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 Managing Director operating in the Infrastructure space. If you think a Managing 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.
Michael Winterson
Managing Director of Equinix
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About Equinix, SixFortyEight: Equinix is an internet company that provides data center services for companies, businesses, and organizations.
Russell Poole
Managing Director, UK and The Nordics of Equinix
Russell joined as UK managing director in April 2000, bringing with him nine years of experience in the UK telecommunications and internet industries. From 1998 to 2000 Russell was a director of MessageNet Ltd – an internet security and messaging security provider. Responsible for sales and operations, he also led the development of e:)scan – Europe’s first e-mail virus and content control service. In October 1999 MessageNet was acquired by Articon-Integralis AG.Between 1993 and 1998, Russell was the national sales manager for General Telecom – the business telecoms division of General Cable Plc. During this time he grew the business from four sales people and £3m annual revenue to 35 sales people in three locations and £25m annual revenue. Russell attended Nottingham University, where he read production engineering. Following twelve months travelling, he commenced his managerial career at Coca-Cola and Schweppes where he enjoyed a successful career as a national account manager.
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About Equinix: Equinix is an internet company that provides data center services for companies, businesses, and organizations.
Jon Koplin
Managing Director EMEAR, Cisco Investments and Corporate Development of Cisco
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About Cisco: Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, telecommunications equipment, and other technology services and products.
David Ladipo
Managing Director of Azura-Edo IPP
David Ladipo is the managing director of Azura-Edo. David earned his PhD at University of Cambridge.
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About Azura-Edo IPP: Azura-Edo IPP is a 450MW open cycle gas turbine power station being constructed near Benin City in Edo State, Nigeria.
David Cumberworth
Managing Director International of Virtual Instruments
David Cumberworth is Managing Director at Virtana, responsible for the International business. Prior to joining VI, David was Vice President WW Sales for HiveIO following their acquisition of Atlantis Computing where he was WW VP Field Operations. David was responsible for sales, marketing and technical services teams and grew the business, channels and go to market strategy. In his previous role at Citrix Systems, David was responsible for managing the Enterprise Sales team which ran both Global accounts and large FTSE 100 accounts in the UK. David was responsible for closing deals with global accounts including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Credit Suisse and Bank of America. Before joining Citrix, David ran the Server Based Computing Business Unit for Computacenter in the UK, a leading provider of IT infrastructure services in Europe with 10,000 employees and £2.5 billion in revenue.
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About Virtual Instruments: Virtual Instruments offers IT infrastructure performance management solutions for physical, virtual and cloud computing environments.
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.
Douglas Gilmour
Founder & Managing Director of Mobius Networks
Douglas Gilmour Founder and Managing Director 30 years in the high tech industry and formed Mobius in 2003. The driver of Mobius strategy and all of innovative processes that have contributed to Mobius’s reputation as the most reliable and innovative mobile comms supplier in the sector. A TSA Board member.
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About Mobius Networks: Mobius is the UKs first integrated data airtime provider.
Charlie Hudson
Managing Director of Firemind
Entrepreneur – Creative, experienced innovator and leader of analytics with a plethora of skills to help C-level executives make informed decisions through the visualisation of insight nuggets buried in copious amounts of data.
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About Firemind, Firemind Ventures: AWS Advanced Partner specialising in professional cloud services, AWS strategy, data focused projects and AI/ML innovation.
Ahmed Nuaman
Managing Director of Firemind
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About Firemind, Firemind Ventures, Scout Solutions, Upcoming: AWS Advanced Partner specialising in professional cloud services, AWS strategy, data focused projects and AI/ML innovation.
Keith Ali
Managing Director of Creative ITC
Managing director and co-owner of Creative – a $25 million global business with 11 offices across five continents – Keith is responsible for running daily operations. He also designs and executes the group’s strategic plan, enabling clients to digitally transform for continued growth and profitability. As well driving international expansion, Keith has brought synergistic ventures on stream. Today, the business draws on the technical skills of Creative ITC, the innovation and experimentation of Creative Customer Experience and the IoT aggregation know-how of Creative Everything Connected. Previously, Keith was head of technical strategy at Cisco, responsible for anticipating market transitions and building value propositions to seize emerging business opportunities. As part of that role, he was a member of the technical leadership team, driving growth of £1.5 billion in annual revenue. Prior to Cisco, Keith spent eight years overseas running IT departments throughout APAC and the US. As global head of infrastructure for Arup, he consulted for public and private sector clients.
