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 United Kingdom based Founder operating in the Professional Services space. If you think a Founder 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.
Kai Feller
Founder & CEO of Bark.com
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About Bark.com: A new better way to buy services online
Andrew Michael
CEO, Director & Founder of Bark.com
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About Bark.com: A new better way to buy services online
Tony Weaver
Founder of MXC Capital
Tony has significant experience of sales, operations and management in the TMT sector. He co-founded the advisory subgroup of MXC Capital with Ian Smith. Tony has founded and managed a number of successful private technology companies and Tony has served on the boards of a number of publicly quoted companies, including Xploite plc and Redstone plc. Tony was a non-executive director of Redcentric plc, having previously been CEO, a role which he held since IPO.
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About MXC Capital: MXC Capital is an investment and advisory group specializing in the technology, media and telecommunications sector.
Sandeep Bansal
Founder & CEO of Medic Creations
Dr Bansal graduated from Imperial College London with a MSc in Paediatrics and Child Health. In 2013 he started his General Practitioner training at Oxford Deanery where he was also Trainee Lead, representing Oxford Deanery for the Associates in Training (AiT) committee in their quarterly meetings at Royal College of General Practitioners. From his professional experience and feedback from his peers, DrBansal raised the concerns of poor Information Governance (IG) compliance around sharing patient dataat AiT meetings. With the AiT board’s response of their inability to offer an alternative solution, Dr Bansalcarried out a survey to understand the extent of the problem in 2014. The survey for his 180 colleagues went viral and he received 2050 responses confirming the poor IG compliance practice, predominantly around the use of WhatsApp. In 2014 he set up Medic Creations and created the innovative app MedicBleep to enable secure and reliable clinical communication for primary, secondary and community care. With enabling communication across healthcare organisations and professionals, Medic Bleep empowerstrue interoperability, the future of healthcare management and innovation. Medic Creations was selected for Web Summit Alpha 2015 and is listed in the Journal of mHealth’s top100 Global Digital Companies for 2016 and 2017.
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About Bennett Coleman and Co Ltd, Harvard Medical School, Medic Creations, shl.vc: Revolutionising Communications in Healthcare
Tim Sadler
Co-Founder & CEO of Tessian
Tim is the CEO and co-founder of CheckRecipient, a next generation email security platform which uses machine learning to predict when emails are being sent to the wrong people. Some of the world’s largest organisations across the financial and legal sectors are using CheckRecipient and in the past 6 months the company has been crowned “Best Security Startup” by WIRED, “Best Machine Intelligence Startup” by Legal Geek and “Best Startup – Gold Category” by Info Security Products Guide. Tim was recently listed as one of Forbes “30 Under 30” in European Technology for 2017.
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About Tessian: Tessian creates a Human Layer Security that helps people work without security disruptions getting in the way.
Edward Bishop
Co-Founder & CTO of Tessian
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About Tessian: Tessian creates a Human Layer Security that helps people work without security disruptions getting in the way.
Thomas Adams
Head of Client-Side Engineering and Co-Founder of Tessian
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About Tessian: Tessian creates a Human Layer Security that helps people work without security disruptions getting in the way.
Paramjit Uppal
Founder & Pacesetter of AND Digital
Paramjit Uppal is the Founder and Pacesetter of AND Digital. He is a graduate of The University of Manchester.
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About AND Digital: AND Digital is a new way for digital delivery. We work with top clients to build remarkable digital products and teams.
Andrew Mindenhall
Chief Executive Officer & Founder of Agilisys
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About Agilisys: Agilisys is an innovative IT and business software and services providers.
Patrick Petitti
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Catalant
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About Catalant: Catalant is a software company that provides global enterprises with software solutions to access business expertise on demand.
David Warburton-Broadhurst
Founder & Consultant of The CIO Consultancy
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About The CIO Consultancy: The CIO Consultancy provides consultation services and solutions to improve business growth.
Jaka Levstek
CEO & Co-Founder of D.Labs
Jaka Levstek is a CEO & Co-Founder at D.Labs company.
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About CEED Slovenia, D.Labs, Imperial College Business School, Imperial Venture Mentoring Service (IVMS): D.Labs helped clients grow their business by building them successful internet products.
