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 CEO’ operating in the Automotive space. If you think a CEO’ 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.
Alexander Edward Chesterman
Founder & CEO of Cazoo
Alex Chesterman is the founder and CEO of Cazoo. He was the Founder & CEO of ZPG Plc, a FTSE-250 listed company. Previously Alex co-founded Lovefilm, Europe’s leading digital movie rental business, which was successfully sold to Amazon. Alex is also one of the UK’s most active tech angel investors having backed dozens of early stage digital startups and was awarded an OBE for services to services to digital entrepreneurship in 2016.
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About Cazoo, Zoopla Property Group Plc (ZPG): Cazoo is an online used car marketplace designed to transform the way people buy, finance, or rent used cars.
Erik Fairbairn
Founder & CEO of Pod Point
Erik founded POD Point in 2009, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. he saw the potential of electric vehicles as the next major mode of transportation and set himself the goal of wiring up the UK with charge points to facilitate the switch to EV from internal combustion engines. Fairbairn is also a member of the UK Automotive Council Technology Group and YPO (Young President’s Organisation) and featured on the 35th episode of their podcast.
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About Pod Point: We’re building the infrastructure needed for the mass adoption of electric vehicles in the UK & Europe.
Tom Leathes
Co-Founder & CEO of Motorway
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About Motorway: Motorway is an online used-car marketplace for professional car dealers that sells their cars using their smartphones.
James Hind
Founder & CEO of Carwow
James is the big boss of carwow, so it’s hardly a surprise that cars are one of his biggest passions.He studied Finance but was put off a city career after just 2 months of trying one. He’s very competitive, especially when it comes to ping pong at the office. He invented the rule that if anyone loses a game 11-0 they have to buy donuts for the entire team!
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About Carwow: Carwow is a company that helps efficiently connect car buyers to car dealers.
Dan Hubert
CEO & Founder of AppyWay
Dan initially founded AppyParking after experiencing first-hand the pain of parking caused by a fragmented and broken market when trying to park near the Royal Albert Hall for a concert. From this was born the AppyParking mobile app, but more questions quickly arose… What if we could digitise parking spaces? And not just spaces – but all of the UK’s kerbs? What opportunities would that unlock? How could a digitised, dynamic kerb not only meet the ever-growing demands of urban transport today – but shape that of tomorrow? From that lightbulb moment onwards, Dan was hooked and with AppyWay, he’s leading the charge to help cities thrive, from the kerb up.
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About AppyWay: AppyWay is a kerbside management & technology firm enabling intelligent mobility for cities.
Reda Bennis
Co-Founder and CEO of Zebra Fuel
Reda Bennis (@reda_zebra) is the CEO & Co-Founder @ Zebra Fuel
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About Inside Capital, Zebra Fuel: Zebra Fuel is a mobile fuel delivery service that delivers fuel into a vehicle directly at a preferred delivery time.
Mike Flewitt
CEO of McLaren Applied Technologies
Mike Flewitt joined McLaren as Chief Operating Officer in June 2012 and became Chief Executive Officer in July 2013. At the time of joining, the position was a new and strategic addition to the executive team and came as the company embarked on a new period of growth. Mike’s current role as CEO includes the development, manufacture and global distribution of a range of current and future McLaren sports cars, including the McLaren 650S and McLaren P1™. Prior to joining McLaren, Mike was Vice President, Manufacturing, Ford of Europe, and Corporate Officer, Ford Motor Company. Before joining Ford, he held senior manufacturing and operations roles at TWR Group Limited, AutoNova AB and Rolls-Royce and Bentley Motor Cars Limited. He qualified in Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering in 1987 and completed a post-graduate qualification in Management and Project Management at Salford University in 1996.
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About McLaren Applied Technologies: McLaren Applied Technologies is a British technology company that works in conjunction with other companies.
Pasi William Sachiti
Founder & CEO of Academy of Robotics
William Sachiti is a UK based serial entrepreneur best known for creating a UK driverless car manufacture company competing with multinational incumbents such as Google, Uber and Tesla. The company designs and builds the autonomous vehicles in their UK warehouse. William has started and exited three previous tech start-ups in row, the latest MyCityVenue, an A.I. driven experiences platform serving 1.6 million users was acquired in 2015 by Secret Escapes. Before MyCityVenue, William was the the BBC Investment program Dragons Den, where he pitched a start-up, digital outdoor advertising on bins. The Dragons famously said he needs to be wheeled out of the bin. The company he pitched subsequently was licensed in several countries before being acquired. One of William’s first start-ups he started at 19, was called 123-registration. This company was also acquired for an undisclosed amount.
