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 CIO’ operating in the Information Technology space. If you think a CIO’ 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.
Wouter Volckaert
CIO of Force Over Mass Capital
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About Force Over Mass Capital: Force Over Mass Capital is a London based venture capital firm focused on early-stage technology investments.
Max Brown
Chief Information Officer of Options Technology
As well as working with senior management on the strategic technical development of the Options platform, Max Brown’s key role at Options has been leading the design, build, and management of a 20,000 ft2 purpose built, high power data centre facility at Park Royal in the UK. Through this role, Max has fully utilised his experiences in electronic engineering and large scale IT project management skills. In addition, Max also manages the relocation of Options’ equipment between locations and designs and implements projects for new data centre co-location clients.
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About Options Technology: Options is a global leader in financial technology managed services and IT infrastructure products.
Dave Whalley
Chief Information Officer of Thoughtworks
He is a Chief Information Officer at Thoughtworks.
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About Thoughtworks: Thoughtworks is a community of passionate individuals whose purpose is to revolutionize software design, creation, and delivery.
José Nistal
Chief Information Officer of GoMadrid
José Nistal is co-founder and CIO of GoMadrid. He studied BSc. Finance & Marketing & Business Management at Comillas Pontifical University – ICADE and, additionally, Empirics of Management Program (The London School of Economics and Political Science), Global Leadership Program (Harvard University) and Frontiers of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He is also an MBA, Finance & Entrepreneurial Management by The Wharton School. He previously worked at Merrill Lynch, Soros Private Equity Partners, Lehman Brothers, Alantra Private Equity, Cygnus Asset Management and Ecofin Asset Management.
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About GoMadrid: GoMadrid is a technological ecosystem and innovation hub focused on venture building projects in fintech and blockchain areas.
Mark Rice
Chief Information Officer of thebigword
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About thebigword: We are technology-driven language communication leaders trusted by the top 100 global brands and organizations. What language barrier?
Paul Coby
CIO of Johnson Matthey
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About Johnson Matthey: Johnson Matthey is an international speciality chemicals company, founded almost 200 years ago in London.
Paul Coby
CIO of Johnson Matthey
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About Johnson Matthey: Johnson Matthey is an international speciality chemicals company, founded almost 200 years ago in London.
Martin Rose
General Counsel, Chief Information Security Officer & Company Secretary of Glory Global Solutions
Martin is an international lawyer managing the Legal, Intellectual Property, Data Protection & Security and Insurance & Risk Teams within Glory Global Solutions. Martin has an extensive background in international acquisitions and in negotiating significant product sales and service orders with large multi-national and blue-chip clients, private and state-owned banks as well as multi-national retailers and suppliers. He has worked at several leading international law firms and held a number of senior legal positions within global private equity portfolio companies, prior to joining the organisation in early 2008. Passionate and energetic, Martin brings a wealth of international experience to legal, compliance and governance matters within the company.
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About Glory Global Solutions: Glory Global Solutions is a pioneer in the development and manufacture of money handling machines and systems.
Mark Slaven
Chief Information Officer of Computacenter
Mark joined Computacenter in 2001 as UK Information Services Director. Following the acquisition of the German business in 2003 his role expanded to cover all Group companies as Group CIO. He is responsible for all of Computacenter’s systems and infrastructure and has played a key role in the design and development of most of the systems in use across the Group.
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About Computacenter: Computacenter provides IT infrastructure services and solutions in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Belgium.
Sanjeev Jain
Chief Information Officer for EMEA of Verizon Enterprise Solutions
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About Verizon Enterprise Solutions: Verizon Solutions is a company that designs, builds, and operates the networks, information systems, and mobile technologies.
Ian Gibson
Chief Information Officer of Zenith
Ian devises and delivers the strategy for Zenith’s systems and IT services. He is responsible for finding the right solutions for our customers and driving new technology developments that deliver on our values. Ian also leads the business change and transformation teams, providing a best-in-class programme of change management for internal and customer initiatives.
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About Zenith: Zenith is an independent leasing, fleet management and vehicle outsourcing business.
Deborah Cassidy
Chief Information Officer of PRA Group
Deborah oversees all enterprise corporate systems for PRA Group in North America and Europe and reports to Kevin Stevenson, PRA’s president, chief administrative officer, and interim chief financial officer. She has more than 20 years of IT leadership experience across several industries, with the past 10 years in the financial services industry. Most recently, Deborah was senior vice president and business chief information officer for Genworth Financial, Inc. She previously served seven years with Allianz Assistance as vice president and chief information officer and 15 years with the Tredegar Corporation. She earned a Master of Science degree in management information technology from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce and a Bachelor of Arts degree in business administration and information systems from Mary Baldwin College.
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About PRA Group: PRA Group offers the following broad range of debt buying solutions and business and government services.