Steve Duplessie
Founder and Senior Analyst of Enterprise Strategy
Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst at ESG, is an internationally recognized expert in IT infrastructure technologies and markets. An acclaimed speaker and author, Steve’s insights have been featured in Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The Financial Times, USA Today, China Daily, The Moscow Times, and many other print and online publications. Steve is a valued strategic advisor to many of the largest technology providers in the world, including IBM, HP, Dell, EMC, NetApp, HDS, and other global IT organizations.A much sought-after speaker at conferences and industry events worldwide, Steve is known for his pull-no-punches, straight-shooting style. Steve’s presentations are renowned for being educational, opinionated, thought-provoking, and entertaining. They often draw standing-room-only capacity crowds.Prior to founding ESG, Steve was the founder and CEO of Invincible Technologies Corp., a manufacturer of fault-tolerant NAS systems. Before founding ITC, Steve started and ran a storage peripherals business unit at Clearpoint Research Corp., and he began his career at EMC.Steve holds a B.S. degree from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
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About Enterprise Strategy: ESG is an integrated IT research, analyst, strategy, and validation firm that offers market intelligence, analysis, and consulting services.
Vlada Bell
Founder of MEplace
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About MEplace: MEplace creates a new approach to children’s wellbeing and preschool education.
Daniel van Binsbergen
CEO and Co-Founder of Lexoo
Daniel van Binsbergen Before founding Lexoo, Daniel worked for over 5 years as a lawyer at an international law firm (De Brauw), first in Amsterdam, then in London. He’s always up for a game of squash, and is easily excited.
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About Lexoo: Lexoo is a lawyer comparison marketplace that helps businesses choose a lawyer with confidence.
Chris O’Sullivan
Co-Founder and CTO of Lexoo
Chris has been developing websites and apps for more than 10 years – with companies such as Forward Partners, Aegis Media, and the BBC. He loves playing board games and drinking cocktails – ideally at the same time.
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About HitMeUp, Lexoo, What I want for Xmas: Lexoo is a lawyer comparison marketplace that helps businesses choose a lawyer with confidence.
Romanie Thomas
Founder & CEO of Juggle Jobs
Romanie Thomas is Founder at Juggle Jobs.
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About Juggle Jobs: Juggle is an information technology company that offers a SaaS platform for the future of work.
Karen Kwong
Founder and CEO of RenOC
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About RenOC: RenOC provides psychology-based insights that help individuals for their business success.
Al Ramich
Founder and CEO of SmallGiants.Agency
Al founded SmallGiants from a passion for taking small companies and building them into giants of their fields. Al is also a founder and CEO at deep-tech startup Loomi.ai. Previously leading digital innovation at Toshiba, Samsung, Vodafone and helped grow IHS Markit digital strategy from a startup to a global $40B giant.
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About Forbes Agency Council, loomi.ai, SmallGiants.Agency: Small Giants is a marketing and business development agency for architecture, engineering, construction & commercial real estate companies.
Pip Jamieson
Founder & CEO of The Dots
Pip Jamieson is the Founder & CEO of The Dots (https://the-dots.com), a professional network for people that don’t wear suits to work -‘dubbed “The next LinkedIn?’ by Forbes. Delightfully Dyslexic with a distinctive marmite laugh (you either love it or you hate it) Pip was named by The Sunday Times as one of the Top 100 Disruptive Entrepreneurs innovating in their respective fields & as one of the trailblazing leaders having a positive impact on the world. Being a dyslexic sole female tech founder, Pip has put promoting social responsibility and helping business build diverse teams at the heart of everything they do! 68% + of The Dots community is female, 31% + BAME & 16% + LGBT+. The Dots also do a lot of work around socioeconomic diversity and neurodiversity to fuel a more balanced industry of the future.
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About The Dots: The professional network for people who don’t wear suits to work.
Ian Langley
Founder of Airswift
I am more confident than ever about our prospects. I believe these new, better defined, roles for the senior team will help concentrate our top minds to deliver even more for our clients and the business. Both Janette and Peter have been instrumental in growing the company over recent years and these positions will enable them to combine their talents in a highly productive way. I believe that the business is exceptionally well placed to take advantage of improved market conditions and we couldn’t be more excited about the future.”
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About Airswift: Airswift is an oil and gas jobs and recruitment agency.
Niel Bethell
Founder & CEO of NSS
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About NSS: NSS provides specialists and professionals for operational services.
Thomas Spiteri
Founder of TSM International
Founder at TSM International
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About TSM International: TSM International is an international domain name registration company.
