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 CEO’ operating in the Language Learning 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.
Bernhard Niesner
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of busuu
Bernhard Niesner is the CEO and Co-Founder of busuu – the world´s largest social network for language learning with more than 35m users. busuu provides language courses in 12 different languages combined with direct interaction with native speakers from the community. The London-based start-up received several awards and was named “Best Education Start-Up in 2011” by TechCrunch. busuu is backed by renown business angels like Martin Varsavsky and received investment from PRO-Founders Capital. Before founding busuu, Bernhard worked at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. In addition to busuu, he is Associated Professor at IE Business School in the area of online marketing. Bernhard graduated summa cum laude in International Business from the University of Vienna and holds an MBA (with honors) from IE Business School. In 2009 he was awarded “Entrepreneur of the year” in Austria.
Follow Bernhard Niesner:
About busuu: busuu is a mobile app for language learning with the goal of breaking down language barriers.
Elizabeth Tweedale
Founder and CEO of Cypher Coders
Elizabeth Tweedale is the CEO and founder of Cypher Coders
Follow Elizabeth Tweedale:
About Cypher Coders: Cypher inspires children to learn the language of the future through hands-on creative coding camps and courses.
Aaron Ralby
CEO and founder of Linguisticator
I am a scholar and linguistic passionate about learning languages and helping others do the same. I hold a PhD in Medieval Studies from Cornell University, an MPhil in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic from Cambridge, and a BA in Modern Language sand English from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. I know 20+ languages to varying degrees of fluency and founded my startup Linguisticator in 2013 in order to share my love of languages with others. The inspiration behind my startup lies with the memory techniques used by medieval monks to recall reams of scripture. Learners who use Linguisticator’s courses are taught how to build a memory palace in which to store the entire grammar of the language they are learning. In 2013, the UK’s Ministry of Defence gave us a grant to develop a scalable English language course for use in North Africa. This was trialled successfully in Tripoli, Libya, and actually performed better than traditional classroom-based instruction. Our English course is currently available free of charge to Arabic-speaking refugees who want to learn English. We have since created courses for Arabic (MSA), French, German, Italian and Spanish. We are working on courses for Farsi, Portuguese and Russian at the moment.
Follow Aaron Ralby:
About Linguisticator, Macunx VR: Linguisticator designs rigorous and intensive online language courses for adult and young adult learners.
Dean Jacobs
CEO & Founder of Wibbu
Follow Dean Jacobs:
About University of East London, Wibbu: Wibbu is an award-winning education-entertainment studio specialising in engaging language-learning tools for the classroom.
John Taylor
CEO of action.ai
Follow John Taylor:
About action.ai, ParcelGenie: action.ai powers sophisticated Conversational Interfaces via its Language as a Service platform.
Lukas Lohove
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zizzle
Lukas developed his passion for understanding Chinese characters at UC Berkeley. When not learning Chinese, he enjoys riding boards – be it on snow, water or concrete.
Follow Lukas Lohove:
About Greator, Zizzle: Zizzle provides learning Mandarin Chinese has never been easier.
Giacomo Moiso
Co-Founder & CEO of Fluentify
Giacomo Moiso Co-Founder & CEO at Fluentify
Follow Giacomo Moiso:
About Fluentify: Fluentify connects language learners with carefully selected native speakers around the world trough 30-minutes individual live sessions.
Shiv Rajendran
CEO of Affectively
Founder Affectively Learning
Follow Shiv Rajendran:
About Affective Learning, Affectively: Immersive English Language Training
Pete Daykin
CEO and Co-Founder of Wordnerds
Pete Daykin is the CEO and Co-Founder at Wordnerds.
Follow Pete Daykin:
About Wordnerds: Wordnerds teach computers to understand language, make decisions, and find actionable insights.
Saul Nasse
CEO of Cambridge English
Follow Saul Nasse:
About Cambridge English: Cambridge English provides language assessment for learners and teachers of English.
Alexander Langle
CEO – Founder of Oystext
Follow Alexander Langle:
About Oystext: Oystext allows you to communicate with other users around the world, without any language skills.
Gareth Davies
Founder/CEO of Kwiziq
Follow Gareth Davies:
About Kwiziq: Kwiziq is an AI language coach to help students improve their second language skills with intelligent, personalised coaching.
