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 Director operating in the Web Hosting space. If you think a Director 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.
Adrian Drury
Group Technology Strategy & Insight Director of Liberty Global
Adrian leads Liberty Global’s technology strategy group within the Liberty Technology & Innovation group, defining the roadmaps and assessing the technology choices, for entertainment and connectivity service delivery platforms that enable Liberty’s product roadmap. Adrian is educated at London School of Economics and London Business School.
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About Liberty Global, Liberty Global, Liberty Global: Liberty Global is an international cable company providing television, broadband internet, and telephony services.
John Paul
Managing Director, Advanced Advertising and Data of Liberty Global
John Paul is Managing Director, Advanced Advertising and Data for Liberty Global and is based in the Company’s London office. He is responsible for the development of new advertising models, partnerships and employment of data across the company. John has over 25 years experience in the broadcast and cable sector with a focus on operations and emerging product strategy. Before rejoining Liberty Global in 2014 he was CTO of Special Broadcasting Service (SBS Australia), COO of Australia Network, and Founder & Managing Partner of Trident Media Partners where he advised Tier 1 media firms: NBC, News Corporation, Telstra and Foxtel on strategy and infrastructure. Prior to this, he was part of UGC, Liberty Global’s predecessor, where he worked in Australia on the launch of AUSTAR and its triple-play products and helped the company explore investment opportunities in Asia. He was a principal architect of Australia’s early pay TV industry – with Australis Media and has served on the boards of SANZAR (South Africa, New Zealand and Australia Rugby) and Freeview Australia. He began his career in family trade publishing businessTV Editorial Corporation and NBC Affiliate operations. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from American University and is a Dux graduate of the Royal Australian Naval College.
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About Liberty Global: Liberty Global is an international cable company providing television, broadband internet, and telephony services.
Ian Mash
Director Business Transformation of Huawei Technologies
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About Huawei Technologies: Huawei Technologies provides infrastructure application software and devices with wireline, wireless, and IP technologies.
Ray Williamson
Director of Product Management of Huawei Technologies
Ray leads the Product Management team responsible for strategy and solution definition for mobile network evolution to 5G and for new technologies and businesses opportunities in the European region. He has over twenty years of experience in the wireless communications field in Engineering and Business Development roles and has held leadership positions in Product Management for 2G, 3G and 4G solutions. Ray joined Huawei in 2013 having previously worked at Motorola and NSN. He holds a BSC (Hons) in Telecommunications and a PGDBA (Finance). Ray is also Chair of the Business Principles Working Group within Small Cell Forum.
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About Huawei Technologies: Huawei Technologies provides infrastructure application software and devices with wireline, wireless, and IP technologies.
Frederik Poelman
Managing Director of team.blue Denmark
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About Combell Group, Intelligent, team.blue Denmark: team.blue provides hosting and cloud solutions.
Oliver Adderley
Founder and Managing Director of Jobster
Oliver Adderley is the founder and managing director at Jobster.
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About Jobster: Jobster is an online recruitment agency based in the United Kingdom
Chris Fraser
Managing Director of Aspire Technology Solutions
Chris is the Managing Director and joint founder of Aspire. Perhaps unusually for a managing director, Chris has over 20 years’ experience in the IT and Technology industry. He also has over 12 years of intensive, hands-on technical experience managing enterprise class IT environments and global network infrastructure deployments. Chris has responsibility for oversight and management of all of the company’s technical operations and managed service platforms.
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About Aspire Technology Solutions: Aspire is an award-winning managed services company specialising in hosted services, data centre solutions, communications and IT support.
Tony Dougan
Operations Director of Aspire Technology Solutions
Tony has been working in the IT industry for nearly a decade. During his time at Aspire, Tony has progressed though the technical team and is now focused on company organisation and growth. Daily responsibilities are concentrated on overseeing the technical support teams and development of internal systems. He also focuses on making sure all departments are working together as efficiently as possible throughout Aspire Technology Solutions constant expansion.
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About Aspire Technology Solutions: Aspire is an award-winning managed services company specialising in hosted services, data centre solutions, communications and IT support.
Steve Laverick
Technical Director of Aspire Technology Solutions
Steve has over 20 years’ experience in the IT & Technology industry, holding both management and director positions during this time. He has vast experience in advanced network infrastructure deployment and configuration, network security, system monitoring and maintenance, network administration and server virtualisation technologies. Steve directs a team of consultants providing voice, data, infrastructure and managed services for their customers.
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About Aspire Technology Solutions: Aspire is an award-winning managed services company specialising in hosted services, data centre solutions, communications and IT support.
Stuart Hall
Finance Director of Aspire Technology Solutions
Stuart is an ACA qualified accountant with more than 5 years experience working at a big 4 firm. He has had exposure to a number of listed public interest clients across a range of industries. These include retail, pharmaceuticals, transport, anti-counterfeit technologies and mining. His role as Finance Manager has him overseeing the operation of the billing, purchasing, stores and other office administrative functions. In addition, he is responsible for annual reporting and tax compliance as well as management.
