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 Managing Director operating in the Product Design space. If you think a Managing Director 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.
Pierre Sapin
Managing Director of BORN
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About BORN: BORN is the world’s first private B2B platform that connects a global network of design-led lifestyle brands and retail buyers.
Pierre-Edouard Harant
Managing Director of RPD International
Pierre-Edouard Harant as the Managing Director for RPD International.
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About RPD International: RPD designs and manufactures products, experiences, processes.
Vernon Dias
Founder and Managing Director of Made by Fire
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About Made by Fire: We create digital products for our ambitious clients with a team of over 100 specialists.
Roman Mittermayr
Managing Director / CEO of TwentyPeople
Roman spent a decade working through seventeen different jobs in thirty-four countries all around the world. After leaving the Austrian military service in 2004, he joined Mace in London, and published a book on DIY electronics with Germany’s largest technology publisher. He worked at an agency in New York, with brands like Vera Wang, Disney and Marriott. Roman came up with the first large-scale alternate-reality event in Vienna, based on the Hollywood movie “The Game”, which was subsequently featured on national TV, newspapers and magazines, and attracted international funding from several major companies. He joined Microsoft to work full-time as a Product Planner for Office, and later changed roles to become a Competitive Intelligence Planner. Roman holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Economics and Business Administration in Vienna, Austria. He currently works and lives in London.
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About TwentyPeople: TwentyPeople is a rapid prototyping and digital design company.
Kebbie Sebastian
Managing Director of Penser
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About Penser: Specialist consulting firm focused on the payments and fintech industry
Albert Nicholl
Managing Director of Freedom One Life
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About Freedom One Life: Redefining mobility
Graeme Carr
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Paladone
Graeme Carr is Managing Director at Paladone Products Ltd
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About Paladone: Paladone is a gift designer company that creates and innovates giftware with a history of spanning 21 years.
Bruce Renfrew
Managing Director of Renfrew Group International
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About Renfrew Group International: Award winning Renfrew Group are a full service, product design consultancy.
Richard M Benson
Creative Managing Director of Allen International
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About Allen International: Allen International is a strategic design consultancy.
Paul Jackson
Managing Director of Castle Digital Partners
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About Castle Digital Partners: Castle Digital Partners is a venture services firm that partners with management teams to invest in software that drives their businesses.
Costas Pantelides
Managing Director of Process System Enterprise
Costas Pantelides has been the Managing Director of PSE since 2005. He was one of the original founders of the company, and has also served as its Technology Director since the establishment of the company in 1997. Costas holds B.Sc.(Eng.) and PhD degrees from Imperial College London and an MS degree from MIT. He is the author of over 100 scientific papers on the design and implementation of general-purpose process modelling tools, numerical methods for large-scale simulation and optimisation, and molecular modelling. He is currently also a part-time professor of Chemical Engineering at Imperial. Costas has more than 25 years’ experience in process modelling technology, having played a leading role in the development of the gPROMS® and SPEEDUP technologies. His contributions to process systems engineering were honoured by the 1998 Beilby Medal and Prize, awarded jointly by the UK Society of Chemical Industry, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Materials. In 2007, he led the winning team for the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award, the UK’s most prestigious prize for engineering innovation.
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About Process System Enterprise: Process System Enterprise offers process modeling software and model-based innovation services for the process industries.
Matt Roskill
Managing Director of Albion
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About Albion, Utility Warehouse: We are a creative business partner. We work with companies to invent and reinvent their businesses to unlock growth.
Chris Gardner
Founder, COO and Joint Managing Director of Atelier
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About Atelier: Atelier provides custom property finance solutions that are designed in collaboration with developers.
Jess Tyrrell
Managing Director of Beyond
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About Beyond: Beyond is a design and technology agency that builds world-class products for the digital age.
David Watts
Managing Director of CCD Design & Ergonomics
David Watts is Managing Director of CCD Design & Ergonomics. CCD is a leading human behaviour and design practice. It specialises in applying the science of human factors and ergonomics to the design process. It has been working in the ergonomic design of control centres for nearly 40 years. We also work across workspace design, wayfinding design, experience design as well as consulting on human factors problems. In 20 years of professional practice, David has run CCD’s input to a wide range of control room projects for clients including Network Rail, ITER, the emergency services, Thames Water, Abu Dhabi Distribution Company and the Government of Georgia.
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About CCD Design & Ergonomics: CCD Design & Ergonomics have delivered human factors, wayfinding and workspace design projects across the world.
Adam Murphy
Managing Director of Shnuggle
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About Shnuggle: Shnuggle is an innovative company that designs modern, clever baby products for the mid-high end of the market.
Graeme Mackie
Managing Director of Oceanflow
Graeme Mackie, the founder of Oceanflow Energy Ltd, is an MSc qualified chartered engineer with 35 years experience of leading marine projects in the defence, oil & gas and renewables energy industries. For the first 20 years of his career he worked in the naval defence sector with defence consultancy YARD Ltd and later with Swan Hunter Shipbuilders where his broad ranging understanding of marine sciences led to senior positions in the development of new technologies and integrated design solutions. From 1995 as Technical Director of marine consultancy Armstrong Technology he led a multi-discipline team of engineers responsible for the platform design of the first North Sea UK zone Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) units. In 2002 he founded Overberg Ltd (now renamed Oceanflow Energy Ltd) and provided engineering design leadership and research management to a number of leading marine renewable companies before focusing on the in-house development of Evopod™ tidal turbine technology.
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About Oceanflow: Oceanflow is a technology development company with specific focus on the design and demonstration of floating solutions.
Steve Roberts
Managing Director of Fripp Design and Research
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About Fripp Design and Research: Fripp Design and Research is a product design and research, and business development consultancy.
