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 Mobile 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.
Federico Pienovi
Regional Managing Director – Head of EMEA of Globant
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About Globant: Globant is a digitally native technology services company building a new way of being digital.
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Paul Wright
Managing Director (UK / FR / ME / TR) of AppsFlyer
Paul Wright Based in London, Paul leads AppsFlyer’s growth and expansion in the UK market. Paul has worked in the online marketing industry for over 18 years, building and shaping businesses for some of the worlds largest agencies, advertisers and technologies.
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About AppsFlyer: The world’s top brands use AppsFlyer to build great products, create exceptional experiences, and preserve customer privacy.
Neil McRae
Managing Director and Chief Architect of BT Global Services
Named after Neil Armstrong, Neil has a personal purpose of working to connect as many people together as possible, and this is been a driving force in his career. Since the early nineties Neil has been a leading innovator in the Internet and Telecommunications industry: from using open software to create one of the first service providers in the UK, to building several Global Telecommunications and Internet Networks. Neil has significant knowledge and experience in IP technologies and also significant experience with Optical, Mobile, Voice, xDSL, MPLS and Ethernet. He ran Network Engineering at COLT for ten years, (where he also contributed to COLT’s datacentre build) and ran Network Engineering at Cable and Wireless for four years. For the last four years Neil has led BT’s global network strategy, culminating in extending BT’s leading position in the Gartner magic quadrant, and supporting significant global network expansion. In addition, Neil has worked to expand BT’s footprint and capability in the UK, from BT’s fibre network through to Ethernet, Broadband and TV services. Neil is one of two ‘Distinguished Engineers’ in BT. Neil has been involved in the start-up of many internet governance and supporting organisations, and has been a non-executive director of the London Internet Exchange for fifteen years. Neil has studied leadership and management at Sloan School of Management. He is married with one daughter and has a passion for motorsports and technology.
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About BT Global Services: BT Global Services plc is a division of United Kingdom telecommunications operator BT Group.
Howard Watson
Managing Director – Architecture and Global IT Platforms of BT Global Services
Howard was appointed as CEO of BT’s Technology, Service and Operations division, and Group CIO, in January 2016. As CEO of TSO, Howard is in charge of the company’s ‘engine room’; thirteen thousand staff and eight thousand contractors responsible for BT’s core networks and IT systems across the globe. The division manages the company’s internal and external platforms – including TV, Mobile and Conferencing – as well as BT’s world class research and development arm at Adastral Park, Suffolk. BT TSO Previously, Howard was BT’s Chief Architect and MD Global IT Systems, and led the technical teams behind the launch of BT Sport in August 2013. In this role he also transformed the way software development is carried out at BT. He joined BT in October 2011, bringing 30 years of telecoms experience with him, including time spent at Virgin Media and Telewest, and as MD of Cartesian, a telecommunications consultancy and software company. Howard possesses a broad knowledge of technical and operational leadership with expertise in engineering, strategic development and business transformation. His areas of expertise include telephony, digital TV, IP services, high definition TV and ‘ultra’ high speed broadband. He also has experience of integrating networks and IT from his time in the cable industry, experience that will prove useful as BT integrates its network with EE’s. Howard is 53 years old with three children, and is also a qualified pilot.
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About BT Global Services: BT Global Services plc is a division of United Kingdom telecommunications operator BT Group.
Adriana Marques
Managing Director, Europe and Global Network of Zepz
Adriana Marques is responsible for growing WorldRemit’s business in the European region as well as driving the expansion of the network globally by integrating new pay out partners, and launching money transfer services in new geographies. Adriana has over 20 years of experience in leading and developing teams, having previously held senior strategy and business development roles at Sodexo and American Express. Prior to joining WorldRemit in October 2017, Adriana served as Head of Merchant and VAS at Samsung launching Samsung Pay in the UK. Adriana holds an MBA from London Business School and a BA in Economics from Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil.
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About Zepz: Zepz is a money transfer service that helps migrants send money to their loved ones all over the world.
