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 CEO’ operating in the Employment 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.
Tony Jamous
CEO and Co-Founder of Oyster®
Tony Jamous is a tech entrepreneur and angel investor. He has made over 15 direct investments in global technology companies with a focus on developer tools, platforms models, impact, FinTech and HR Tech. Five of his companies have realized an exit to-date. Tony is currently building the future of work through his new venture Oyster, a distributed talent enablement platform that allows growing companies to tap into the global talent pool and offer their remote workers around the world a great employment experience. Priori to Oyster, Tony co-founded and led Nexmo, a leader in CPAAS (Communication Platform As A Service) acquired by Vonage in 2016. Tony started his career in 2004 in the cloud, communication and mobile industries. At mBlox and Boku, Tony opened up global messaging and payment services. Tony holds a Masters in Computer Science from Grenoble Institute of Technology in France and an MBA from the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland, with a focus on leadership development and organization behavior.
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About Oyster®: Oyster is a Distributed HR platform that empowers companies to hire, pay, and care for talented teammates regardless of location.
Doug Monro
Co-Founder and CEO of Adzuna
Doug was most recently COO of property portal Zoopla. From 2008 he led the growth of the team from 5 to 75 people and the site to number 2 in UK property with 5M visitors a month, organically and through acquisitions. Previously he was MD of Gumtree.com, the UK’s largest classified ads site, where he built the team and business through a fun growth ramp after acquisition by eBay in 2005. Prior to Gumtree, Doug worked for eBay UK, Bain & Company, Unilever and also as an entrepreneur. Doug has a BA in English from Cambridge, an MBA from Kellogg, and hates to admit he is a qualified accountant.
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About Adzuna: Adzuna is a smart search engine for job ads.
Theo Pape
Founder, CEO of DRONEWORK
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About DRONEWORK, Flickreel: DRONEWORK is a drone mission matching platform for professional drone operators.
Patrick Wehrmann
Group Managing Director & CEO, StepStone UK of StepStone
Patrick Wehrmann joined StepStone 2012 as member of the supervisory board. In February 2014 he was appointed to his current role as Group Managing Director with specific responsibilities for the group businesses (Totaljobsgroup, Jobsite, SAON UK) in the UK, Mergers and Acquisitions and international HR. Before joining StepStone as Group Managing Director, Patrick served as Managing Director of Axel Springer Digital Classifieds. In this position he held several supervisory and advisory board positions in the digital classifieds businesses of Axel Springer worldwide. Previously, he was Commercial Publishing Director / CFO of the BILD Group and the Axel Springer Magazine Division as well as COO/CFO of the Axel Springer Magazine and International Division. In the beginning of his career he held several positions in the French, German, US and UK businesses of Axel Springer. Patrick graduated in Business Administration (Diplom-Kaufmann) at European Business School (EBS) in Oestrich-Winkel. He also studied at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce in Dijon (France) and at the University of Colorado.
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About StepStone: StepStone is a leading international provider of software and services for the human capital management sector.
Peter Kelly
Co-Founder & CEO of Imployable
Peter Kelly is a Former Royal Marines Commando and the CEO and co-founder of Imployable. In 2018 Peter won the regional and national NatWest Great British Entrepreneur of The Year Award for Entrepreneurial Spirit
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About Imployable: Mobile first technology that allows people to identify, map and track their way to a new career
Raj Mendhir
CEO and Co-Founder of Wintern
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About Wintern: Wintern is an Assessment Centre service provider and Leadership Education organisation.
Tom Pickersgill
Co-Founder and CEO of Orka Technology Group
Tom Pickersgill is the Co-Founder and CEO at Orka Technology Group.
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About Orka Technology Group: Orka Technology Group develops solutions that help hourly workers with sourcing, on-boarding, and getting paid for work.
Robert Walters
CEO and Founder of Robert Walters
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About Robert Walters: Robert Walters is a global, specialist professional recruitment consultancy.
Xenios Thrasyvoulou
Founder & CEO of PeoplePerHour
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About PeoplePerHour: PeoplePerHour is a marketplace connecting small businesses and freelancers.
Antony Woodcock
Co-founder and CEO of Gig
Antony Woodcock is a co-founder and the CEO at Gig since July 2015. Prior to working at Gig, Woodcock worked as a co-founder and director at Maki, director at Parliament House Hotel Co., and member of executive brand management for Holiday Inn Express Europe at InterContinental Hotels Group. Woodcock finished Bachelor of Arts, Marketing and Management Science at University of Strathclyde.
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About Gig: Gig offers a platform for millennials who want to pick up shift work in the hospitality and retail sectors.
Mark Kieve
CEO of Zao.com
CEO at Zao.com
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About Pixid, Zao.com: Zao offers social recruiting and employee referral program management software for companies.
Alex Paterson
CEO of WhatJobs
CEO of www.whatjobs.com the global job search engine
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About WhatJobs: WHATJOBS? is a market-leading, independently-run job search engine with offices in London, Dublin and Bangalore.