Mark Kukolus
Founder & Managing Partner of BICPM
Founder & Managing Partner
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About BICPM: Business Intelligence & Corporate Performance Management
David Poole
CEO and Co-Founder of Symphony Ventures
David is an industry visionary with over 20 years as a corporate executive, running multi-billion dollar outsourcing and services firms. He has grown global businesses, built industry leading sales and operations teams, and spearheaded innovation across the industry in areas including platform-based BPO, supply chain BPO, cloud-based services, and user experience. David’s priorities at Symphony are to develop a world-class team and to work closely with client leadership to help them leverage Symphony’s Digital Ecosystem of automation partners and other inspired delivery models to compete in a digital world.
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About Symphony Ventures: Symphony is a professional services firm passionate about creating value for the world’s leading organizations.
Krishan Meetoo
Co Founder & Chief Design Officer of Construct
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About Construct: Construct helps organizations with learners, like schools and employers, create beautiful, cutting edge digital learning experiences.
Carl Dawson
Founder of Construct
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About Construct: Construct helps organizations with learners, like schools and employers, create beautiful, cutting edge digital learning experiences.
Gurnek Bains
Founder and CEO of Global Future
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About Global Future: Global Future educates, informs, and helps people understand the benefits of globalization.
Noel Ady
Principal Consultant and Founder of Gravity 9 Solutions
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About Gravity 9 Solutions: Gravity 9 Solutions combines arts and Science to help organizations create digital products.
Barnaby Piggott
Founder & CEO of Holland Mountain
Barnaby is a highly accomplished private equity project specialist with more than 15 years of experience working with private equity fund managers, administrators and investors throughout Europe and the US. He has completed over 50 client engagements with leading industry names, including Coller Capital, Bridgepoint, UBS (now MUFG), IK Partners and Octopus Investments. Barney began his career in private equity with AnalytX (now eFront) before spending six years with consulting firm 4vco. He founded Holland Mountain in 2009. Barney is a CFA® Charterholder, a CIPM® Certificant and a PRINCE2® Registered Practitioner.
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About : Holland Mountain is a leading specialist consulting firm and data solutions provider.
Hayley Martin
Co-Founder of Right To Left
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About Right To Left: Right To Left helps companies to accelerate growth through delivering outcomes.
Hossein Houssaini
Founder of HoPe Advisory
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About HoPe Advisory: HoPe Advisory provides consultation services to improve marketing and digital growth of businesses.
Jennifer Cummins
Founder of Shine Advise
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About Shine Advise: Shine Advise provides consultation services to aspiring professionals and companies.
Clare Griffiths
Founder and Chief Enabler of The Thrive Effect
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About The Thrive Effect, University of Brighton: The Thrive Effect provides business coaching and professional training to aspiring female entrepreneurs.
Michael Arnaldi
CTO and Founder of CreditSCRIPT
Michael Arnaldi is CTO of CreditSCRIPT. He has been active in the fin-tech industry for the past 5 years and has a strong background on full-stack development in the field of scalable and highly available financial applications. His personal goal is to improve the financial industry and he is also co-founder and CTO of MyMonexEx a London-based Blockchain-focused platform. Michael is enrolled in Computer Science faculty, University of Pisa.
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About CreditSCRIPT, MATECHS: CreditSCRIPT is an alternative credit investment platform that helps professional investors assess loans and portfolios.
Charles Thiede
CEO and Co-Founder of Zapnito
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About Zapnito: Zapnito is the SaaS online community platform for intelligence-driven organizations.
Jon Beer
CTO and Co-Founder of Zapnito
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About Zapnito: Zapnito is the SaaS online community platform for intelligence-driven organizations.
James Sandoval
Founder and CEO of MeasureMatch
James is the Founder & CEO of London-based MeasureMatch.
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About MeasureMatch: The Professional Services Marketplace & Partner Ecosystem Platform
Lauren Currie
Founder of Upfront
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About Upfront: Upfront offers coaching and workshops for businesses and groups.
Bill Hart
Co-Founder of Ntegra
Bill Hart is one of the Co-Founders of Ntegra. He has played a key role in building the business from the very start alongside Andy Jefferies. Bill has over 29 years of experience in the IT sector.
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About Ntegra: Ntegra are a technology consultancy who specialise in Digital solutions and IT Transformation managed services.