Martin Arumemi
Co-Founder & Managing Director of EE
Arumemi-Ikhide is the MD and Founder of EE. He also serves as the MD of Hansworth Ltd and General Manager of Engineering for Rockson Engineering. In both Hansworth and Rockson Engineering he is responsible for the leadership, execution and construction of the 4 NIPP power plants in FGN. He has lead the firm to the successful commissioning of the first phase of the 1074MW Alaoji CCGT plant. He is also progressing the completion of the 225MW Omoku, 225MW Gbarain and 338MW Egbema OCGT also based in FGN. Prior to joining Hansworth, Dr Arumemi-Ikhide worked for GE Power and Water for more than seven years as a Senior Project Manager, overseeing the execution of several landmark projects. At GE he was the Project Manager for two combined cycle plants that were using GE 9FB based in Spain and Turkey notably. Whilst at GE, he was on the fast track of the firm’s world renowned leadership programme. Dr Arumemi-Ikhide holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering from Warwick University. He also holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from University of Birmingham. He possesses and is attending a number of business management executive courses including leadership programme from Boston University and is currently completing a leadership programme at Oxford University Business School.
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About EE, Rockson Engineering: EE is a telecommunications company that provides 4G mobile and fixed fiber broadband services to personal and business customers.
Arthur Holcombe
Managing Director of Snupps
Responsible for operations, marketing and business development. Arthur has 15 years experience building dynamic startups and early growth companies in the wireless and Internet sectors. Previously Arthur was the Chief Revenue Officer at MobileWave, an AIM listed Company, and prior to that worked at Coordinate Technologies (Founder), The Cloud, Coremetrics (co-Founder; sold to IBM) and Dow Jones China. Arthur is a graduate from Georgetown University, with an MBA from Thunderbird.
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About Snupps: Snupps helps people organize, share and discover the stuff they own and value.
Norman Butler
Managing Director – Visa Payments Limited of Visa Europe
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About Visa Europe: Visa Europe is a payment technology business that enables European consumers, businesses, and governments to make electronic payments.
Katherine Ward
Chief Commercial Officer, Managing Director UK & Europe of Healthy.io
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About Healthy.io: Healthy.io converts smartphone cameras into a clinical grade medical device.
Robert Baker
Managing Director, EMEA of First Orion
Robert has been at the forefront of telecom technologies for over 30 years, creating a vision for open networks via APIs that is now widely adopted. He brings First Orion’s cool new applications and services to the European market.
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About First Orion: First Orion allows businesses to brand communications, revealing the who and why behind the call to deliver enhanced customer experiences.
Lewis Mutton
Managing Director of SHUFA
Lewis Mutton, 24 is the Founder of SHUFA LTD, a UK based technology firm.
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About SHUFA: Revolutionary Automotive Retail Software
Charlie Hudson
Managing Director of Firemind
Entrepreneur – Creative, experienced innovator and leader of analytics with a plethora of skills to help C-level executives make informed decisions through the visualisation of insight nuggets buried in copious amounts of data.
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About Firemind, Firemind Ventures: AWS Advanced Partner specialising in professional cloud services, AWS strategy, data focused projects and AI/ML innovation.
Ahmed Nuaman
Managing Director of Firemind
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About Firemind, Firemind Ventures, Scout Solutions, Upcoming: AWS Advanced Partner specialising in professional cloud services, AWS strategy, data focused projects and AI/ML innovation.
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.
John Ross
Managing Director of telmedx
John is an internationally-recognized IT security expert with more than 35 years experience as a senior consultant to government and commercial clients. He has successfully implemented security platforms for the UK Cabinet Office and other high profile clients.
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About telmedx: Telmedx offers a mobile telemedicine platform that enables doctors to remotely examine their patients in high resolution.
Kebbie Sebastian
Managing Director of Penser
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About Penser: Specialist consulting firm focused on the payments and fintech industry
Chris Sisson
Managing Director of 121 Systems Ltd
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About 121 Systems Ltd: 121 Systems Ltd is a privately held UK-based company that specializes in transport management software.
Serge Lubensky
Founder | Executive Managing Director of ReTool Ventures
Serge is a geek who enjoys finding pragmatic solutions to difficult problems. Along the way, he managed to become a successful entrepreneur with a track record of starting, growing and selling technology companies. Serge grew up in a family of scientists and artists. Not smart enough to become a scientist and not creative enough to be an artist, Serge chose to pursue a computer engineering degree in his hometown of Minsk strictly to avoid being drafted into the Russian Army during the Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan. Serge’s first successful exit, from a failing 70-year old startup called the USSR, occurred in 1988. Fresh off the boat, Serge joined a computer company in Queens, NY, developing software for service contractors. Architecting and supporting a system that businesses relied on allowed Serge to learn the intricacies of the commercial repair and maintenance trades and ways to apply technology to solve real-life challenges for business owners and their field technicians. In the process, Serge and the company’s founder, Steven Gottfried, became friends and business partners and started to formulate plans for their next business venture. In 1999, Steven and Serge founded a cloud-based facilities management platform, ServiceChannel, with the goal of transforming the highly inefficient multi-billion dollar commercial repair and maintenance industry. As with their previous company, which was successfully sold, Steven was the idea generator and a master salesman, while Serge worked behind the scenes as CTO to help ServiceChannel achieve a dominant position in the global facilities management marketplace. In 2016, Serge moved to London to accelerate ServiceChannel’s expansion in Europe. In the summer of 2017, Accel, an elite technology VC firm, invested $54M in ServiceChannel continuing to fuel its growth and allowing Steven and Serge to realize a highly successful exit. Now Steven and Serge run ReTool Ventures, a technology investment firm.
