School and is a qualified accountant (CPA). He is fluent in several European languages and is a huge fan of Inter Milan.
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About Tifosy: Tifosy helps sports clubs raise funds online by connecting them with a global fan and investor base
Mark Bullingham
Chief Executive Officer of The Football Association
Mark Bullingham is Chief Commercial & Operating Officer of the English Football Association. He joined The FA in August 2016 and leads the commercial, marketing, digital and participation functions at the organisation. These include responsibility for all revenue streams across the FA and Wembley, such as broadcast, sponsorship, licensing, hospitality, and diversified revenue streams. In his time annual revenue at the FA has risen by over £100m. He previously held the position of CEO EMEA for Fuse Sports & Entertainment, responsible for running one of the fastest growing businesses in the sector. The team had grown quickly over five years to 245 across 17 offices with an annual fee income of over €28m. The client portfolio included 10 of the top 30 global brands. Mark joined Fuse in 2011 from his position as Director of Marketing, for the America’s Cup Event Authority in San Francisco where he helped transform the global event. Mark has negotiated over $2bn of partnerships across a variety of platforms in sports, arts and music and is a qualified Level One coach involved in grassroots football.
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About The Football Association, The Football Association, The Football Association: English Football Association covering the England national teams and the Emirates FA Cup.
Tom Thirlwall
CEO of Copa90
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About Copa90: Copa90 The voice of football fans around the world.
Asaf Peled
Founder and CEO of Minute Media
Asaf is the Chief Executive Officer of Minute Media, parent company of 90min. Asaf founded 90min in 2011as FTBpro. Since then, 90min has grown to be the world’s largest football media platform, driven by a contributor-driven model, and has expanded the brand throughout Europe, North America, South America and Asia. Asaf is involved in all aspects of Minute Media’s growth and operations, from product development to marketing and content. Prior to 90min, Asaf was the founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Top 7 International and also spent four years at Cisco Systems Israel where he was responsible for business development in the Israeli market. Asaf has a M.B.A. from The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania and a bachelors of arts from Tel Aviv University. He resides in London and his favorite team is the San Antonio Spurs.
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About 90min, Minute Media: Minute Media is a media and technology brand focused on two main pillars—platform and content.
Martin Grozev
Co-Founder and CEO of Bettingmetrics
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About Bettingmetrics: Bettingmetrics is an online sports betting platform.
Gary Thompson
Co-founder and CEO of GoRaise
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About Blu Sky Chartered Accountants, Fit Gurus, GoRaise, Startup Coach, Virgin StartUp: You can fundraise for a local club, your child’s playgroup or a national charity and many other causes – you choose
Kristian Nylén
Co-Founder and CEO of Kambi
Kristian joined Unibet in 2000. From 2003 Kristian was responsible for the entire sportsbook operation and a part of the management team. Before Unibet, Kristian worked as a Real Estate analyst at Catella and Ernst & Young. Kristian has a BSc in Business Administration, Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Karlstad. Kristian Nylén holds 465,000 shares and 300,000 options in the Company.
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About Kambi: Kambi’s service has the power to quickly transform the financial performance of your business.
Adam Pikett
CEO of SportPursuit
Adam Pikett is Co-Founder & CEO at SportPursuit.
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About SportPursuit: SportPursuit is a UK-based private-sale sports website.
Sam Jones
Chief Executive Officer of OverTier of Bruin Sports Capital
Sam Jones is the CEO of Overtier, a venture formed by Bruin Sports Capital to build and operate next-generation multiplatform streaming services globally.
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About Bruin Sports Capital: Bruin Sports Capital seeks to invest in companies that operates in the media, sports, marketing, and branded lifestyle sectors.
Rasmus Sojmark
CEO / Founder of Oddslife
CEO / Founder of Oddslife.
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About Esports Insider, Oddslife, Sports Betting Community: Oddslife is a social sports and a gaming network that provides a range of sporting and gaming opportunities for local sports fans.