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About Creative ITC: Creative deliver real-world IT infrastructure solutions for today, to take you where you need to go tomorrow.
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.
Arjinder Sandhu
Managing Director of Sallybase
Arjinder Sandhu is Co-Founder & CEO at Kvion Inc & Sandhusoft.
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About Kvion Inc, Sallybase, Sandhusoft: Sallybase is an IT consultancy, which develop software’s & provide services to cooperation’s to scale up their operations.
Richard Pennington
Managing Director and Co-Founder of FourNet
Richard Pennington is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of FourNet.
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About 4NET Information Technologies, FourNet: FourNet is a cloud and managed communications service company providing cloud, collaboration, and contact center solutions.
Mark Hutchinson
Managing Director UK of Xantaro
Mark Hutchinson is responsible for Xantaro‘s UK business. He has been in the IT industry for 25 years and began his career in sales with EMC before moving on to senior sales roles and senior management roles in the software industry with Computer Associates, Groupe Bull and IBM, all of which focused on Enterprise Management solutions. Prior to joining Xantaro he was the Managing Director of Telindus Belgacom ICT and a member of the International Executive Committee for a period of 8 years. Mark‘s focus has always been on creating and developing growth through strong customer engagement models based on integrity and transparent relationships with shared insight to the customer needs. His extensive background has enabled a broad business knowledge combined with international experience and specific exposure of working in the telecommunications sector.
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About Xantaro: Xantaro is a vendor-independent service integrator focussing on carrier-class networks & services, cloud infrastructures and orchestration.
Jason Cogley
Managing Director of Fiera Infrastructure
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About Fiera Infrastructure: Fiera Infrastructure is an IT infrastructure company located in Toronto.
James Thomlinson
Managing Director & Partner – Engage of Bell Pottinger
James is Managing Director of Engage by Bell Pottinger, which today sits at the heart of one of the world’s leading communications agencies. During his 11 year career at Bell Pottinger he has planned and executed campaigns for a wide-range of international clients. From looking after FTSE 100 brands, tourist boards, multinational hotel companies and start-ups on integrated communications briefs, James has also delivered complex digital projects, such as influencer marketing campaigns; websites; apps; intranets; online branding collateral; corporate films; webcasts; animations and infographics.
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About Bell Pottinger: Bell Pottinger was founded in 1987 and became a partnership following a management buyout from Chime plc in 2012.
James Ketchell
Managing Director of Serchen
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About Serchen: The recognised leader in matching buyers and sellers of Online Services.
Martin Jones
Managing Director of LAN3
Martin has been Managing Director of LAN3 since its incorporation in 2008 and is ultimately responsible for the delivery of the most reliable, intelligent and efficacious networking solutions to its clients. Before joining LAN3, Martin studied Theology at The University of Oxford and spent 15 years in senior management positions across the IT industry In his spare time, Martin is a part time Liverpool supporter and avid Welsh Rugby fan.
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About LAN3: LAN3 is an award winning IT network integrator.
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.
William Doyle MRICS
Managing Director of Raildiary
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About Raildiary: Raildiary is a Manchester-based tech start-up
Mark Lambert
VP of Sales & Marketing, Managing Director for EMEA Region of Advantech Wireless
Mark Lambert is VP of Sales & Marketing, Managing Director for EMEA Region at Advantech Wireless.
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About Advantech Wireless: Advantech Wireless is the leading wireless broadband communications provider for Commercial, Critical Infrastructure & Government.
Eltjo Hofstee
Managing Director Leaseweb UK of Leaseweb
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About Leaseweb: Leaseweb is a cloud hosting provider offering advanced infrastructure solutions for a global market.
Eltjo Hofstee
Managing Director Leaseweb UK of Leaseweb
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About Leaseweb: Leaseweb is a cloud hosting provider offering advanced infrastructure solutions for a global market.