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About Academy of Robotics: The Academy of Robotics is a technology institute with an extraordinary technical team of engineers, scientists, and researchers.
Tom Elvidge
CEO Arrival Mobility UK & Chief of Product of Arrival
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About Arrival: Arrival is a developer and manufacturer of zero-emission, public transportation vehicles.
Tom Wood
CEO of Cazana
Tom hails from a business & innovation background having led technology teams within investment banking and pharmaceutical sectors and founded and sold companies in the marketing technology space. Tom has always had a passion for cars and considers himself very lucky to work on his hobby every day.
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About Car and Classic, Cazana: Cazana data helps motor retailers, insurers and lenders digitally transform with big data and machine learning technology
Ed Leon Klinger
CEO of Flock Ltd.
Flock is a fully digital insurance company for connected and autonomous vehicles. We provide personalised, seamless insurance products for commercial motor fleets, enabling and incentivising proactive risk management. We achieve this by leveraging connected vehicle & contextual data to quantify road risk on a per-second, per-meter basis, providing our customers with risk insights and highly personalised pricing that reflect their real risk profile. With Flock, safer fleets pay less. We’re on a mission to make the world a safer, smarter place. — I graduated from Oxford University (M.Eng – Engineering, Economics and Management) where I specialised in High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) for brain cancer ablation. I graduated from Cambridge University (M.Phil – Technology Policy, Judge Business School), where I published papers for various academic think-tanks on the opportunities and risks of autonomous vehicles. I have past experience in Private Equity (The Blackstone Group), Technology Policy (Facebook Inc.), and have lived and worked in Asia, lecturing at Zhejiang University in China and at Hong Kong University.
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About Flock Ltd.: London-based insurtech building the world’s first fully digital insurance company for connected and autonomous commercial vehicles
Bola Adegbulu
Co-Founder and CEO of Predina Tech
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About Predina Tech: Building the Location Risk Intelligence platform for the future of Auto Insurance and Mobility
Philip Ellis
Co-Founder ,CEO & COO of Beryl
Phil is here to make sure that it happens. Phil approaches cycling with the same ripped down simplicity he does most outdoor pursuits, look good and go fast. In his case one or the other is usually achieved but rarely both. With a law degree, accountancy qualifications and consulting experience, Phil brings a triple threat of legal, financial and operational experience to Blaze.
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About Beryl: The UK’s leading micromobility company
Ming Kong
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of TG0
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About TG0: TG0 is an R&D start-up creating novel 3D controls.
Andrius Balkunas
CEO & Founder of ParcelABC
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About ParcelABC: ParcelABC is a logistics company that unites thousands of local and international delivery companies.
Yodit Stanton
Founder and CEO of OpenSensors
Software and Data engineer working to helping people understand their physical space. Currently growing OpenSensors. OpenSensors aggregates data from a variety of sensors for the next generation of smart Building Management Systems. Our dashboards help you make the most effective use of your office space. With experience in helping more than 100 companies to combine data from new workplace sensors seamlessly, interoperating it with existing and familiar mobile and desktop systems, we aim to give you a fully comprehensive overview.
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About OpenSensors: OpenSensors is an internet of things company that builds a connected world that puts people first.
Maya Pindeus
Co-Founder, CEO of Humanising Autonomy
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About Humanising Autonomy: Humanising Autonomy is building the global standard for human machine interactions.
Guillem Singla Buxarrais
Co-Founder and CEO of Neurofenix
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About MedTech Innovator, Neurofenix: Neurofenix is aiming to make rehabilitation more autonomous, enjoyable and accessible to stroke victims.
Sébastien Louit
CEO of mondaycar
Sébastien Louit is the CEO and founder of mondaycar. He also co-founded magic makers, coding classes for kids. This edTech startup ranked in the top 10 French edTech startup in 2016. He exited in 2018.
