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 TV 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.
Lachlan Murdoch
CEO of Nova Entertainment
Lachlan K. Murdoch is Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors at 21st Century Fox, the world’s premier portfolio of cable, broadcast, film, pay-TV and satellite assets. From 2014 to 2015, he served as the Company’s Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors. Lachlan has spent the past two decades building, operating and investing in many of the world’s most prominent television and publishing businesses and also currently serves as Co-Chairman of News Corp, Executive Chairman of NOVA Entertainment and Executive Chairman of Illyria Pty Ltd. Lachlan is a Director of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art and a Trustee of the Commando Welfare Trust. Lachlan previously served as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors Ten Network Holdings. Prior to his current role, Lachlan has served as Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors at 21st Century Fox beginning in March 2014 and has served the Company as a Member of the Board of Directors since 1996, as well as in a number of senior executive roles from 1994-2005. From 2000 – 2005, Lachlan served as Deputy Chief Operating Officer of 21st Century Fox (previously known as News Corporation), a role in which he was directly responsible for the Company’s U.S. television stations group and publishing assets. As part of his duties as Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Lachlan was Chairman of the Board of Directors at Fox Television Stations (FTS) and Publisher of the New York Post and also oversaw HarperCollins and the Company’s lines of business in Australia, including REA, Australia’s leading online real estate business. Lachlan led the Company’s purchase of a controlling stake in REA, which began with an approximate $1 million cash investment and resulted in a corporate asset that is currently valued at more than $3 billion. At FTS, Lachlan oversaw the Company’s 35 owned-and-operated television stations, where he raised the bar on local news coverage across the nation, increasing the total number of local news hours across the group to more than 850 per week. At the New York Post, Lachlan overhauled the tabloid and grew its circulation by more than 40 percent. During his tenure, the Post became the nation’s fastest-growing newspaper and the seventh largest in the United States. In 2005, Lachlan founded Illyria Pty, a successful private investment company. In 2009, Illyria acquired 50 percent of DMG Radio, a network of radio stations, which later expanded to include pay television assets and was renamed NOVA Entertainment. After Lachlan became its Chairman of the Board of Directors in 2009, NOVA grew exponentially, nearly doubling in value during the first three years of his tenure, while its EBITDA rose more than threefold from $16M in 2009 to $52M in 2014. In 2012, Illyria purchased the remaining 50 percent and under Lachlan’s leadership, NOVA Entertainment became Australia’s leading network of FM stations. Lachlan holds a B.A. from Princeton University.
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About 21st Century Fox, Fox Corporation, Nova Entertainment: NOVA Entertainment is an entertainment company in Australia.
Matthew Kitcherside
CEO, EMEA of Hogarth Worldwide
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About Hogarth Worldwide: Hogarth is a marketing implementation agency.
Vashi Dominguez
Founder, Chairman & CEO of Vashi
Visionary entrepreneur with strong background on branding and e-commerce. Vashi Dominguez founded Vashi in 2007 with the goal of making fine jewellery accessible for all. Previously he ran an International diamond wholesale company with clients in 4 continents.
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About Vashi: Vashi is a fine jewellery brand that offers a genuinely unique, disruptive, and omni-channel retail experience.
Justin Hsu
CEO / Founder of MarcoPolo Learning
Justin Hsu is one of the founders of Marco Polo Learning.
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About MarcoPolo Learning: MarcoPolo Learning is an award-winning digital curriculum developer for early learners.
Col Needham
Founder and CEO of IMDB
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About IMDB: IMDb, the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content.
Peter Cowley
Founder & CEO of Spirit Digital Media
Peter Cowley is Founder & CEO of Spirit, a new company setup in October 2010. Spirit is a commercially driven, dynamic multi-platform content producer that operates in the UK & USA. Previous To Spirit, Peter was MD of Digital Media for Endemol UK and global head of original digital programming at Endemol International. Peter has spent his working career in content (Spirit & Endemol), internet portals & access (Freeserve/Orange), marketing (Videotron/ Cable & Wireless) and advertising (BBH). Peter is the founder and director of Connected Ventures Ltd, a non-executive director at Yospace and is a trustee at YouthNet.
