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 Board Member operating in the Information Technology space. If you think a Board Member 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.
Bill Edwards
Executive Advisory Board Member of Kennet Partners
Bill Edwards is Chairman of the Executive Advisory Board and has served on the board, advised and/or invested in several Kennet portfolio companies including Revolution Prep, Intelepeer and Daptiv. Bill was part of the founding executive team at Siebel Systems, serving as vice president of engineering and later as chief technology officer. During his tenure, from 1993 to 2005, Siebel grew rapidly achieving revenues of almost $2 billion in just six years, went public and ultimately was acquired by Oracle for $6 billion. Siebel was one of the most capital efficient high value exits in enterprise software having raised only $8 million prior to its IPO. Prior to Siebel Systems, Bill worked with three other Silicon Valley companies that had successful IPOs during his tenure. He was responsible for graphical authoring systems at Macromedia, was senior vice president of engineering, research and development at Frame Technology, and held engineering management positions at Convergent Technologies and Apple Computer. Bill began his career at Intel. He received an M.S. in Computer Science from Rutgers University.
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About : Kennet Partners is a private equity investment firm that provides growth capital to information technology and business services companies.
Simon Guild
Executive Advisory Board Member of Kennet Partners
Simon works with a wide portfolio of early stage European media and technology businesses which have the ambition to become international market leaders. Simon is the Chairman of: Bigpoint, a German browser video-games company, WAYN, a UK-based travel and lifestyle social network, and Diffusion Media Group, a UK viral marketing business. In addition he is a Director or advisor to: Eyeka, a France-based engagement marketing company; Digicompanion, a French digital promotion business; Freerunner, a UK free WiFi startup; Xing, a Hamburg-based business social network; Horizon Media Group, an African content business; Twig, an online educational project and Spreadshirt, a Leipzig-based Kennet III portfolio company offering personalised apparel. From 1993 to 2007 he was at MTV Networks Europe, latterly as President & CEO. From a single MTV-branded channel in the mid 90’s the network grew to 75 channels, numerous online offerings and a market-leading mobile business, all spanning a variety of music, children and comedy brands. Simon is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Trustee of the MTV Europe Foundation and a member of Pilotlight, the organisation that supplies executive time to charities. He also participates as a mentor at Seedcamp, the annual week-long programme for young entrepreneurs. Simon holds an MBA from Insead and an MA in Modern Languages from Cambridge.
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About : Kennet Partners is a private equity investment firm that provides growth capital to information technology and business services companies.
Rona McCandlish
Board Member of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
Rona McCandlish has been a Non-executive Director at NICE since 2007. Rona began her career in the NHS as an auxiliary nurse in 1974 in Scotland. She trained as a registered nurse, then a mental health nurse and has been a practicing midwife since 1985. She was Chair of the National Collaborating Centre for Women’s and Children’s Health from 2004-2007 and was Chair for the NICE Postnatal Care Guideline Development Group. In 2008 she was appointed a Non-executive Director of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and has recently been re-appointed as a NED for ‘new’ NICE (the National Institute for Heath and Care Excellence). Rona was appointed as Midwifery Professional Adviser for the Professional Leadership Team at the Department of Health in 2009. She took up this role on secondment from the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University where she set up the ground-breaking Birthplace in England research programme. Her portfolio at DH included professional regulation and she worked closely with the Nursing and Midwifery Council on midwifery issues. She was Clinical Professional Member of the DH team for the independent review of indemnity and insurance cover for health professionals. As DH lead for the Midwifery 2020 Programme in England she worked with members of the public, women using maternity services and their families, midwives, educationalists, doctors and a wide range of other health and social care professionals to shape policy for midwifery education, practice and services. She now works as National Professional Advisor – Midwifery at the Care Quality Commission.
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About : The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care.
Jonathan Tross
Board Member of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
Jonathan Tross has been a Non-executive Director at NICE since 2007. He also chairs the NICE Audit and Risk Committee and is a Remuneration Committee and Appeal Panel member. Jonathan is a former senior civil servant with considerable experience in delivering public services and social policy, particularly in the fields of health, social security, child protection and the rights of individuals. Since leaving the civil service he has worked for the Local Government Association, was a trustee for six years at Citizens Advice, the national body for the citizens advice movement, and has been an external case reviewer for the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. He is also currently a Non-executive Commissioner at the Independent Police Complaints Commission (from 2009) and a non-executive Director of UK Biobank (from 2013).
