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 Surrey based CEO’ operating in the Software 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.
Roger Llewellyn
Managing Director & Founder & CEO of Kognitio
Llewellyn joined Kognitio in April 2003, having previously been Managing Director of Arelon for two and a half years – a company acquired by Cedar Software. Roger instigated the Management Buy-Out of Cedar and the formation of the Redac Group with Alchemy in May 2002. Roger has started a number of American companies in Europe, including WICAT Europe, where he was Managing Director for 6 years and Vice President USA Sales, and Macromedia, where he was Managing Director Europe for 5 years from start-up to IPO. Roger then took the helm at VINCA Europe for 4 years, until it was purchased by Legato, now EMC. He was also Vice President of Elevon Inc. He trained as an Electronic Engineer before taking his first job for Hewlett Packard. He then held senior positions in Digital Equipment and Prime Computers, before becoming Managing Director of Prime Sweden. After two years in this role Roger took the Managing Director role for Prime in Switzerland.
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About AB Electronics, Kognitio: Kognitio is an in-memory analytical software platform that supports BI, OLAP and analytical applications on large and complex data.
William Saville
Co-Founder and CEO of Unily
William Saville is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder at Unily. He was the Co-Founder of BrightStarr before that.
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About Unily: Unily is the full digital workplace solution uniting the very best of Microsoft Enterprise Technology.
Paul Walsh
CEO & Founder of Infinity
Paul founded Infinity in 2010, and has a 20 year history of successfully launching tech-based companies.
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About Infinity: Infinity is a call tracking and hosted PBX service provider.
Anthony Finbow
Chief Executive Officer of Eagle Genomics
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About 360Leaders, Eagle Genomics, Henley Business School, Solv: Eagle Genomics is a enterprise software solutions company to enable the management, orchestration and exploitation of life sciences data.
Fintan Galvin
CEO of Invotra Ltd
Fintan is the founder / owner of Invotra. He has a passion for delivery and keeping things focussed and connected. With over 25 years in enterprise technology he has a vast array of knowledge in getting large scales systems developed and deployed out to the people that count.
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About : Enterprise Intranet and Portal solutions for organisations worldwide
Gareth Hughes
CEO of Crave Interactive
Gareth is a technology entrepreneur with a passion for creating innovative solutions that everyone can instinctively use. He was formerly with Dun & Bradstreet, GEC and was a main board Director of Psion plc.
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About Crave Interactive: Crave Interactive is the leading provider of cutting-edge in-room tablets designed for hotels of any size.
Steve Gallagher
Director and Chief Executive Officer of Dotmatics
Steve obtained a first degree in biochemistry and a doctorate in biophysics and molecular modelling. After completing his post-doc at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, Steve joined Merck in 2000. While at Merck, Steve was responsible for delivering global applications in data-mining, information management, decision-support tools and text-mining. Steve left Merck in 2005 to found Dotmatics Limited.
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About Dotmatics: Dotmatics is a scientific informatics software and services provider that offers automation of laboratory workflows.
Aaron Mason
Founder and CEO of Combine AI
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About Combine AI, Snap Out: Combine AI is a software company that specializes in intelligent business productivity tools.
James Cobb
Founder and CEO of Crowd Connected
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About Crowd Connected: Pioneering a new generation of big data location intelligence
Dave Ward
CEO and Co-Founder of ClubSpark
Dave founded ClubSpark in 2012 with Nathan. He has a strong desire to see a growth in sports participation across the UK and globally, through the innovation of technology and the enabling power it provides to venues and participants alike. Dave is approaching 20 years in User Experience Design delivery and will stop at nothing to ensure the team delivers a first-class experience for our product users.
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About ClubSpark: ClubSpark is an award-winning, market-leading sports booking and management SaaS platform.
Tom Higgins
CEO of Gold-i Ltd
Tom Higgins is founder and CEO of Gold-i. His experience in financial technology spans over 25 years, having spent most of his career working in the City, London. His career history includes: Management Consultant at PA Consulting Group, Chief Technology Officer at The IPE, Head of IT Business Strategy at NYSE Euronext, COO Europe & Asia at Reuters and Chief Technology Officer at online broker, ODL Securities. He holds an MBA from Cass Business School in London. With an in-depth knowledge of the trading technology industry, Tom Higgins spotted a gap in the market to enhance the FX trading process for retail brokers, providing them with the same tools as institutional brokers at a fraction of the cost. He left ODL in 2008 to set up Gold-i. Under Tom’s leadership, Gold-i has grown from start-up business to global market leader in trading systems integration, renowned throughout the industry for its innovation, award-winning products and high service levels. With his open management style and strong leadership, Tom has created a culture with clear values, where employees are motivated to deliver the best products and services in the industry. Tom has won numerous awards in recognition of his leadership skills and in 2014, led the company to win the UK’s ultimate business accolade, The Queen’s Award for Enterprise. He was invited to an event at Buckingham Palace, attended by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II to celebrate the business’ achievements. As the inspiration and driving force behind Gold-i, Tom has played a major role in disrupting the retail FX market, giving opportunities to brokers across the globe which did not previously exist. Moving forward, Tom plans to use his market insight to continue to drive innovation, introducing additional products to further disrupt the market. Tom has four children – aged 18, 16, 14 and 6, 1 dog, 2 cats, 4 chickens, and one wife! In the small amount of spare time he has, he enjoys restoring his classic car – a 1964 Triumph Herald.
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About Gold-i Ltd: Gold-i is the global market leader in trading systems integration
Joshila Makan
CEO of Worldwide Chain Stores
Joshila Makan is the CEO of WCS. Joshila’s experience cover deep business process and design knowledge, programme management, implementations, and operations for organisations covering the UK, US and South Africa.