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About Spirit Digital Media, Vida Media Ltd: Multi award-winning, dynamic content creation, social media & analytics company.
Joshua Nino De Guzman
CEO, Co-Founder & Director of Dexerto
Joshua Nino De Guzman is the CEO & Co-Founder at Dexerto
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About Dexerto: Dexerto is the world’s largest digital esports and gaming lifestyle platform news platform.
Jose Luis Vazquez
CEO of Mirada
CEO at Mirada.
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About Mirada: Mirada offers a multi-screen approach to digital TV platforms with a complete suite of end-to-end modular products.
Jonathan Thompson
CEO of Digital UK
Jonathan Thompson is Chief Executive of Digital UK. He took up the role on 22 July 2013. Prior to joining Digital UK Jonathan worked in the Office of the Chairman at DMGT plc, advising on group strategy. He is also a former Director of Strategy of both media regulator Ofcom and Channel 4, and represented the broadcaster on the board of Freeview. Between 2007-2010 Jonathan was also a non-executive Director of Which?, the commercial arm and consumer brand for the Consumer Association
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About Digital UK: Digital UK provides operational support for the platform, including management of the Freeview electronic program guide and more.
Nicholas Minter-Green
CEO & Founder of Parable Works
An expert in content creation, public relations and integrated marketing, Nicholas was president of Economist Films, steering the team responsible for creating content that reflected the newspaper’s heritage as a world leader in reporting, analysis and investigation. Before that he was managing director at TVC group, building the agency into a leading brand content-communications business and top-10 UK PR agency.
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About Parable Works: A Virtual Reality and Television Studio & Agency.
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.
Guido Meardi
CEO & Co-founder of V-Nova
Former senior Partner at McKinsey, where he was head of the Organization and Operations Practices of the Mediterranean Complex, Guido has a breadth of business experience and access to senior executives in a variety of industries and geographies, with well-established experience in telecoms, technology, healthcare, insurance, aerospace and defence. He led transformational projects in all continents, and was instrumental in setting up some of McKinsey’s own innovation-related business building activities. Guido is also a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, with many previous business ventures and half a dozen exits. Having retained his engineering expertise, he contributed to the foundational development work for PERSEUS of his co-founder Luca Rossato and is joint inventor of a number of essential aspects of the technology as well as of several of its latest developments, with over 200 patents co-authored and filed. Guido holds an MBA from MIT Sloan, where he was a Siebel scholar, and a M.Sc. in Computer Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, where he was an Intel scholar, and University of Texas at Austin.
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About : Next-generation video and image compression that works today
Chris Meehan
Founder & CEO of Sentric Music
Chris Meehan joined Sentric Music as Founder & CEO in 2005.
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About Sentric Music: Sentric Music is an independent music publisher home to thousands of bands/artists/writers.
Peter Leathem
Chief Executive Officer of PPL
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About PPL: PPL licenses recorded music played in public or broadcast on the radio or TV.
Adrian Bull
CEO of Cinelab London
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About Cinelab London: Cinelab London is a full-service film processing lab that offers services film deliverables, digitization and restoration services.
Sam Hartnell
CEO / Founder of Xzero Entertainment
Sam Hartnell – YouTube Network Entrepreneur, Founder of Xzero Entertainment Xzero Entertainment Network (XEN) is a media & technology company that brings together content owners, network operators and advertisers to create economically sustainable online and mobile video business models. XEN specializes in the aggregation, optimization, protection and monetization of video content. We create compelling distribution opportunities for its content partners and income generation opportunities for its network and advertising partners.
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About Xzero Entertainment, YouTube: DigiYouTube MCN Network – Business Development & Music Distribution
Graham Williams
CEO of Cloudbanter
Extensive experience and successful track record of building high growth technology organisations within general industry sectors with venture capital investment including multiple stock exchange lists, mergers & acquisitions and exits. Held Chairman, Director, CEO, President and Vice President positions with Europe, Americas, Middle East and Asia Pacific responsibility plus lived in UK, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and USA.
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About Cloudbanter: Cloudbanter provides AI monetization & personalization of mobile messaging, apps and phones plus TVs.