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About : The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care.
Linda Seymour
Board Member of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
Linda Seymour (BA, MA, FRSA) has been a Non-executive Director at NICE since the end of 2009. Linda brings a breadth of knowledge and expertise in health, public health and social care from a career spent in academia, the NHS and the not-for-profit sector. She was a research Fellow at Brighton University, focusing on effective approaches to community development and their impact on health and wellbeing in vulnerable groups. Linda has been a board level director on the commissioning side of the NHS, at East Sussex Health Authority; and on the provision side at South Downs Health NHS Trust and at Sussex Partnership NHS Trust. Her work in public health included roles in tobacco control at Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and at the Health Education Council (HEC). Linda had a key role in evaluating the Health Education Authority’s Health at Work in the NHS programme and she is an experienced critical appraisal skills trainer, imparting the tools to assess the rigour and reliability of quantitative and qualitative research. She was Head of Policy at the former Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, specialising in promotion of mental health and wellbeing, multiple morbidities and employment and mental health. She is a trustee of MIND, the national association for mental health, where she sits on the audit and the business management committees and a member of the editorial board of the Journal for Public.
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About : The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care.
Margaret Helliwell
Board Member of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
Margaret Helliwell has been a Non-executive Director at NICE since 2007. Maggie is currently Vice Chair of NICE, a role in which she has the board responsibility for the Technology Appraisal Appeal process. A practising GP in West Yorkshire, Maggie has 40 years experience of working in the NHS. She was formerly a national GP advisor to the Department of Health, a member of the National Prescribing Centre Steering Committee, a medical director and clinical governance lead for a Primary Care Trust, and Deputy Medical Director and Caldicott Guardian of her local district general hospital.
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About : The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care.
Sudhir Chaturvedi
President & Executive Board Member of L&T Infotech
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About L&T Infotech: LTI is a global technology consulting and digital solutions company helping more than 250 clients succeed in a converging world.
David Axmark
Board Member of import.io
David Axmark is one of the founders of [MySQL AB](/organization/mysql) and a developer of the free database server, MySQL. He has been involved with MySQL development from its beginning along with the fellow co-founder [Michael Widenius](/person/michael-widenius/).
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About : import.io offers a Web Data Integration solution that provides global businesses with high-quality, scalable data from the web.
Faisal Galaria
Board Member & Non Executive Director of Green Man Gaming
Faisal Galaria is the CEO of Blippar the Augmented Reality company. He previously served as Global Head of Business Development at Spotify Limited, as Managing Director of Europe and Asia at Kayak and was early member of the Skype team. At Skype as Director of Europe, he was responsible for key partnerships across the US, Europe the Middle East, with companies such as Sony, Bebo, British Telecom, Dixons and HP. Prior to joining Skype, he was a member of the Policy Executive of the UK’s telecom and media regulator Ofcom. At Ofcom, he played a senior role in the high-profile negotiation and valuation of distribution rights for Premier League Football and co-authored the Telecoms Strategy Review. He started his career in wireless and Internet consulting and was a senior member of Cluster Consulting, which was acquired by Diamond Technology Partners (NASDAQ: DTPI) for $930 million in 2000. He has been educated across Europe and graduated with honors from UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) with a Bachelor’s in Management Sciences in the UK. He also holds an MBA from IESE in Spain.
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About Blippar, Gocompare.com, Green Man Gaming, Superdry: Green Man Gaming is a global pure play e-commerce and technology business in the video games industry.
Harsha Gowda
CTO & Board Member of Getronics
Harsha Gowda Siddaveere is the Chief Technology Officer at Getronics.
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About Getronics: The Getronics family is an ICT Services group consisting of the Getronics and Connectis brands.
Steve Hall
Non Executive Board Member of Crown Hosting Data Centres
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About Crown Hosting Data Centres: Crown Hosting Data Centres helps in delivering efficiency and transparency of data centre hosting utilisation.
