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 Aerospace 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.
Ian Mellor
Managing Director of Metalysis
Ian joined Metalysis in September 2004. Prior to this Ian was a Project Manager at Morgan Fuel Cell, a subsidiary of the Morgan Crucible Company plc Ian has a background in physical chemistry, he has over ten years industrial experience leading teams, developing new products and commercialising technologies, primarily in the alternative energy and metals industries. Since joining Metalysis, Ian has developed and led the Technology team to improve the chemistry and morphology of the products, primarily for tantalum and titanium. He has also provided support to the Engineering team for the scale-up of the process. Ian was awarded a PhD in Heterogeneous Catalysis from the Nottingham Trent University.
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About Metalysis: Metalysis, a manufacturer of metals and alloys, offers both economic and environmental benefits over traditional metal production methods.
Eric Kump
Managing Director and Partner of The Carlyle Group
Eric J. Kump is a Managing Director and Partner. He is Head of the Carlyle Sub Sahara Africa Fund and an advisor of the Carlyle European Partners investment committee. He is based in London. Eric Kump has more than 20 years of private equity experience spanning four continents and numerous sectors. Prior to joining Carlyle European Partners in 2010 , Mr. Kump was a Managing Director and Head of the European Private Equity team of Dubai International Capital (DIC). Prior to that, he was a Managing Director with Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity (MLGPE) where he was a member of the global investment committee. Mr. Kump is on the Board of Directors of MPS, TiAuto Investments and J&J. Mr. Kump received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and he received a B.A. in finance and accounting from Pace.
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About The Carlyle Group: The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm that caters to early and later stage companies.
Katherine Elmore-Jones
Managing Director of The Carlyle Group
Katherine Elmore-Jones is a Managing Director advising on Investor Relations and Fundraising across Europe. She is based in London. Prior to her current role, Ms. Elmore-Jones was Director of European Communications, in charge of managing Carlyle’s public relations in Europe. Before joining Carlyle, she was with Herald Communications and Seed Capital, a U.K. venture capital firm. Ms. Elmore-Jones received her M.A. in biological sciences from Oxford University. She has been registered with the FSA since 2007 for the CF30 controlled function and holds a full Investment Management Certificate.
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About The Carlyle Group, The Carlyle Group: The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm that caters to early and later stage companies.
Fernando Chueca
Managing Director of The Carlyle Group
Fernando Chueca is a Managing Director with Carlyle Europe Technology Partners focusing on buyouts, growth capital and strategic minority investments throughout Europe in the technology, telecommunications, software and business services sectors. Mr. Chueca is based in London Since joining Carlyle in 2001, Mr. Chueca has been actively involved and he has advised on 11 major investments and ten completed realizations, across Europe. Mr. Chueca is a member of the Board of Directors of Livingstone Technologies, and was formerly on the Board of Directors of Itconic, Expereo, ITRS Group, Arsys Internet, Bigmouthmedia, Nature Delivered (Graze) and FRS Global.
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About The Carlyle Group: The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm that caters to early and later stage companies.
Ted O’Byrne
Managing Director and Co-head of Aviation of The Carlyle Group
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About The Carlyle Group: The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm that caters to early and later stage companies.
Alex Wagenberg
Managing Director and Partner of The Carlyle Group
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About The Carlyle Group: The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm that caters to early and later stage companies.
David FitzGerald
Managing Director of The Carlyle Group
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About The Carlyle Group: The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm that caters to early and later stage companies.
