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 Chairman operating in the Digital Media space. If you think a Chairman 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.
Brent Hoberman
Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Founders Factory
Brent Hoberman is chairman and co-founder of Founders Factory, an ambitious corporate backed incubator/accelerator based in London, and also of Founders Forum, a series of intimate annual global events for the leading entrepreneurs of today and the rising stars of tomorrow. Brent is a co-founder and was founding chairman of Smartup, Grip & made.com, a leading European direct-from-factory consumer homewares retailer. Most recently, Brent co-founded Firstminute Capital, a London-based pan-European seed fund, backed by some of the world’s top entrepreneurs. Brent co-founded lastminute.comin April 1998, was CEO from its inception and sold it in 2005 to Sabre for $1.1bn. Technology businesses he has co-founded have raised over $500m. Brent sits on the Advisory board for LetterOne Technology (a $16bn investment fund), the Oxford Foundry and the UK Government Digital Advisory Board. He is a board member of The Economist, a YGL and one of the Prime Minister’s Business Trade Ambassadors. Brent was awarded a CBE for services to entrepreneurship in the 2015 New Year’s Honour’s List.
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About 01 Founders, AccelerateHER, Firstminute Capital, Founders Factory, Founders Forum, Founders Intelligence, Founders Keepers, Founders of the Future, Grip, Karakuri, MADE, SmartUp.io: Founders Factory is a global corporate-backed venture studio and accelerator.
Sir David Michels
Chairman of Miroma Ventures
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About : Miroma Ventures is the investment arm of The Miroma Group, predominantly investing in growth stage consumer brands and media platforms.
John Gleasure
Executive Vice Chairman of DAZN
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About DAZN: DAZN is the world’s first truly dedicated live sports streaming service.
Chips Keswick
Chairman of Arsenal Football Club
Sir Chips Keswick was first appointed as an Arsenal director in November 2005 and replaced the outgoing Peter Hill-Wood as Chairman of Arsenal Holdings plc in June 2013. A career banker for over 50 years, he has held many other directorships including: Chairman of Hambros Bank 1986 – 1998 Persimmon PLC 1984 – 2006 Bank of England 1993 – 2001 DeBeers 1993 – 2010 Anglo American plc 1995 – 2001 The Edinburgh Investment Trust plc 1992 – 2001 IMI plc 1994 – 2003 Investec Bank 2000 – 2010 Treasurer, Children’s Country Holidays Fund 1973 – 1995
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About : Arsenal Football Club is a multi media production company representing a diverse & exciting international talent roster including Director.
Chris Dobson
Executive Chairman of The Exchange Lab
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About The Exchange Lab: The Exchange Lab, a digital media marketplace, delivers campaigns evaluating the audience interactions to help its clients find prospects.
Lord Rothermere
Chairman of the Board of Directors of DMG Media
Lord Rothermere has been Chairman of DMGT and a Non-Executive Director of Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC since 1998. Lord Rothermere worked at the International Herald Tribune in Paris and the Mirror Group before moving to Northcliffe Newspapers Group in 1995. In 1997 Lord Rothermere became Managing Director of the Evening Standard.
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About : DMG media is a consumer media company engaged in print and online newspaper publishing.
Adrian Binks
Executive Chairman of Argus Media group
Adrian Binks is chairman, publisher and major shareholder of the Argus Media group of companies. Adrian developed the company after buying a partnership in a small newsletter business following an earlier career in BP and a brief stint working as an oil industry analyst in the City of London. In 1984 he took management control, renamed the company and started the development of a global business under the Argus brand. Adrian grew up in Leeds where he attended the local grammar school before reading history at Cambridge University.
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About Argus Media group, Metal Pages: Argus Media group is a global energy and commodity price reporting agency.