Amir Qureshi
Chief Executive Officer of Thomas International
With a strong track record of success spanning over twenty years, Amir brings a great combination of operational and commercial acumen to Thomas. As Chief Executive Officer of Thomas International, Amir is passionate about working with business leaders, entrepreneurs and people managers, helping them to make the very best of their talent. Amir is incredibly trusting and encourages honesty, confidence and empowerment in the people he works with; where he will reward those people who deliver with the best opportunities. He is a proactive, results-orientated individual who inspires others into decisions and action. He enjoys a work environment that allows freedom within the role and appreciates those with a strong work ethic. His value to the team comes from his experimentation and in thinking ‘outside the box’, but is demotivated by those who don’t see tasks through to completion or follow up. Amir has a deep knowledge of market drivers to align business models, products, pricing and brands with consumer demand. Prior to joining the team, Amir’s career included progression to senior executive level with FMCG at The Coca-Cola Company. With his wife and three children, Amir lives in Buckinghamshire. His foundations are in his family and he invests as much as time allows to support them in all their hobbies and interests, from professional hockey to ballet.
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About Thomas International: Thomas International is a provider of psychometric assessment solutions with a focus on small to medium-sized businesses.
Jennifer Johansson
Founder & CEO of Placed App
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About Placed App: Placed is a mobile-first recruitment platform helping the high labour churn, service industries access permanent staff.
Shib Mathew
CEO of YunoJuno
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About YunoJuno: Online platform connecting freelancers and clients in the creative and technology sectors
Mikhil Raja
Co-founder & CEO of SonicJobs
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About SonicJobs: SonicJobs is a job platform revolutionizing the way candidates search and apply for jobs.
Wendy McDougall
CEO and Founder of Firefish Software
Wendy McDougall is the CEO and founder of Firefish Software. Prior to that, Wendy served as a regional director at TEAM (The Employment Agents Movement). She was the founder and managing director at 9-20 Recruitment.
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About Firefish Software: Firefish Software is a recruitment and marketing SaaS platform that helps recruiters reach, engage, and recruit top candidates.
Miguel Heinonen
Founder & CEO of Heirizon
Miguel is in charge of overall operations and strategy at Heirizon, where he manages the growth as a brand and the expansion of the company. Miguel graduated from Johnson & Wales University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Entrepreneurship, and received his MBA in Global Business Administration.
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About Acceleris, Heirizon, Qnary: Heirizon is a completely end-user focused job board that aggregates jobs within 7 miles around your location.
Rupert Sellers
CEO & founder of Barometa Talent
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About Barometa Talent: Barometa Talent is a pre-screened talent platform designed for people in hospitality.
Matthew de la Hey
CEO & Co-Founder of inploi
Matthew is co-founder & CEO of inploi, a recruitment marketing platform built to connect great employers with the future of the workforce. With employer branding at its heart, inploi empowers companies to speak to candidates as consumers of workplaces, helping them to tell their stories with captivating videos, images, and written content in order to engage active and passive candidates. When actively hiring, inploi’s software is a powerful recruitment tool incorporating job post creation and distribution, applicant tracking, CV-parsing, candidate-job matching, proactive talent search, video profiles, instant messaging, video calling, file sharing, programmatic job advertising and more. For jobseekers, inploi provides a beautiful professional presence making it easy to access career-related information, apply for job opportunities, and connect and communicate with employers, and with each other. Matthew is a Mandela Rhodes Scholar and a two-time Weidenfeld Scholar.
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About inploi: inploi is the future of talent engagement and job discovery.
Laura Degiovanni
CEO and Founder of TiiQu
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About TiiQu: TiiQu is a trust mechanism derived by immutable verifiable sources about one’s ID, Work, Knowledge, Performances
Matt Rantell
CEO & Founder of The Square
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About The Square: The Square is an award winning workforce management platform & hiring marketplace for construction businesses.
Nicholas Barton
Founder & CEO of The Barton Partnership
Nicholas founded The Barton Partnership in late 2007 and has succeeded in building a niche executive recruitment firm with an enviable reputation within the Strategy, Transformation and M&A arena. From a standing start, he has built a team of professionals renowned not only for their talent acquisition skills but also their subject matter expertise with offices in London, Europe, New York and Asia. Throughout his career he has specialised in, and successfully executed, on over 250 senior retained and contingent assignments across Commerce, Financial Services and Professional Services both in the UK and Internationally.
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About The Barton Partnership: The Barton Partnership is a niche Executive Recruitment firm providing permanent and interim solutions in strategy, transformation, and M&A.
Christopher Platts
Co-Founder & CEO of ThriveMap
Christopher Platts is Founder of ThriveMap.
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About ThriveMap: Personalised pre-employment assessments for volume hiring
Biju Menon
CEO of Nottx
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About Nottx: Nottx is a blind hiring platform for employers to remove prejudice from the recruitment process.
Magdalena Slowinska Janowitz
Co-Founder/CEO of Includeon
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About Includeon: An accessible platform matching remote jobs with disabled e-workers, creating a happy online workplace and a more inclusive society.
Ahmed Shamso
Founder and CEO of SchoolX
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About SchoolX: SchoolX is an online platform that facilitates the education process for out-of-school children in vulnerable areas.
Adam Butwilowski
Founder / CEO of CiiVSOFT
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About Bubble Jobs, CiiVSOFT: Recruitment automation tools and technology