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About Aspire Technology Solutions: Aspire is an award-winning managed services company specialising in hosted services, data centre solutions, communications and IT support.
Stephen McNickle
Sales Director of Aspire Technology Solutions
Stephen has an impressive track record having worked with Mike Errington for a number of years. He is a driving force behind the team’s consultative approach to our customers requirements, and manages the day-to-day operations of the Aspire sales department. Stephen is passionate about listening to our customers and exploring solutions which create business advantage.
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About Aspire Technology Solutions: Aspire is an award-winning managed services company specialising in hosted services, data centre solutions, communications and IT support.
Fabio Torlini
SVP & Managing Director International of WP Engine
Over 15 years experience in the hosting & cloud industry. I have a thorough understanding of all aspects of IT B2B marketing, Branding, PR, Channel and Management. One of the original employees at Rackspace I helped build the company to what it has become today. A leader in the cloud industry and revenues of $1.5B. I am now MD for WP Engine, based in Tech City helping WP Engine launch their services into Europe. Specialties: Professional B2B Marketer. Branding, lead generation, direct sales, channel sales, alliances, online marketing.
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About WP Engine: WP Engine is a managed WordPress hosting platform.
Oliver Bryssau
Non Executive Director of Origin Broadband
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About Consumer Choices, Origin Broadband: Origin Broadband is an award-winning Internet Service Provider
Steve Robinson
Managing Director and CEO of Little Fish (UK)
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About Little Fish (UK): Littlefish is an award winning and rapidly growing Managed IT Services Provider.
Richard Roome
Services Director of Little Fish (UK)
A father of two young and energetic boys aged 3 and 6 Richard has his hands full at home but in his down time he enjoys playing tennis and cricket, long days watching cricket and catching up with friends. At Littlefish Richard is Services Director and co-owner, responsible for existing clients, transitioning new clients, contract renewals and service improvements. Passionate about the Littlefish service, Richard has been responsible for shaping the Littlefish Service Delivery teams and with an attention for detail is driven to ensure the service is of the highest quality. After initially working in the Wind Energy industry undertaking Environmental Impact Assessments, he has 20 years of experience in the IT industry, initially from a technical perspective moving thereafter to operational and service management roles. Richard has been involved in a number of successful high growth start-up ventures as well as Operational Management and Service Account Management roles for major clients at ComputerLand UK Plc and Capita IT Services.
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About Chimata Gold Corp, Little Fish (UK): Littlefish is an award winning and rapidly growing Managed IT Services Provider.
Joe McCarthy
Sales Director of Little Fish (UK)
Also a new father, Joe is getting to grips with a baby boy and enjoys reminiscing about uninterrupted night’s sleep, travel, wine, road biking, days at the cricket and old property restoration. Joe is Sales Director and co-owner at Littlefish and looks after new business growth, contract negotiations, commercial partnerships and marketing. He is a Law and Economics graduate from Liverpool University with over 15 years of B2B IT sales experience, commercial modelling and contract negotiation. He first cut his teeth at British Telecom before moving up the gears at small to mid-market IT & Telco firm PSU Technology Group. As Head of Sales for the IT Support division at PSU, Joe secured major national private and public sector contracts for mid-range IBM, Unix and Wintel support contracts and implemented the sales and marketing plan from the IT maintenance division. Business Development Manager roles at ComputerLand UK Plc and Capita IT Services have given him broad exposure to IT Outsourcing and constructing tailored, managed IT services contracts in the public and private sector. Joe was awarded Managed Services salesman of the year at Capita IT Services in 2008, before joining the executive management team that acquired Littlefish in 2010. Joe looks after all front-line new business and has grown Littlefish total managed service revenue by >25% YoY to date.
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About Little Fish (UK): Littlefish is an award winning and rapidly growing Managed IT Services Provider.
Alastair Thornton
General Manager & Country (UK) Director of Web.com
Alastair is the General Manager & Country (UK) Director at Web.com. Web.com provides a full range of Internet services to small businesses to help them compete and succeed online. Web.com meets the needs of small businesses anywhere along their lifecycle with affordable, subscription-based solutions including domains, hosting, website design and management, search engine optimisation, online marketing campaigns, local sales leads, social media, mobile products, and eCommerce solutions. With offices in Leeds, London, Cardiff then a head office in Stockton, we serve approximately 3.4 million customers.
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About Web.com: Web.com provides internet services and online marketing solutions for small and medium businesses.
Matthew Pullen
Managing Director, Europe of CyrusOne
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About CyrusOne: CyrusOne is a data center operator that offers colocation and peering services.
Damon Crawford
Azure Practice Director of Six Degrees Group
Damon Crawford joined Six Degrees in January as Azure Practice Director. Damon has over 20 years’ experience in the Cloud and service provider industry. Damon has broad experience in helping service providers deliver market leading technology and services that help customers successfully transform and grow their own businesses.
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About Six Degrees Group: Six Degrees Group provides integrated and managed data services, including datacenter connectivity, voice and cloud offerings.