Jeremy Gibbs
Non-Executive Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of Scientific Digital Imaging (SDI)
Jeremy Gibbs is a Non-Executive Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors at Scientific Digital Imaging (SDI) since June 2008. Jeremy was a Chief Executive Officer at Adaptivity Limited, a corporate finance boutique. Jeremy’s early career saw him obtaining management and consultancy positions in British Rail Engineering Limited, Edwards High Vacuum International and The BOC Group plc, all engineering or technology driven companies. Jeremy was a Non-Executive Member of the Board of Directors at Futuremedia plc from 1997 to 2001 and its Chairman of the Board of Directors from 1998 to 2001. Futuremedia was listed on NASDAQ. Jeremy was a Member of the Board of Directors at Synoptics from 2001 to 2008. Jeremy graduated (B.A. & M.A.) from Oxford University in 1978 in Engineering Science, subsequently qualifying as a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and Chartered Electrical Engineer.
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About : Scientific Digital Imaging designs and manufactures digital imaging technology.
Chris Ingram
Executive Chairman of Bonhill Group
Chris Ingram is a serial entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. He spent over 40 years in the media and communications industries, mostly as an entrepreneur. He is regarded as the inventor of the modern media agency having started TMD (The Media Department) for the Kimpher Group in 1972. He then established CIA (Chris Ingram Associates) in 1976 with £10,000 of share capital and a £30,000 loan and built a 67 office international network, floated in 1989 and sold to WPP in 2001 for £430m Chris is now an active investor in SMEs, primarily early stage, digitally-orientated companies with high growth potential. These businesses are all based in London and New York. He invests through Ingram Enterprise Investors LLP which was set up in 2008. In 2015 Chris became Chairman of the tiny PLC Vitesse Media, moving to Executive Chairman in February 2016 and increasing his shareholding to 26%. Chris is actively involved in the Pro Bono sector through his family trust, The Ingram Trust which supports approximately two dozen charities both national and international as well as locally in Surrey. He is a passionate art collector and his 680 piece collection is the largest collection of privately owned publicly accessible Modern British Art in the UK. In February 2016 his collection was given over to a public foundation, “The Ingram Art Foundation”. Chris’ weakness is football and since rescuing Woking Football Club in 2002, he was the owner until 2012. He is now their landlord having given the club a demanding 125 year lease at £1 per year.
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About Bonhill Group, Ingram Enterprise Investors, THE INGRAM TRUST: Bonhill Group operates as a B2B media company.
Christofer Solheim
Chairman, Chief Innovation Officer of Commetric Ltd.
Mr. Christofer Solheim founded Commetric Ltd. in 2005. Prior to Commetric, Mr. Solheim worked in various roles at Hill & Knowlton Public Relations spanning 10 years, including leading H&K s Business Intelligence unit and latterly providing executive counsel to Paul Taaffe, global Chief Executive Officer of Hill & Knowlton. In the 80s and 90s, he consulted full time for the Chief Executive Officer of Kaldnes de Groot and spent two years at Heerema in Oslo. Since 1992, he has pioneered the use of advanced technologies to revolutionize business and communications strategic planning. In 2003, he was the Principle Founder of 2B, a company specializing in quantitative reputation measurement, later acquired by Factiva, a Reuters & Dow Jones Company. Prior to founding 2B, he was the founding Director of H&K s Net Communications practice. In 2007, he co-founded CommEq Asset Management to develop and implement fully automated behavioural finance trading methodologies. He was educated in business at the Academy of Commerce, Oslo, and in Computer Science at the University of Oslo.
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About Commetric Ltd.: Award-winning media analytics solutions that provide deeper, more practical level of insight. #MoreWithAnalytics
John Newton
Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of the Board of Gravity Media Group
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About Gravity Media Group: Gravity Media Group is a global provider of live broadcast facilities and production services.
Richard Syme
Chairman of Optimise
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About Optimise: Global Performance Marketing Company
David Benello – Chairman
Chairman of V-Nova
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About : Next-generation video and image compression that works today
David Benello – Chairman
Chairman of V-Nova
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About : Next-generation video and image compression that works today