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About mondaycar: Hassle-free car subscription
Arshia Gratiot
Founder and CEO of Third Space Auto
I am an innovator, strategist, product marketer, intrapreneur and advertising professional with 15+ years of multidisciplinary experience in design strategy, digital experience planning, product marketing, marketing communications and advertising in the FMCG and telecoms industry. With a career that’s spanned 5 countries, I’ve had the opportunity to work across markets and on a myriad number of products and brands. My passion lies in technology and the power it has to transform businesses and people’s lives. This is where I’ve focused the last 8 years of my professional life. I’ve launched products and services across the globe, provided strategic support for future focused innovation projects and acted as a change agent in demonstrating a more user-centered and collaborative way of working in heavily matrixed organisations. My focus has been on evangelising the customer inside the corporate environment. In the last 4 years I’ve had the opportunity to work with one of the best design teams in the technology space. I’ve gained a strong understanding of design thinking as a discipline and its application in the creation of innovative products, user experiences and value propositions. On a personal level I am passionate about developments in the digital world because it has the power to improve the quality of the physical world and help create a greener planet for our children. I started Third Space Auto because I can see the parallels between the mobile industry when the iphone dropped in 2007 and sent shock waves all around. Today next to none of the behemoths of that time have survived. The same will happen to the auto industry if there isn’t a mindset change. I want to help create it and help them navigate it too.
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About Drone Space AI., Third Space Auto: Head-quartered in London, UK with development teams in Finland and India.
Limvirak Chea
Co-founder & CEO of Fixter
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About Fixter: Fixter is an end-to-end online car maintenance service.
Andy Hibbert
CEO and Founder of Car & Away
An experienced senior executive of the travel sector who has led, grown and sold travel-related businesses that were private equity backed. Most recently led Reed & Mackay through 9 years of EBITDA growth +20% CAGR. Led the sale of the business from Living Bridge to ECI Partners returning 4.8x returns. Grew the business for 4 further years resulting in the sale of the business from ECI to Inflexion at 3.4x returns. Previous experience as Head of Ancillary for easyJet, Online / Commercial Director for STA Travel and a combination of Management, Commercial, Pricing, and Aircraft trading roles at British Airways.
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About Car & Away, Karshare: Car & Away offers peer-to-peer car lending and renting.
Aldo Monteforte
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of The Floow
As CEO Aldo leads the sales and business development efforts and is responsible for growing The Floow into the world leading provider of analytical insights at the service of the global automotive ecosystem. He conceived and founded The Floow in 2012, with the vision of making vehicles safer and cheaper for all. In particular Aldo saw the potential to transform the telematics industry from the convergence of mobile technologies, large scale data mining and psychology applied to driver behaviour. After a career in investment banking, in 2000 Aldo became an entrepreneur and investor in high growth telematics companies.
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About The Floow: The Floow designs the world’s most advanced and lowest-cost telematic systems to make vehicles safer and cheaper for all.
Maximillion Cooper
Founder & CEO of Gumball 3000
Maximillion Cooper is a Founder & CEO at Gumball 3000.
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About Gumball 3000: The Gumball 3000 is an annual British 3,000-mile international motor rally which takes place on public roads.
Andrew Jervis
Co-Founder and CEO of ClickMechanic
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About ClickMechanic: ClickMechanic is an online marketplace for users to find mechanics.
Jonathan Morris
CEO of DriveTribe
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About DriveTribe: DriveTribe is a digital media platform that allows businesses to create & publish automobile-related contents to their customers.
Robin North
Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Lead Technologist of Immense
Building tools to support fleets and mobility. Development, implementation, field test and evaluation of complex transport systems across multiple modes. Environmental monitoring and modelling methodologies for the appraisal of transport systems and projects. Identification and development of innovation opportunities for multiple stakeholders.
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About Immense: A global decision-support platform for new mobility
Roger D’Hollander
CEO of PayBySky Inc
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About PayBySky Inc: Service provider of in-vehicle parking meters
Stephen Chan
CEO of YourCar
Stephen graduated from Imperial College London with a masters degree in engineering. He has had experience working as a financial advisor with KPMG in London, advising multinational corporations and investment funds on merger and acquisitions. It is also during his time in Europe when he experienced the freedom and flexibility offered by carsharing services and since moving back to Hong Kong, he has put together a team and developed the necessary infrastructure and technology to offer a similar service in Hong Kong.
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About YourCar: YourCar originated from the many carsharing concepts and real life examples from around the world.
Matt Lewis
Founder, CEO of Synaptiv
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About Synaptiv: Synaptiv is a connected car platform helping fleets and car makers monetise the data generated by their connected vehicles.
Rashide Carvalho
Founder and CEO of Whipgo
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About Whipgo: Whipgo.com is a platform where you can rent vehicles in seconds without the hassle of rental agreements and documents.
Marcin Piatkowski
Founder & CEO of JIVR
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About JIVR: JIVR is a hassle-free commuting bike, allowing you to enjoy the benefits of cycling, without any lifestyle compromises.