Graham Jones
Managing Director of UiDIGITAL
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About UiDIGITAL: UiDIGITAL is a U.K.-based online service company that designs, builds, and operates solutions for enterprises.
Dinesh Majrekar
Director of Innovation of Civo
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About Civo, ServerChoice: Cloud hosting specialists running the the world’s first Kubernetes service powered by Rancher Lab’s K3s.
Aaron Aldrich
Director of Client Success of NaviSite
Aaron Aldrich is an IT visionary with extensive expertise in emerging technologies, programme and infrastructure management within regulated industries. Aaron began his career in the biotechnology sector as an Immunology Protein Scientist, where he co-developed the first FDA approved rapid chromatographic test for biological weapons detection, served as bio-warfare specialist to the Democratic National Convention and Los Angeles Police Department (2000, CA USA), and was a member of several Southwest Asia Theatre Medical Surveillance teams. After a short-lived career as a professional golfer, Aaron changed direction and leveraged his experiences to bridge the gap between the scientific community and the IT Service industry. From 2004 through 2014 Aaron led IT Service Delivery for Dendreon Inc, a Biopharmaceutical cancer research organisation. As Department Head, he managed teams supporting large scale enterprise application implementations, ITIL/ISO27001 best practice programme initiatives, quality validation programmes, and served as the IS technical lead on the regulatory team which received FDA approval for a first in class cancer vaccine. Following a brief sabbatical from technology, Aaron took on the challenge of transforming the NHS’ IT landscape. Leveraging emerging technologies from Dell/EMC, Microsoft and Citrix, Aaron was able to break down barriers plaguing the aging infrastructure and mind-sets of the NHS while ushering in the future of healthcare.
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About NaviSite: Navisite is a managed cloud service provider and renders database services, data analytics, compliance and platform services.
Sean McAvan
Managing Director of NaviSite
Sean McAvan is responsible for directing the growth of Navisite, LLC. through active development of channel and partner programs and building the direct channel through targeted new business development and marketing activities. Sean has over 15 years work experience in complex IT solution provision, with a proven track record in the Hosting and Cloud Computing industry. He has demonstrable skills in building and motivating teams to exceed targets, to increase client service levels and to both build new partnerships and to actively develop these for mutual gain. He has consistently been highly successful in the management of his business. Prior to his second tenure at Navisite, Sean was the Chief Commercial Officer at Global Nexus Telecom in the Bahamas and Vice President EMEA Sales for Datapipe.
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About NaviSite: Navisite is a managed cloud service provider and renders database services, data analytics, compliance and platform services.
Karl Mendez
CEO & Managing Director of CWCS Managed Hosting
Karl Mendez is CEO & Managing Director at CWCS Managed Hosting.
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About CWCS Managed Hosting: CWCS Managed Hosting is the UK’s leading hosting specialist. We offer a fully comprehensive range of hosting products, services and support.
James Ketchell
Managing Director of Serchen
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About Serchen: The recognised leader in matching buyers and sellers of Online Services.
Mike Carter
Founder and Managing Director of Ixis IT
A Drupal expert, solutions architect and big fan of open source software and contribution.
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About Ixis IT: Ixis IT is a company providing Drupal services including development, hosting and support.
James Allsup
Director of EcommerceHQ Limited
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About : EcommerceHQ, creators of the most popular module on OpenCart OpenBay Pro. Specialists in OpenCart Hosting and OpenCart Development projects.
Alexander Green
Managing Director of Zenchi
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About Zenchi: Digital Asset Consultation Firm.
Anna Moss
Director of FireCask
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About FireCask: FireCask is an online marketing agency provides content marketing, SEO and social media marketing.
Anna Moss
Director of FireCask
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About FireCask: FireCask is an online marketing agency provides content marketing, SEO and social media marketing.
George Sanger
Commercial Director of Onyx Group
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About Onyx Group, Pulsant: Onyx Group is a UK-based provider of business continuity, cloud computing, and datacenter services.
Michael Findlay
IT Director of 1 Click Services Limited
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About 1 Click Services Limited: As hosted solutions experts the team at 1 Click understand what it takes to deliver a comprehensive service to businesses.
Troy Coody
Director – Head of Business Development of Mainline Net Holdings
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About Mainline Net Holdings: Mainline Net is a software development company, created to exploit the groundbreaking inventions of a group of networking engineers.
Olly Scott
Operations Director of Datacentre Monkey Ltd
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About Datacentre Monkey Ltd: Secure Server & Datacentre Relocation Services
Olly Scott
Operations Director of Datacentre Monkey Ltd
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About Datacentre Monkey Ltd: Secure Server & Datacentre Relocation Services
Christopher Dean
Managing Director of Digital Tactics
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About Digital Tactics: Digital Tactics is a technology consultation company that works with businesses in a variety of capacities.
Christopher Dean
Managing Director of Digital Tactics
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About Digital Tactics: Digital Tactics is a technology consultation company that works with businesses in a variety of capacities.
Lee Stewart
Creative Director of Yellow Marshmallow
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About Yellow Marshmallow: We believe in websites that pay for themselves