David Guyatt
Board Member, Co-Founder & CEO of Osirium
Co-founder of Osirium, the management team is led by David Guyatt, who has over 25 years’ experience in turning next generation IT products into successful technology businesses. He is a recognized pioneer in establishing the content security software market, being a co-founder and CEO of MIMEsweeper, which became the recognized world leader in content security solutions, with a 40% global market share. Previously, he was Sales & Marketing Director at Integralis from 1990-1996, as it established itself as the Europe’s leading IT Security integrator.
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About Osirium: Osirium prevents attacks on Privileged Accounts by separating people from passwords.
Simon Beeching
Board Member of Syntec
After studying modern languages at Oxford and business administration at INSEAD in France, Simon joined the executive board of the Thomson Holidays Group. As managing director of three well-known travel businesses he gained client-side experience of contact centre management in this fast-moving consumer industry. After setting up a marketing and sustainability consultancy, he became chairman of an international e-learning company and also Visiting Industry Professor at Regent”s Business School London, Simon was appointed as an executive director of Syntec in 2011, to support growth and strategic development in leading-edge contact centre management solutions. Beyond work Simon enjoys family travels; ski-ing; tennis; and playing the flute and saxophone.
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About : Syntec provides a fully integrated suite of telephony and software solutions, enabling efficient.
Daniel McRitchie
Board Member of PlaceSpeak
Daniel McRitchie is the CEO at SciLeads.
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About SciLeads: Location-based smart city citizen engagement
Anthony Day
Co-Founder & Board Member of CloudApps
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About CloudApps: CloudApps increases sales performance by motivating more of your high-value, winning sales behaviours
Scott Sullivan
Board Member of CyberCity 3D, Inc.
Scott Sullivan is President and on the CyberCity 3D Board of Directors. As such, he lends his proficiencies in business and accounting to assist in the Company’s operations. Mr. Sullivan, an Australian Chartered Accountant, has worked in London as an Investment banker and subsequently sold a successful consultancy firm. He now invests in disruptive innovative companies, at the same time providing financial and management advice to them. An accomplished entrepreneur, he’s behind the advancement of numerous companies, utilizing his knowledge of running and structuring them. Mr. Sullivan also acts as a Director for City Athletic Limited and the Dorking Lawn Tennis and Squash Club Limited.
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About CyberCity 3D, Inc.: CyberCity 3D, Inc. is a state-of-the-art, 3D geospatial modeling company specializing in emerging GIS and SaaS solutions.
Adel Kambar
Founding Angel & Board Member of Mobile Decisioning
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About : Mobile Decisioning is a technology company providing mobile value added services to mobile network operators in emerging nations.
Mike Dixon
Technical Director and Board Member of KeTech
As KeTech’s Technical Director, Mike is responsible for its Innovation, product development, technical excellence and ensuring that the company stays at the forefront of the industry and ahead of the competition. In his spare time Mike likes to write music and plays a variety of musical instruments, as well as having a keen interest in cars.
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About KeTech: KeTech is a multi-disciplined group of companies specializing in communication systems integration.
Louisa-Jayne O’Neill
Board Member of Information Assurance Advisory Council
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About : The IAAC is a private sector led, cross-industry forum dedicated to promoting a safe and secure Information Society.
Antonio Latorre
Management Board Member / Cofounder of Big Data Scoring
Founder at Big Data Scoring.
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About Big Data Scoring: The leading big data credit scoring solutions provider globally for banks, telecoms and other lenders
Jim Comerford
Co-Founder, Board Member & Chief Technology Officer of Traceall Global
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About Traceall Global: Traceall Global Limited operate and trade on an international scale, delivering state of the art web data management solutions for tracking.
Dean Johnson
Advisory Board Member of Continuous Ventures
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About Continuous Ventures: Supporting start-ups navigate the journey to become “fund ready” with our team of advisors with our expertise & developmental framework
Daniel Jonas
Board Member of Talent Deck
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About : Talent Deck instantly matches tech talent to employers based on their cultural compatibility.
David Blunkett
Board Member of Cognosec AB
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About : Cognosec is a supplier of cyber resilience and security solutions.