Nikki Cochrane
CO-CEO & Co- Founder of DigitalMums
Nikki set up the business with Kathryn so the weight of our flexible mission falls on her shoulders. She comes out in hives if she has to leave E8 and is the only person under 90 with an addiction to wine gums.
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About DigitalMums: Digital Mums is a social media skills training.
Kathryn Tyler
Co- Founder of DigitalMums
Kathryn set up the business with Nikki so shares our responsibility for changing the world for mothers everywhere. Also known as #onetakeTyler or #Katinthehat – she has more aliases than Jason Bourne.
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About DigitalMums: Digital Mums is a social media skills training.
Shamim Sarif
Co-Founder of Enlightenment Productions
British/Canadian writer and director Shamim Sarif is an equally successful novelist (the Pendleton May First Novel Award, Betty Trask Award), screenwriter, and feature film director. Shamim recently completed the film, Despite the Falling Snow, an epic story of love and betrayal in cold war Russia based on her second novel, published by Hodder Headline and St Martins Press to universal acclaim. Shamim’s first feature film ‘I Can’t Think Straight’ won 11 awards and her follow up movie ‘The World Unseen’ had its debut at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival before going on to garner 23 awards internationally, including 11 SAFTAs (South African Film Awards). Shamim’s third film, The House of Tomorrow, was shot on location in Israel and Palestine and had festival debuts in New York and Sarasota in 2012 and won its first award this year in France. An accomplished speaker, Shamim has spoken at TED events including the invitation-only TEDSalon in London, TEDxHolyLand in Jerusalem and TED India, as well as at DLD Women for the past three years. With her partner and producer on her films, Hanan Kattan, Shamim runs Enlightenment Productions, based in London and their Canadian film company, SK Enlightenment Films. Shamim is also a Founder of the Sarif-Kattan Foundation, focused on empowering and educating women and children. Shamim earned her B.A. in English from Royal Holloway at University of London and M.A. in English from Boston University.
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About EBS Digital, Enlightenment Productions: Enlightenment Productions is a multi-media entertainment company.
Paul O’Dowd
Founder & Managing Director of Global iSupport
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About Global iSupport: Global iSupport provides consultation services on improving processes for business growth.
Paul Taffinder
Founder & Managing Partner of Taffinder Consulting
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About Taffinder Consulting: Taffinder Consulting provides advisory consulting services in strategy, leadership, digital innovation, and organizational performance.
Mariana Lucia Marquez
Co-Founder/ Public Speaking Coach of Metaspeech
Metaspeech are Mariana Lucia Marquez and Emma Zangs. As choreographers and movement directors (Marquez&Zangs) we help performers overcome fear and use their bodies to articulate confidence. Through practice we discovered that these skills are easily transferable to pitching and other public speaking situations. We approach public speaking from the body. Presence is at the core of our method. We help our clients become relaxed and confident speakers for pitch presentations, job interviews, or in front of a camera. Our work improves anxiety and self-esteem through tailored exercises designed to achieve rock-solid confidence around one’s posture, voice, hand gestures, eye contact, clear diction, and hosting (or “owning the room”). Our one-to-one sessions and group workshops are fun and dynamic meetings that deliver the tools you need to empower an audience with a simple, efficient, straight-forward and personal communication style.
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About Metaspeech: Helping entrepreneurs and corporate clients become aware of their body language and upgrade it to professional, confident, & authentic.
Ian Walker
Co-Founder of LaundryRepublic
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About LaundryRepublic: Lockers in your building for your laundry and dry cleaning
Alec Wadey
CEO / Founder of Ding Dong Diary Limited
Alec Wadey is the founder and CEO of Ding Dong Diary Limited. He is also the digital transformation practice director (UK) of delaware North America. Alec earned his degree at De Montfort University.
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About Ding Dong Diary Limited: Ding Dong Diary Limited is an online diary tailored to suit recreational and professional bodies.
Ian Lynch
Founder & Principal Consultant of Active Consultants
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About Active Consultants: Active Consultants provides consulting services and solutions to improve business growth.
Ian Lynch
Founder & Principal Consultant of Active Consultants
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About Active Consultants: Active Consultants provides consulting services and solutions to improve business growth.
Roger Noble
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Zegami
Roger Noble is a Software Developer and Data Visualisation expert with a passion for building new and innovative technologies that help people see the world in a new way.