Peter Finch
Group CIO of Trak Global Group
An insurance IT systems specialist. After leaving the NHS, Peter spent 6 years at Carole Nash, the UK’s leading motorbike insurance broker, building and maintaining systems that managed 250,000 policies. Peter has worked with all of the major insurance administration platforms.
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About Trak Global Group: Trak Global Group provides its partners with the very latest in technology to enable and support telematics insurance propositions.
Damian Atkinson
CIO and Founder of Maxatta Limited
Over 30 years financial markets IT experience and former UK Region CIO for ING Bank for 12 years, spearheading technology strategy for the Bank, whilst running the IT organisation of 90 +staff. Business Leadership and Management at Maxatta. Damian will lead the Robotics CDAAS DevOps operation.
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About Maxatta Limited: Maxatta is a leader in Robotic Process Automation and the delivery of AI through automation for Front Office Financial Markets.
Paul Tennant
Chief Information Officer of Simply Conveyancing
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About Simply Conveyancing: Simply Conveyancing is a fantastic business with a strong track record of innovation
Rafi Vasserman
Chief Information Officer of EBS BrokerTec
Rafi was appointed Chief Information Officer of EBS on June 2012. From 2005 Rafi served as EVP Engineering and General Manager of Israel for Traiana (acquired by ICAP in 2007). From 2000 to 2005 Rafi was VP R&D of ClearForest that developed text mining solutions. Prior to 2000, Rafi was employed in several roles in Tecomatix Technologies Ltd.
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About EBS BrokerTec: EBS BrokerTec is a leading electronic trading platforms and solutions business in foreign exchange and fixed income.
Mark Hill
CIO and Co-Founder of Vestemi
Mark has a computer systems engineering background with 15 years of experience managing complex IT systems in the City and 7 years working in start-ups in a variety of leadership roles.
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About Vestemi: Vestemi is a new technology product company with a social purpose.
Andrew Hill
CIO of Serco
Andrew recently took on Serco’s central government CIO role with a focus on direct support of Serco’s services and solutions for government customers. Andrew has been with Serco for nearly 8 years in a variety of P&L roles and more recently as MD for the London Cycle Hire Scheme, a fully managed outsource (design, build and operate) for Transport for London. Prior to joining Serco Andrew built a track record in large public sector technology enabled change programmes and ICT management, including : • Managing Partners and Suppliers; • Portfolio and Programme Delivery • ICT Operational Strategy Development and Planning; • Delivering in political and complex multi-stakeholder environments • Provision of ICT from the supplier perspective. Andrew joined Serco from IBM and prior to that spent 18 years in the public sector with Inland Revenue (HMRC). Joining as a fast streamer from Warwick University where he completed a PhD in Mathematics, Andrew built a portfolio of experience in government ICT delivery in large complex programmes and operations. As a senior civil servant he spent 18 months in his final role with HMRC heading the department’s ICT Operations.
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About Serco: Serco is a provider of professional, technology, and management services.
Stephen Darnell
CIO & Co-founder of Workteam
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About Workteam: Provider of HR employee management SaaS offering
Daryl Flack
Chief Information Officer and Co-Founder of BLOCKPHISH
Analysis shows that human actions are overwhelmingly at the heart of many data breaches, and cyber attackers are actively seeking to exploit this to compromise target systems. If global organisations and nation states with their considerable resources and budgets are struggling to stem the flow of data breaches from this threat, what hope do ordinary businesses have of protecting themselves? Join us for a comprehensive and insightful presentation from BLOCKPHISH, who will use examples drawn from real attacks to reveal why, if you have a cyber security aware workforce, you can be more confident in your ability to be resilient to cyber-attacks.
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About BLOCKPHISH: BLOCKPHISH provides organisations with the ability to improve their resilience against phishing attacks.
Kaj Siebert
Chief Information Officer of Social Finance
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About Social Finance, Social Finance: We partner with government, social sector and the financial community to find better solutions to society’s most difficult problems.
Mike Simcock
CEO and CIO of ClearMacro
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About ClearMacro: ClearMacro helps institutional investors integrate actionable insights from data into their portfolios to enable smarter decision-making.
Anthony Davies
CIO and Co-Founder of Fourthtier
Overall responsibility for IT strategy and product development for Fourth Tier. 28 years in Information Technology, 12 of which were with Budget Rent A Car International as one of their chief IT architects. Tony has extensive experience and expertise in reservation and front counter systems as well as business process, systems design and latest technologies.
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About Fourthtier: A fusion of car rental and IT professionals with extensive experience in international vehicle rental and building specialised software.
Tomas Nascisonis
CIO of Agent House
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About Agent House: Agent House is building a Real Estate Ecosystem – End to End Platform for agents, clients and suppliers.