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About Worldwide Chain Stores: Worldwide Chain Stores provides comprehensive supply chain execution technology, services, and solutions.
Terry Jones
CEO of Smartdebit
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About Smartdebit: Streamline payment handling, improve your cashflow and increase customer retention with SmartDebit.
Karim Peer
CO-CEO of Varius World Tech
Karim has over 20 years experience in developing and building software businesses. Karim has operated as CEO or managing director of a number of software businesses and has led them to successful exits realising significant gains for existing investors and shareholders. Prior to working at Helveta, Karim was Managing Director of OpenBet and Chief Executive Officer of Financial Objects PLC an AIM listed financial services software company. Karim is a fluent Spanish, French and Portuguese speaker.
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About Varius World Tech: Varius World Tech is a software provider for the emerging world of Blockchain based online gaming.
Justin Anderson
Chief Executive Officer of Xpert AI
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About Xpert AI: Xpert AI is an international R&D lab that combines Computer Vision and Augmented Reality technology
Peter Bance
Chief Executive Officer of Origami
Peter started working with Octopus in early 2012 as ‘Entrepreneur in Residence’. In this consulting role, he supports the management teams of a number of Octopus’ portfolio companies in the delivery of their growth plans, in particular when dealing with large corporations. Peter also helps to identify and assess prospective new deals for Octopus, specialising in businesses with intellectual property based technology and products. Outside of Octopus, Peter sits on a number of Boards of high growth businesses as a non-executive director, including Goodwolfe Energy, and is a member of a number of public-private organisations informing UK government policy on innovation and investment, including The Energy Technologies Institute. Prior to Octopus, Peter was CEO of Ceres Power, an AIM listed cleantech business, following an earlier career in corporate venturing and technology consulting at Generics Group and PA Technology.
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About Origami: Intelligent trading and automation software for short term power trading. SaaS.
Peter Blackburn
Chief Executive Officer of Brandgility by Elateral
Peter Blackburn is Founder, Chief Technology Officer & Director at Elateral.
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About Brandgility by Elateral: Brandgility: The platform for self-service adaptation and localization of print and digital assets
Gurjeet Matharu
CEO of Nava Ventures
Experienced Full Stack Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the Financial Services and Defence industries. Skilled in Kubernetes, Cloud, Python, Java and supporting the production of ML and scientific workflows and products. Strong engineering professional with a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) focused in Systems Engineering from Simon Fraser University.
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About Nava Ventures: Nava Ventures is a SaaS company that offers an ecosystem of socially responsible fintech products.
Jim Beagle
President and CEO of BridgeHead Software
Jim has worked in the technology, distribution and consulting markets for more than 25 years in director-level positions. As President and CEO Jim brings his expertise of delivering business growth and profitability to BridgeHead worldwide. He previously was executive vice president of worldwide sales and services at CarbonFlow Corporation. Prior to that, he served as CEO of Extraprise International; divisional vice president of Object Design, Inc.; European director of UIS (one of the companies that formed Sprint) and a number of sales and marketing roles at ICL (now part of Fujitsu). Jim holds an MBA from Henley Management College, as well as a Diploma in Management Studies from Kingston Management College, and a degree from the London School of Economics.
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About BridgeHead Software: BridgeHead Software delivers data management solutions to healthcare organizations across the globe enabling them to improve patient care.
Craig McDermott
Chief Executive Officer of Idenprotect
Craig McDermott joined iDENprotect as Chief Executive Officer in 2013.
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About Idenprotect: Idenprotect gives you swift, simple and secure access to all your corporate applications without ever needing to use a password.
Derrick Bilsby
Chief Executive Officer of ITAL
Derrick has over 40 years’ experience in the rail and transport industry, specialising in both strategic and operational management systems. He has an in-depth understanding of the complexity of rail operations gained initially through working as a control manager for British Rail. He then went on to manage IT projects that updated and reimagined systems and software to improve train operations, ticketing, fleet engineering and finance, first for British Rail and then for Connex.
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About ITAL: ITAL develops software solutions to businesses who rely on people and systems for their day-to-day activities.
Derrick Bilsby
Chief Executive Officer of ITAL
Derrick has over 40 years’ experience in the rail and transport industry, specialising in both strategic and operational management systems. He has an in-depth understanding of the complexity of rail operations gained initially through working as a control manager for British Rail. He then went on to manage IT projects that updated and reimagined systems and software to improve train operations, ticketing, fleet engineering and finance, first for British Rail and then for Connex.
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About ITAL: ITAL develops software solutions to businesses who rely on people and systems for their day-to-day activities.
Niklas Palaghias
CEO and Founder of Quadible
Dr Niklas Palaghias is the CEO and Founder of Quadible, offering a game-changing AI-based continuous behavioural authentication solution. He has a native interest in human behaviour recognition and cyber security. He was a PhD Researcher at the Home of 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey, where he received his PhD in understanding different aspects of human behaviour by using mobile devices. He was working as a software engineer for 4 years in telecommunications consultancy at UIT Athens
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About Quadible: Quadible provides the easiest and most secure way to authenticate your phone.
Tirath Bansal
CEO of Myorb Limited
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About Myorb Limited: Myorb is an application that enables its users to upload and share data with others.
Lee Chadwick
Chief Executive Officer of Spotler
Lee Chadwick is the Chief Executive Officer of Spotler Group.
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About Spotler: Spotler is a provider of online email marketing and marketing automation software and associated knowledge and services.
Alan Parkinson
CEO and Founder of Hindsight Software
Alan Parkinson is the CEO and founder of Hindsight Software.
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About Hindsight Software: Hindsight Software provides enterprise grade tools and training to help companies integrate BDD into their software development process.