Colin Atkins
Managing Director of The Carlyle Group
Colin Atkins is a Managing Director and Head of the European Structured Credit advisory team based in London. Mr. Atkins joined the firm in 2004 as Head of Credit for the European Leveraged Finance business, a role in which he worked on many notable transactions, before taking on his current position. Mr. Atkins came to Carlyle from Prudential M&G where between 1999 and November 2004, he helped establish Prudential M&G’s Leveraged Finance platform, which became a market leader in the European institutional market. Over the five year period, the business invested over €2.5 billion in leveraged finance assets and Mr. Atkins had responsibility for primary market execution and secondary market loan trading. Mr. Atkins previously worked in Corporate Private Placements at PPM America in Chicago and held positions in Prudential M&G’s Corporate Tax and Treasury departments. Mr. Atkins holds a B.A. (Hons) in accounting & finance from Nottingham Trent University. He is a member of The Association of Chartered Management Accountants (ACMA) and is a CFA charter holder. Mr. Atkins has been registered with the FSA since 2010 for the CF30 and CF4 controlled functions.
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About The Carlyle Group: The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm that caters to early and later stage companies.
Martin Glavin
Managing Director of The Carlyle Group
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About The Carlyle Group: The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm that caters to early and later stage companies.
Matthew C Martino
Founder & Managing Director of Lets Fly Academy
Matthew Martino (Full Name) – Matthew Mathetes Chihwai Martino born 27 October 1992 is a British Entrepreneur, Film Producer and Author. Educated at Shenfield High School in Brentwood , Martino has always held a passion for writing – He has always focused on educational writing and research. His first book Lets Fly which was published by DM Aviation was well received by pilots and aviation enthusiasts around the world. During his early years Martino showed all the qualities required to maintain proven success.
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About Lets Fly Academy: An online resource academy which was built to provide information and resources to aspiring pilots and aviations enthusiast.
Martin Rolfe
Managing Director of NATS
Previously Martin worked for Lockheed Martin where he was Managing Director of the UK Civil business. Martin has worked in the air traffic management domain for 18 years leading large multinational teams across Europe, the US, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Far East, with customers including air navigation service providers, central government departments and military organisations.
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About NATS: NATS is the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services.
Catherine Masan
Managing Director Service of NATS
Catherine previously worked for Translink Group where she was Group Chief Executive. She has extensive transportation, commercial and logistical experience through previous Director level roles in operations and marketing with Arriva, in both the bus and rail business. This followed a career in marketing for a number of blue chip companies, including Grand Metropolitan and SmithKline Beecham. Catherine is a Chartered Director and a Chartered Marketer, a Vice President of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and an elected Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. She holds a BSc in Genetics from Liverpool University and an MBA from Henley Management College.
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About NATS: NATS is the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services.
Jonathan Nicol
Founder & Managing Director of Stratajet
Jonny Nicol Ranked as one of Aviation Week’s Top 10 Leaders of European Business Aviation (at EBACE 2016), Jonny Nicol has undoubtedly risen to be one of the most prominent and influential figures in the private aviation industry. A military man through and through, Jonny is adamant that preparation is the key to success. This is why his vision to revolutionise the private jet industry took five years to develop. Having trained as a fighter pilot and served as an officer and pilot for a decade with the British Army, Jonny Nicol left the British Armed Forces to pursue a career as a an entrepreneur. A self-taught computer scientist, Jonny developed a passion for using technology to disrupt typically traditional industries, his first two businesses doing precisely that in the recruitment and military sectors. After selling the second business to Hewlett Packard’s EDS Defence, Nicol spent time as a freelance commercial pilot, during which time he was struck by the archaic and inefficient nature of private aviation. Noting that old-fashioned systems, such as the means of booking a private jet over the phone via a broker, were holding back the industry from advancing in line with other travel innovations, Jonny set about building a system that could bring private jets into the modern age. Reinventing the industry was no mean feat, involving five years of highly advanced computer programming and overcoming major hurdles, but Stratajet, dubbed ‘the world’s most sophisticated price comparison site,’ is the result. The first of its kind, Stratajet is the world’s fastest private jet booking service. With a technology sophisticated enough to filter through all the necessary variables that go into calculating the cost of flights, it’s the only platform that gives customers direct access to the private jet market. It returns accurate costs of a large range of aircraft in seconds, all of which can be booked instantly. Streamlining an old-fashioned and time-consuming booking process, Stratajet is solving the major problems hampering private aviation; inefficiency and wastage. By cutting costs for aircraft operators and in turn driving down prices for the passenger, Stratajet is making private jet travel more widely accessible to the mainstream traveller.
