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 President operating in the Association space. If you think a President 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 Marchant
Honorary President of Royal Zoological Society of Scotland
Ian was Chief Executive of SSE, one of the UK’s leading utility companies and Scotland’s largest industrial company for over ten years. He stepped down from that position in the summer of 2013. Ian is now Chairman of Infinis Energy plc, a renewable energy company; Independent Chairman of the oil services company, the John Wood group and Nova Innovation; as well as holding various advisory and non-executive positions in other organisations. Ian is a renowned and innovative leader in the energy industry, and was welcomed to Synaptec’s advisory board in July 2016.
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About Royal Zoological Society of Scotland: Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) promotes the study of zoology and kindred subjects.
Harry ‘Tomi Davies
Co-Founder and President of African Business Angel Network
Harry Tomi Davies (TD) is a versatile technology business leader, keynote speaker and advisor with over two decades of outstanding experience building large-scale, national and regionwide IT infrastructure projects across Africa. He has held a variety of executive and non-executive leadership roles with influential global brands like Ernst & Young, Marks & Spencer, Elf, Sapient and the One Laptop Per Child project. Over the last decade TD has looked after a growing portfolio of Africabased tech-enabled early stage businesses and is the Founder of the Lagos Angel Network (LAN). He is also President of the African Business Angel Network (ABAN). He is a seasoned technology strategist and project development expert with significant market intelligence, research and project management skills. Author and regular keynote speaker with a substantial network of connections globally including on most major social media platforms. He is an inspiring thought leader TD is a volunteer to a number of non-profit organizations and Guest lecturer at the Pan Atlantic University’s Enterprise Development Centre. His rich and varied experience has been leveraged by organisations for advisory services, speaking engagements and nonexecutive board roles at companies like MBO Capital Limited (Private Equity), TextNigeria Limited (Telecoms) and Sproxil Nigeria (Anti-Counterfeit Technologies)
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About African Business Angel Network: ABAN is a non-profit association that seeks to promote a culture of Angel investing across Africa.
Mustapha Rashid
President of British Orthopaedic Trainees Association
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About British Orthopaedic Trainees Association: Supporting the orthopaedic trainees of today, for the patients of tomorrow
Jean-Jacques Sahel
Vice President, Europe of ICANN
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About ICANN: ICANN (pronounced eye-can) is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. It’s a non-profit corporation that was created in
David Scowsill
President & CEO of World Travel & Tourism Council
Prior to joining World Travel & Tourism Council as President & CEO in November 2010, David worked for 6 years in private equity and venture capital, completing deals in technology and travel sectors. David was CEO of Opodo, pan-European online travel company from 2002 to 2004, building the business from start up to a €500mn transaction turnover, before it was sold to Amadeus. He joined the board of Hilton International in 1997 as senior VP sales, marketing and IT, leading the brand re-unification programme between the two Hilton shareholder companies.
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About World Travel & Tourism Council: World Travel & Tourism Council works to raise awareness of Travel & Tourism as one of the world’s largest industries.
Joe Barrett
President of Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA)
Joe is the founder of VisionComs Ltd, a strategic marketing and communications consultancy focusing on innovative marketing programs that target the wireless generation. Joe is a creative thinker with a proven career as a senior strategist, marketing executive and public speaker benefiting from 25+ years experience of advancing wireless technologies into dynamic and fast growing industries, at start-up and Fortune 500 companies. Joe has held senior executive positions at Qualcomm Europe, where he launched the Qualcomm Halo™ Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging brand, at Nokia Networks where he was part of the 3G-business team and at Flarion Technologies helping drive the adoption of its OFDMA 4G technology. Joe has been involved in numerous telecommunications marketing campaigns and initiatives and has been a regular speaker at industry events and investor/analyst meetings where he has promoted wireless technologies into industry.Joe holds an MSc. in Marketing from the University of Glamorgan and an Advanced Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
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About Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), VisionComs Ltd: The Global mobile Suppliers Association aims to promote the GSM, 3G, WCDMA, HSPA, and LTE mobile phone standards worldwide.
Dinesh Dhamija
President of The Indus Entrepreneur (London Chapter)
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About The Indus Entrepreneur (London Chapter): TiE is a non-profit, global community welcoming entrepreneurs from all over the world.
Mary Robinson
President of Mary Robinson Foundation
Mary Robinson is President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is a member of the Elders and the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States Barack Obama. She is also a member of the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. Between March 2013 and August 2014 Mary served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region of Africa. In August 2014 she was appointed the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change. Mary was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative from 2002-2010 and served as Honorary President of Oxfam International from 2002-2012.
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About European Climate Foundation, Mary Robinson Foundation, Realizing Rights, Scaling Up Nutrition: The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice is a centre for thought leadership, education and advocacy on the struggle.
Geeta Raj
President and Founder of The Global Sleepover
Geeta brings over 15 years of experience in international development and humanitarian assistance to The Global Sleepover, including over 9 years as a Senior Program Analyst with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Geeta’s experiences working and living in Afghanistan, South Sudan, South Africa, Colombia, the U.K., Albania, Serbia, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Moldova influenced her as an entrepreneur to found and grow The Global Sleepover. Geeta’s experience ranges from: entrepreneurship, creative direction and design, interactive and multi-media technology, creative writing, international development project implementation and management, and cultural, global and literacy education. A 2003 graduate of the Presidential Management Fellowship program in Washington, DC and a 2011-2012 Innovation Fellow with ConvergeUS, Geeta is a two-time recipient of the Washington, DC Commission on the Arts Folk and Traditional Arts Grant and speaks Hindi, Urdu, and basic Spanish and Serbian. Geeta holds a BA in Creative Writing from University of Houston and a MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University in Washington, DC. Geeta learned about the unequivocal power of education through her father. A refugee from an ethnic partition in India in 1947, he overcame economic and social adversity through earning five higher education degrees – truly transformative education. This is Geeta’s motivation behind founding Global Sleepover – harnessing the power of technology to make education and literacy more accessible to children who have least access.
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About The Global Sleepover: The Global Sleepover improves literacy & global citizenship for young children through interactive and multi-media storytelling & the arts.
Ian Glover
President of CREST
Ian Glover has worked in the IT industry for the last 39 years and has been working in information security for the last 34 years. As President over the last six years, Ian has taken CREST to a position of influence in the technical security industry. He has been instrumental in a significant number of major initiatives in the cyber security industry.
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About CREST: CREST is a not-for-profit accreditation body that represents the technical information security industry.
Christina Blacklaws
President of The Law Society
Christina is the President of the Law Society of England and Wales and performs a range of ambassadorial and representative functions both domestically and internationally. In addition, she holds a range of public appointments including member of the Family Justice Council, trustee of LawWorks, member of the Judicial Diversity Forum, chairs the Law Society’s Legal Technology Policy Commission, as well as chair of the government’s Lawtech Delivery Panel. Christina also leads on the Society’s relationship with Barclays to develop lawtech incubators. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion, technology and access to justice and uses every opportunity to advocate and progress positive change in these areas.
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About The Law Society: The Law Society is based in Chancery Lane, London with offices in Wales and Brussels, and officers in the English regions.
Tom Goddard
President of World Out of Home Organization
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About World Out of Home Organization: The global trade association for OOH operators.
