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 COO’ operating in the Events space. If you think a COO’ 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.
Jeff Hughes
Chief Operating Officer of NEP Group
Jeff Hughes is Chief Operating Officer of NEP Group, responsible for helping all operating segments of the company share ideas across NEP’s businesses worldwide and for expanding NEP’s global capabilities as it embraces the future in a rapidly changing industry. A well-respected executive with significant media industry experience, Jeff brings to NEP a proven track record of transforming businesses and a deep understanding of our clients, how audiences consume media, and how media businesses operate. He joined NEP in September 2020 from FOX Networks’ Digital Consumer Group, where he was President & COO. During his time at FOX, he led the complete re-development and modernization of digital streaming capabilities across all networks within 21st Century FOX. Jeff also developed the company’s first end-to-end commercial platform for direct-to-consumer (D2C) services across several FOX networks. Prior to his role at FOX, Jeff was CEO of Omnifone, a B2B operator of music services in over 35 countries, where he helped transform the music industry from a transaction-based business to a subscription model. Under Hughes’ leadership, Omnifone became the industry leader and one of the fastest-growing companies in the UK. Earlier in his career, Jeff worked in consulting in Europe for some of the biggest media companies before moving to BSkyB (later renamed Sky UK) where he became Chief Technology Officer. At Sky, he led the company’s IT transformation, including the implementation of new CRM and customer care systems, and launched Sky’s Broadband service in the UK. While there, he took the company from a single-service broadcast business to a triple-play company with digital capabilities for the first time. An accomplished industry speaker, Jeff received his Bachelor of Arts from Texas Christian University and an MBA from Clemson University. After growing up just outside of Houston, Texas and spending nearly 20 years of his adult life in the UK and Europe he now calls Los Angeles, California home. He lives with his wife Maria and their two teenage daughters, along with a dog that likes to announce his presence in the background of Jeff’s video calls. In his spare time Jeff likes to read, swim, cycle and sail. He and his family enjoy spending time traveling and at the beach hanging out with friends.
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About NEP Group: NEP Group is the provider of outsourced teleproduction services critical to the delivery of live sports and entertainment events.
Lizzie Brough
Chief Operating Officer of Heysummit
Lizzie is Kindaba’s Chief Experience Officer and is responsible for customer recruitment, brand and customer experience. Lizzie has a long history of building and maintaining positive partnerships, designing bespoke training programmes, and managing complex projects that require relationship development and community engagement. Over the last year, Lizzie has been fundamental to growing student sports club memberships by 13% across the region. Previously, she has held positions that focused on engagement and community building with Edinburgh University and Heriot-Watt University among other institutions.
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About Heysummit, Pavilion: Heysummit specializes in helping to increase engagement, conversions, and revenue for online summits.
Simon Powell-Jackson
COO | CFO of Glownet
Simon is a COO and business leader with a 15 year track record of scaling up VC-funded and early-stage companies. Expertise in B2B, SaaS, tech-enabled service delivery platforms that drive mass user adoption and scale towards exit. As Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Glownet, pioneered development of the live event industry’s market leading NFC cashless payments solution. Raised over £5M investment from Angels and VC. Currently sit on the Board. Am now seeking my next challenge. As a COO I lead by example, possess high levels of personal accountability, remain results-oriented, hands-on and believe in a strong value creation mindset. Early career: Started out at Morgan Stanley. Early employee of The Cloud, which was backed by Accel and 3i and sold to News Corporation (Sky). MBA graduate of IE Business School. Specialties: B2B | SaaS | STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS | VC & ANGEL FUNDING | DRIVING OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE | GROWTH | BUILDING HIGH-PERFORMANCE TEAMS | SCALING OPERATIONS
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About Coniq, Glownet: Glownet transforms the event landscape through RFID innovation, developes world-class technology that delivers and inspires.
Marine de Boissieu
COO and Co-founder of Parentville Parties
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About Parentville Parties: Parentville is a one stop shop kids parties that connect parents to recommanded parties suppliers in the London area.
Laura Pollard
Chief Operating Officer of Mongoose Sports & Entertainment
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About Mongoose Sports & Entertainment, Mongoose Sports & Entertainment: Mongoose Sports & Entertainment is a specialist agency in sports and entertainment.
Yvette Elkana
CO-FOUNDER/COO of PinEventz
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About PinEventz: PinEventz offers a platform for Event organisers not to just promote or sell tickets but to continue the conversation where its stop.
Yvette Elkana
CO-FOUNDER/COO of PinEventz
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About PinEventz: PinEventz offers a platform for Event organisers not to just promote or sell tickets but to continue the conversation where its stop.
Mariaq Hayden
COO & Co-founder of Headliner
Ex lead singer of punk band Escapegoate and former professional actor. Maria went on to manage various bands and co-founded BandWagon with Stan Mcleod.
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About Headliner: A marketplace connecting event planners with the world’s live entertainment to easily book acts for events.
Mariaq Hayden
COO & Co-founder of Headliner
Ex lead singer of punk band Escapegoate and former professional actor. Maria went on to manage various bands and co-founded BandWagon with Stan Mcleod.
Follow Mariaq Hayden:
About Headliner: A marketplace connecting event planners with the world’s live entertainment to easily book acts for events.
Greg Goodall
COO of AWOL
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About AWOL: Event Photo Sharing Platform – Sponsored and Paid photo sharing at Mass Participation Sports events.
