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 London based COO’ operating in the Business Development 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.
Ian Woods
General Counsel and COO of Virgin Group
Ian is the General Counsel and COO at Virgin Group. Ian has been with Virgin since 2005 and has responsibility for various functions within Virgin Management including Legal, People, Company Secretarial, Facilities and IT as well as for advising Virgin companies on a broad spectrum of legal issues across different business sectors and jurisdictions. Ian sits on the Board of various Group companies including Virgin Management, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Limited Edition and Virgin Enterprises. Ian previously worked for leading international law firm Slaughter and May and holds an LLB from Sheffield University.
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About Virgin Group: Virgin Group is an investment company focused on leisure, travel, tourism, mobile, broadband, TV, radio, music, finance, and health sectors.
Richard Matthews
COO and Partner of Augmentum Fintech
Richard has 17 years venture capital and private equity experience in the technology, retail and leisure sectors on both sides of the fence. Having studied economics at the University of Manchester, Richard started his career as a Chartered Accountant at Coopers & Lybrand before leaving in 1999 to join Tim at Flutter.com (now Betfair) as CFO. In 2002 following the merger with Betfair he left to join Benchmark Capital Europe (now Balderton Capital), one of the early investors in Betfair. At Benchmark he worked on early stage technology investments both in the investment phase and assisting the investee companies post funding. He then joined Manzanita Capital in 2005, where he spent 5 years investing in the retail and leisure sectors globally before leaving to form Augmentum Capital. In 2018 Richard and Tim successfully launched Augmentum Fintech on the main market of the London Stock Exchange, in the process becoming the first Fintech focused public VC in Europe. Away from the office Richard enjoys spending time with his family, watching Arsenal and playing golf, though in the case of the latter 2 the word “enjoys” is used in its loosest sense.
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About Augmentum Fintech: Augmentum Fintech is a FinTech fund that invests in early and later-stage FinTech companies.
Scott Collins
Managing Director and COO of Summit Partners
Scott Collins is the Managing Director at Summit Partners. Scott joined Summit Partners in 1996. Scott manages the firm’s London office, which he founded in 2001. Scott is active in Summit’s investment activities in North America, Europe and Asia. During his 17 years with Summit Partners, Scott has served on the board of directors of more than 25 companies. Currently he is a director of 360T Group, Acturis Limited, AVAST Software, Bigpoint, vente-privee.com and Welltec International. His prior directorships include Dorn Technology Group (acquired by Policy Management Systems Corporation), Elumen Solutions (acquired by Computer Task Group), Hittite Microwave Corporation (NASDAQ: HITT), Jamba! AG (acquired by VeriSign), Ogone (acquired by Ingenico), SafeBoot Holdings (acquired by McAfee) and Web Reservations International (acquired by Hellman & Friedman). Prior to Summit, Scott worked as a Strategy Consultant with McKinsey & Company in the financial institutions group. Scott also served in a variety of U.S. federal government positions, including at the White House and Department of Justice. Scott holds an A.B. degree in Economics, magna cum laude, from Harvard University and a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, Scott was captain of the varsity football team and later served as managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. Scott is a former director of the Harvard Alumni Association and remains active in Harvard-related activities. Scott was a founding Trustee of the Private Equity Foundation, a leading venture philanthropy in the U.K. dedicated to improving the lives of underprivileged youth and he served on the board from 2007 to 2012. Scott holds British and U.S. dual citizenship. Scott’s personal interests include sport and fitness, the arts, and spending time with his children.
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About Summit Partners: Summit Partners is an investment firm that is currently investing in to growth equity, fixed income, and public equity opportunities.
Venancio Gallego
COO of Ebury
Venancio Gallego Vindel is COO at Ebury Partners.
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About Ebury: Ebury is a financial services company designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses that want to trade internationally.
Warwick Hunt
Managing Partner and Chief Operating Officer of PwC
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About PwC: PricewaterhouseCoopers is an accounting firm that provides tax, HR, transactions, performance improvement, and crisis management services.
Ben Gateley
COO & Co-Founder of Charlie
Ben Gateley works as Co-founder for The Eleven.
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About Charlie, The Eleven: Charlie is the HR software for small teams with big ideas.
Paul Zimmerman
COO of Invotra Ltd
An accomplished executive in the technology sector for nearly 20 years, having joined Amazon.com in 1999. Communications & Technology Currently COO of Invotra, an enterprise Intranet-as-a-Service, used by 200,000 end users in the UK and the US. Customers include the UK’s Home Office, Department for Works & Pensions (DWP), Department for Transport (DfT) and HMRC. In America, the venerable environmental organisation Sierra Club became a customer in 2017. I’m a public speaker and guest lecturer on diverse subjects ranging from entrepreneurship to the future of communications in the workplace to accessibility to Brexit’s impact on the UK. Ecommerce CEO for online gift and gadget site Firebox.com from 2010 to 2012, and COO of Stanley Gibbons’ ecommerce operations in Jersey from 2013 to 2014. Prior to this, I served Play.com as Marketplace Director in 2010 and Head of Business Development from 2005-2010. Previously I was a senior manager at both Amazon.com’s UK division, Amazon.co.uk (4 years), and Woolworths Group (2 years), where I led the business units responsible for driving e-commerce retail sales for both physical and digital music products. Specialties digital communications strategies, ecommerce, consulting and stakeholder engagement, p&l management, general management, product management, marketplace strategies, vendor management, purchasing, user experience & web design, SEO, search technologies, content management systems, digital distribution technologies, competitive analysis and research, market analysis and research, international experience
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About : Enterprise Intranet and Portal solutions for organisations worldwide
Adam Park
Chief Operating Officer of Renaissance Capital Partners
Adam Park is the Chief Operating Officer at Renaissance Capital Partners.
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About Renaissance Capital Partners: Renaissance Capital Partners invests funds in high-growth, innovative, and entrepreneurial businesses and also built environment projects.
Obi Ejimofo
COO & Operations Director of Asoko Insight
Obi is an experienced technologist and entrepreneur now focused on implementing new business models in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is the former managing director of Lamudi Nigeria and previously a senior manager at Thomson Reuters and Philips Electronics, designing and delivering global enterprise programmes. London Business School (MBA); University of Nigeria (BEngr)
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About Asoko Insight: Africa’s leading corporate information platform, providing market mapping solutions to investment firms, banks, corporates and governments.
John Abel
Chief Operating Officer of Plianz
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About Plianz: Plianz utilizes compliance intelligence to assist clients in eliminating inefficiencies from the need to adhere to key industry rules.
Jake Li
Co-Founder, COO & Data Scientist of Kuan Intelligence
Jake Li, PhD is Co-Founder, COO & Data Scientist at Kuan Intelligence.
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About Kuan Intelligence: Kuan Intelligence is a cross-border payment platform for E-Commerce backed by Blockchain Technology.
Olgert Koxha
Director & COO of Cashbook Finance
Mr. Koxha is an experienced Business Development Manager with a strong demonstrated history of working in the banking and financial services industry. Skilled in Trading, Management Consulting, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Business Strategy, and Project Management.
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About Cashbook Finance: FCA registered company offering Invoice Finance & Factoring services in the UK.
Simon Cole
Consultant, CFO, COO & Co-Founder of Molewood Consulting
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About Apparier, Molewood Consulting: Molewood Consulting is a private equity firm that provides management consulting and staffing services.