Joshua Nino De Guzman
CEO, Co-Founder & Director of Dexerto
Joshua Nino De Guzman is the CEO & Co-Founder at Dexerto
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About Dexerto: Dexerto is the world’s largest digital esports and gaming lifestyle platform news platform.
Amit Pate
Founder & CEO of Snaptivity
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About Snaptivity: Snaptivity is a stadium tech that drives fan engagement by capturing key moments of events using AI, IoT sensors, and robotic cams.
Chloe Spoerry
Co-Founder & CEO of HiviSasa.com
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About HiviSasa.com: At Hivisasa, we believe that societies function best when information flows freely among people.
Kiran Patel
CEO of Pogoseat
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About : Pogoseat is an enterprise solution for sports teams & concert venues that lets fans upgrade seats & purchase VIP upgrades during events
Andrew Sharland
Founder & CEO of Fresh8 Gaming
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About Fresh8 Gaming: Fresh8 Gaming is a technology company delivering software as a service solutions to the sports betting industry.
Gian Paolo Ziletti
Founder & CEO of My Circle Golf
Founder and CEO of My Circle Golf, the business networking service for golf players. I’m a MBA graduate with 7 years previous experience in management consulting (Deloitte, KPMG, Accenture) advising clients developing Transformation Programme with a particular focus on the technology, processes and communication. While working on multinational clients across Europe I have been able to build a broad range of skills in such as managing cross-functional and multinational teams, product development and launch, managing commercial relationships with large organisations and driving business development.
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About My Circle Golf: Networking service for Golf players that helps golfers organise golf games and connect with like minded people
James B Gambrell
CEO of Supponor
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About Supponor: Supponor transforms real world mass-audience TV visible signage into highly targeted virtual brand messaging in sports broadcasting.
Irina Gofman
Founder & CEO of Viasat World
Irina Gofman was appointed as President and CEO of Viasat World in January 2016. Prior to this, Irina worked for MTG AB, International Media and Broadcasting Group, as Executive Vice President of the Group’s Russian & CIS broadcasting operations and Pay TV Emerging Markets, and as CEO of MTG Russia & CIS. Irina was also CEO of Rambler Media Group between 2004 and 2007, and worked for MTG between 2002 and 2004 as Chief Operating Officer of the DTV Russian TV. Irina was instrumental in the launch of Viasat Broadcasting’s wholesale pay-TV business in Russia. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Philology from Moscow State University and an MBA from Babson College in the United States.
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About Viasat World: Viasat World has a rich and diverse portfolio of content brands – movies, factual and sport.
Mark Hain
Founder and CEO of DingIt.tv
Mark Hain is the founder and CEO of DingIt.tv.
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About DingIt.tv: DingIt is a leading destination for premium eSports and Gaming content
Joseph Welstead
Co Founder & CEO of Motion Nutrition
Former international swimmer, Joe is a performance expert and cofounder of Motion Nutrition. ‘Smart drugs’ are what Joe and his team of neuroscientists develop helping to improve decision making, memory recall and mental performance under stress.
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About Motion Nutrition: Motion Nutrition help people stress less, sleep deeper and do better with our organic supplements.
Edoardo Narduzzi
CEO and founder of Bookiedom
Edoardo Narduzzi is the Founder and Chairman at mashfrog group.
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About Bookiedom: Bookiedom is a ethereum based platform for sports betting.
Gareth Balch
Founder&CEO of Two Circles
Gareth co-founded Two Circles in 2011 with Matt Rogan having spent his career helping sports organisations grow commercial revenues, most recently in Commercial Strategy roles at Manchester City. Prior to assuming the role of Two Circles Chief Executive, Gareth was Managing Director of the business, where he led the delivery of their client results. As a result of these results, the business grew significantly and won plaudits & awards for the quality and innovation of its work. In Gareth’s final year as Managing Director, 40% of Two Circles clients achieved all-time commercial growth records. As Chief Executive, Gareth leads their 100-strong business to deliver results for all of their stakeholders in each market. He is also actively involved in supporting ESP Properties growth strategy and sits on the Global Executive Committee for that organisation. Gareth represented Great Britain at 800m in an international career spanning seven years and still loves nothing more than pulling his trainers on.
