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 CTO’ operating in the Media and Entertainment space. If you think a CTO’ 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.
Mat Clayton
Co-Founder and CTO of Mixcloud
Mat Clayton is a specialist in social media and web 2.0 development projects. He has developed a range of successful Facebook applications, including Sponsor Me, and the Sony commisioned Become Rambo, which was awarded best Viral Application by the Facebook Developer Garage London, in association with Sun Microsystems. Mat is now a co-founder of Mixcloud and heads up the technical development of the site. Mat has a Masters in Engineering from the University of Cambridge, specialising in Electrical and Information Sciences. He was sponsored throughout his BA by Qinetiq and by the Institute of Engineering and Technology, of which he is still a member. Mat has worked on a variety of systems and control projects, ranging from biometric monitoring for Electronic Arts to Zigbee based wireless data capture systems for the oil industry. In his spare time, Mat enjoys playing squash and rock climbing.
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About Mixcloud, Wakari: Mixcloud is an online long-form audio platform providing content such as radio shows, podcasts and DJ mixes.
Matthew Postgate
Chief Technology and Product Officer of BBC
As Chief Technology Officer, Matthew Postgate is responsible for the corporation’s Technology & Systems. In addition, Matthew is a director of Youview Ltd; a joint venture between the BBC, ITV, C4, Channel Five, BT, Talk Talk and Arqiva that is developing a next-generation hybrid television platform. Prior to his current role within the organisation Matthew was Controller, Research & Development. He was part of the management team that launched BBC iPlayer and was in charge of BBC mobile where he was responsible for building the corporation’s world leading mobile services. Before joining the BBC, Matthew worked as a telecommunication consultant, was the director of an internet infrastructure start-up and worked at a digital strategy agency for clients including the Royal Mail, BT, Lloyds TSB, Visa and Qinetiq.
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About BBC: BBC is a large-scale broadcasting corporation that offers content to inform, educate, and entertain people.
Mark Smith
Group Chief Technology Officer of ITV
Mark joined ITV in 2011 as a member of the Technology Management team and was promoted into the CTO role in 2015, before taking on the Group CTO role in 2018. Prior to joining ITV Mark held senior Technology positions at the BBC, BBC Worldwide and Sky. Over the past 15 years Mark has specialised in digital transformation and has led the design, build and delivery of industry leading VOD platforms. Mark started his career as a software engineer at BT R&D.
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About ITV: ITV is an integrated producer broadcaster, operating the largest commercial family of channels in the UK.
Kevin Li Ying
Chief Technology Officer of Future
Kevin Li Ying serves as a Chief Technology Officer at Future plc.
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About Future: Future creates high-quality multi-media products which reach their audiences online, on mobile and in print.
Morgan Sowden
Co-Founder & CTO of paydesk
Currently a product-focused CTO at Lendinvest, a VC backed fin-tech disruptor in the mortgage-lending space. Formerly the CTO at the Octopus Group, where I co-founded and built octopuslabs.com, octopuschoice.com and octopuscash.com; built the Octopus digital design team from scratch, as well as their product and (distributed) engineering teams; and initiated the group transformation from waterfall to agile. I am also co-founder and CTO of paydesk.co, a B2B media platform with 6000+ journalists in 165+ countries. Prior to Paydesk, I was interim CEO and CTO of birthdayalarm.com, a very profitable online greeting card site with 55+ million active members. I’ve also been: Entrepreneur in Residence at Monkey Inferno, a San Francisco based startup accelerator; a serial entrepreneur, having co-founded (and sold) two other web businesses, including an early social network (2003); and a board member / NED. Mostly though, I am DJ and love Techno. Search for me on Mixcloud.
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About Facebook AI, paydesk: On-demand workforce platform disrupting the recruitment industry one sector at a time. Starting with media and doing it with payments
Alan Flower
Senior Vice President – CTO EMEA & Global Head, Cloud Native Labs of HCL Technologies
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About HCL Technologies: HCL Technologies is a global IT services company, working with clients in the areas that impact and redefine the core of their businesses.
Jiameng Gao
CTO and Co-founder of Papercup
Jiameng Gao is CTO and Co-founder at Papercup.ai. Jiameng has an MPhil in Machine Learning, Speech and Language Processing and an MEng in Information Engineering from the University of Cambridge. He was previously the first employee at Calipsa.
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About Papercup: Papercup translates videos using AI by generating voices that sound like the original speaker
James King
Co-Founder & CTO of Encore Technologies
An avid pianist and our CTO, James is rarely seen away from a keyboard of some kind.
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About Encore Technologies: Encore is an online network of musicians that enables them to access many performance opportunities in the music community around them.
Stephen Carl
CTO of Sliide
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About Emu Analytics, Sliide: Mobile technology company that work with MNO, MVNO and OEM partners globally to increase engagement, drive revenue, and decrease churn.
Roderick Hodgson
CTO of Simon Says
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About Simon Says: ‘Figma for video editing’ — collaborative, browser-based video editing for video pros, enabled by AI
Ben Roeder
CTO of Sohonet
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About Sohonet: Sohonet operates the largest private network for Media & Entertainment in the world, linking over 400 leading studios and creatives.
Chris Watts
CTO / Co-Founder of NumberEight
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About NumberEight: On-device AI software to predict user context using mobile sensors
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.
Joel Hopwood
Chief Technology Officer of Shopper Media Group
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About Shopper Media Group: Shopper Media Group specializes in commerce marketing activation, connecting retailers and brands with shoppers at the point of purchase.
Stephen Worn
CTO & Managing Director of DatacenterDynamics
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About DatacenterDynamics: DatacenterDynamics is a full service B2B information provider tailored to professionals that design, build, and operate data centers.
Richard Davis
CTO of Colony
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About Colony: Colony is global video streaming platform connecting content owners to engaged audiences.
Simon Starr
CTO & Founder of Cahootify
Simon Starr is a developer, technical consultant and investor who specialises in advising web startups and helping them to build and launch their products.
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About Cahootify: Just make it. Cahootify is the project portfolio and team-forming platform for filmmakers, producers and actors.
Miles Cook
CTO of Blurrt
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About Blurrt, CookieOnline Ltd: Blurrt is a social analytics & content software platform allows users to collect, listen, showcase, anaylse and engage with social audience.
Adam Sewell
Chief Technology Officer of Metropolis International
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About Metropolis International: Metropolis International is a fast growing group, established in 1994.
Ignat Thorovsky
Co-founder, CTO of Poptop
CTO of Poptop Entertainment Booking Platform.
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About Poptop: Poptop is a global entertainment booking service provider.
Ignat Thorovsky
CTO and Co-Founder of Poptop Entertainment Booking Platform
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About Poptop Entertainment Booking Platform: Poptop helps event planners find and book entertainment professionals quickly, easily and safely.
David Tait
CTO of ThinkLiberté
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About ThinkLiberté: ThinkLiberté is a social news service – always be informed
Matthew Brocklehurst
CTO of AWOL
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About AWOL: Event Photo Sharing Platform – Sponsored and Paid photo sharing at Mass Participation Sports events.
Matthew Brocklehurst
CTO of AWOL
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About AWOL: Event Photo Sharing Platform – Sponsored and Paid photo sharing at Mass Participation Sports events.