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About Zegami: Delivering explainable AI faster and more accurately. Zegami are end-to-end imaging AI specialists combining unique tools and ML services
Stephen Taylor
Founder & CSO of Zegami
Stephen is the Head of the Computational Biology Research Group for the Weatherall Institute at Oxford University and Chief Scientific Officer for Zegami. Stephen did his B.Sc. in Microbiology and holds an M.Sc. in Computer Science. He started using PivotViewer in 2010 to visualise large genomics datasets and microscopy data. To overcome its limitations he worked with Roger Noble to develop and publish HTML5 PivotViewer. As the CSO, Stephen is focused on Zegami’s contribution to research and ensuring that the platform contributes to making new discoveries that will change and improve the world we live in.
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About Zegami: Delivering explainable AI faster and more accurately. Zegami are end-to-end imaging AI specialists combining unique tools and ML services
John McArthur
Founder & CEO of Tracsis
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About Tracsis: The Tracsis Group is a leading international provider of software and services for the planning and management of mass transit operations.
Helen Richardson
Founder & Chair of Workpays
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About Workpays: Workpays provides apprenticeship, professional coaching, and educational training services.
Callum Murray
Founder and CEO of Amiqus Resolution
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About Amiqus Resolution: Amiqus Resolution is an online service to quickly and affordably resolve commercial disputes without appearing in court or tribunal.
Robbie Manson
Co-Founder of Amiqus Resolution
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About Amiqus Resolution: Amiqus Resolution is an online service to quickly and affordably resolve commercial disputes without appearing in court or tribunal.
Lucinda Carney
CEO & Founder of Actus
Lucinda is the founder and CEO of Actus Performance & Talent Management Software which increases productivity, engagement and compliance in organisations across the world. She is also a Business Psychologist and provides aligned Consultancy, Coaching and Training under the banner #HRChangeAgent. Actus Software was launched in 2012 and has since gone from strength to strength with more than 50,000 users across the Public and Private sector and growing rapidly. Based in the UK cloud, Actus provides comprehensive performance and talent management functionality, yet is quick to set up and easy to use embedding year-round people management activities, leading to optimum individual and business performance. Clients include Merseyside Police; Oxford City Council; a series of NHS Trusts and a number of high profile financial and blue-chip commercial entities. Actus also has an exciting roadmap, recently launching a compliance module for firms that fall under the extended Senior Management and Certification Regime (SM&CR). Actus Comply provides peace of mind with a secure, but accessible system of control specifically designed to meet the SM&CR requirements required by the FCA. In 2016 Lucinda was named Everywoman Tech Entrepreneur of the Year and the business demonstrates further credibility through a host of other accreditations including Cyber Essentials; IS0 27001 and presence on the Governments Digital Marketplace.
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About Actus: Actus performance appraisal software provides leading-edge technology solutions to embed year round performance management.
Sue Wright
Founder of First in the Queue
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About First in the Queue, The XX Corporation: First in the Queue provides mental resilience training through professional coaching.
Logan Naidu
CEO and Founder of Dartmouth Partners
Logan is the founder and CEO of Dartmouth Partners. He has a notable track record in recruiting across financial services but with a particular focus on M&A and Private Equity. While running the firm from a strategic perspective, Logan uses his recruitment expertise to guide consultants in the execution of roles. He continues to work on the delivery of more senior advisory and investment mandates. Logan studied to Masters level at the University of Birmingham before entering the City in 2000. He began his career at JPMorgan and PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Corporate Finance. Logan co-founded the Cornell Partnership in 2005 before leading a successful exit of the financial services and graduate business to form what is now Dartmouth. Logan has a desire for individuals and businesses to work together to mutually flourish and to enjoy shared success and this is reflected internally at Dartmouth. Dartmouth’s success is partly due to Logan’s drive to succeed.
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About Dartmouth Partners: Dartmouth Partners is provides recruitment consultancy.
Maarten Wermers
Co-Founder of DriverHunt.com
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About DriverHunt.com: Help professional drivers find local jobs
Will Taylor
Co-Founder of DriverHunt.com
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About DriverHunt.com: Help professional drivers find local jobs
Anum Thanvi
Co-Founder & CMO of Consuldents
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About Consuldents: Top tier student consultants for short term consultancy assignments
Agron Collins
Founder of DailyTranslate
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About DailyTranslate: Professional Translation Services