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About Two Circles: Two Circles is a sports marketing agency based in London.
Blake Wooster
Co-Founder & CEO of 21st Club
Blake is the co-founder and CEO of 21st Club, a company dedicated to helping professional football clubs achieve competitive edge by thinking differently. Blake has been a key player in the sports data market for the past 15 years – previously as the Global Business Development Director for Prozone Sports before recognising the growing industry shift towards deriving meaning from data and establishing 21st Club. The company has recently diversified into golf under the brand 15th Club.
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About 15th Club, 21st Club: 21st Club is a company dedicated to helping professional football clubs achieve competitive edge by thinking differently.
Neven Murugan
Co-founder & CEO of Fanmode
Neven Murugan is co-founder & CEO of Fanmode.
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About Fanmode: Fanmode is a real-time fan engagement services platform.
Sam Parton
Co-Founder & CEO of Openplay
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About Openplay: OpenPlay is an online platform that allows any sports facility to take online bookings, payments and manage their customers.
Michaela Jeffery-Morrison
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Maddox Events
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About Maddox Events: Maddox Events is the world’s only B2B company exclusively dedicated to creating large-scale conferences.
Daniel Williams
Owner, Founder, and CEO of WIT Fitness
Daniel Williams is the Owner, Founder, and CEO at WIT Fitness Ltd
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About WIT Fitness: Itself as a unique, multi-brand fitness concept store.
Drew Thomson
CEO of Live For Football
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About Live For Football: Live For Football is a vertical social network co-owned by the people that make the content that matters most to fans
Sunil Bhardwaj
CEO of Globatalent
Sunil Bhardwaj is a CEO at Globatalent.
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About Globatalent: The Sport Neobank. An App that allows you to acces discounts on sport products, buy tickets and invest in young athletes.
Mark Gorski
Co-Founder & CEO of Sports Data Labs, Inc.
Mark is Co-Founder & CEO of Sports Data Labs, Inc., an AI and monetization platform unlocking the value of sensor-based health data.
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About Sports Data Labs, Inc.: Sports Data Labs, Inc. (SD Labs) is a venture-backed, award-winning leader in collection, analysis and distribution of real-time Human Data from on-body sensors and other sensing systems.
Lewis Wiltshire
CEO of Seven League
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About Seven League: Seven League is a digital consultancy with a specialism in sport.
Daria Kantor
CEO & Founder of TruBe
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About TruBe: Available in London initially, TruBe instantly connects you with all relevant trainers, ready to help you meet your goals.
João Andrade
Co-founder & CEO of One Hundred Group
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About One Hundred Group: One Hundred helps athletes find their individual summits by organizing and hosting 100mi and 100km ultra mountain trails.
Tunde Salau
CEO & Co-founder of Vensy
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About Vensy: Vensy is a sports marketing platform that provides a simple way for brands to discover the best athletes to sponsor.
Mark McDermott
Founder, CEO & Head of Product of GoShow
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About GoShow: GoShow offers a platform that enables collaboration between professional athletes and filmmakers.
John Gasior
CEO of Local Physio
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About Local Physio: Local Physio is the leading FREE search engine to finding local Physiotherapists UK wide.
Sean Hynes
CEO of Esports Gold
Sean Hynes is the CEO of Esports Gold.
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About Esports Gold: Esports data creator and provider, globally and across multiple titles
Victor Sanchez Grahm
Co-Founder & CEO of view.it esports
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About view.it esports: esports company set out to grow a better esports industry for everyone