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About Stratajet: Stratajet is a real-time private jet booking platform using the power of technology to give its passengers total control and freedom.
Daniel Campbell
Managing Director of Effective Space
Daniel is the Managing Director of Effective Space Solutions Limited and leads corporate marketing and business development, bringing over 15 years of business development, marketing, project and product management leadership in several disruptive start-up companies. Prior to joining Effective Space, Daniel led autonomous driving and smart-mobility at Autotalks and Better-Place, and managed mobile product lines for modu and Zoran (now Qualcomm). Daniel is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP)® and a Master Blackblot Product Management Professional™ (Master BPMP). He holds a B.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an MBA from the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya.
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About Effective Space, Side Mirror: Effective Space manufactures spacecrafts intended to extend the life of communication satellites.
Shane Spencer
Managing Director of Bytron Aviation Systems
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About Bytron Aviation Systems: Bytron is an aviation technology company specialising in the development of software for use across flight operations and the flight deck.
Temidayo Isaiah Oniosun
Managing Director of Space in Africa
Temidayo Isaiah Oniosun is the Founder and Managing Director of Space in Africa.
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About Space in Africa: The Authority on News, Data and Market Analysis for the African Space Industry
Tim Coombs
Managing Director of Aviation Economics
Tim is the MD of Aviation Economics our consultancy brand and has worked in aviation ever since leaving university, which was a long time ago……..so he has a vast amount of experience in the industry! He runs a team of talented industry professionals who understand the industry end-to-end. Outside of work, Tim likes spending time with Nelson, his black Labrador (who sometimes visits the team at RDC HQ), and of course the rest of his family.
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About Aviation Economics, RDC Aviation: Aviation Economics is a consulting firm that works with aviation enterprises, including government agencies, airlines, and airports.
David Skinner
Managing Director of Farsound
David Skinner is the managing director at Farsound Aviation.
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About Farsound: Farsound provides consumable component parts for the aerospace engine sector.
Nigel Daniel
Managing Director of S-P-S
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About S-P-S: S-P-S is a European airport service provider that develops, manufactures, and maintains ground support and cargo handling equipment.
Neil Cloughley
Founder and Managing Director of Faradair Aerospace Limited
Neil is a passionate and experienced Aviation and IT entrepreneur, utilising his market knowledge within the aerospace sector to create a team and company that is able to deliver an exciting new aircraft. In his 20 year career to date he has built key strategic relationships with some of the largest brands in aviation and the information technology sectors, creating a reputation for successfully closing opportunities and generating significant rates of return. He comes from a family background based in the security, policing and unmanned air vehicle sectors, setting him on a path to follow in his father’s footsteps, following a 20 year dream of creating a new aircraft and transitioning it into an exciting aviation start-up reality. His ability to spot new market opportunities is highlighted by his previous tablet computer and mobile communications solution where he partnered with Siemens, SUN Microsystems and others in 2001 to demonstrate one of the world’s first tablet computing opportunities, three years before of Apple invented their I-Pad. Over 280 million tablets have since been sold, despite venture capitalists telling Neil at the time that a ‘tablet’ would never take off – So Neil has now decided to create a product that literally will ‘take off’! He has first-hand experience working with high profile aviation start-up’s including Virgin Galactic and Virgin America, providing him with valuable insight as to the many pitfalls such businesses can encounter. His success selling various commercial aircraft, including regional jets, enables him to understand the requirements and problems of the aviation market better than many that are currently attempting to enter the urban aerospace sector.
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About Faradair Aerospace Limited: Faradair is a pioneering Hybrid/Electric aircraft development company.