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About Equip ID, ReTool Ventures: ReTool Ventures is a new technology investment firm that seeks to retool the facilities management industry by curating a “digital toolbox”
Stephen Homer
Managing Director of PostSnap
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About PostSnap: We’re PostSnap an independent, privately owned online photo printing service going strong since 2015!
Chris Babayode
Managing Director of Mobile Marketing Association
Chris Babayode is the Managing Director of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) in EMEA. The MMA (www.mmaglobal.com) is the world’s leading global non-profit trade association comprised of more than 800 member companies, from nearly fifty countries around the world. Our members hail from every faction of the mobile marketing ecosystem including brand marketers, agencies, mobile technology platforms, media companies, operators, and others. The MMA’s mission is to accelerate the transformation and innovation of marketing through mobile, driving business growth with closer and stronger consumer engagement. Previously Chris was Commercial and Digital Director for Johnston Press Plc. with responsibility for its digital publishing division and prior to this, he was VP Sales and Business Development at Ask.com, Europe, responsible for its commercial activities.
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About Mobile Marketing Association: Mobile Marketing Association is a non-profit trade association representing all players in the mobile marketing value chain.
Murray Pearce
Managing Director and Co-founder of Bright Cyber
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About Bright Cyber: Bright Cyber provides a cyber resilience solution with primary reliance on security assurance.
Todd Tran
Managing Director, Europe of NEXAGE
Todd Tran is the Chief Strategy Officer at Teads
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About NEXAGE, Teads.tv: NEXAGE offers a mobile advertising platform that provides private and public exchanges, data enrichment, and real-time targeting solutions.
Andrey Dobrynin
Co-Founder and Managing Director of InvestEngine
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About InvestEngine, Larixon Classifieds: InvestEngine is an investment management company that builds smart applications to managed stocks, shares, and general portfolio accounts.
Oliver Waters
Co-founder & Managing Director of d3i
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About d3i, Momento, Protospace: d3i is a software development studio specialising in iPhone/iPad app design and development.
Matthew Brown
Managing Director of Data & CRM of Karmarama
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About Karmarama: Karmarama is a full service communications agency, combining creative excellence with technology-inspired solutions
Antonio Giugno
Co-Founder/Managing Director of Portrayt
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About Portrayt: We create digital strategy, experience and engagement.
Francis Turner
Co-Founder, CRO & UK Managing Director at Adyoulike , BIMA Hot 100 2015 of ADYOULIKE
Francis Turner is the Co-Founder & CRO at ADYOULIKE.
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About ADYOULIKE, ADYOULIKE, Content Amp: Advertising, Reinvented.
Dale Lovell
UK Managing Director & Co-Founder of ADYOULIKE
Chief Digital Officer at Adyoulike – the European leader in native advertising. Successful track record in online start-ups and one of BIMA’s Hot 100 2015. Prior to Adyoulike Dale was co-founder of Content Amp, a content marketing service that merged with Adyoulike in March 2014. Proven at building creative content businesses, nurturing start-up teams, content development, developing brand content strategy and promoting the benefits of online content to all businesses and brands. An experienced content marketer, online editor, publisher and media professional. Experienced across the entire spectrum of online media with direct hands-on experience in numerous internet start-ups.
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About ADYOULIKE, Content Amp: Advertising, Reinvented.
Ian Hobson
Co-Founder, CEO & Managing Director of ChargeBox
Ian has set and delivered the mission and objectives for ChargeBox which has seen the company grow rapidly. Involved since the companies inception, Ian took over control of the company and formulated the change in strategy driven by the smart phone market and Olympics in 2012. Ian is passionate about ChargeBox and passionate about bringing free charging to everyone who needs it everywhere they need it. A graduate of Imperial College, Ian’s career has taken him from Accenture to Hambrecht & Quist and Tibco, all the time delivering rapid growth and businsess development.
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About ChargeBox: ChargeBox They pride Theirselves for providing the easiest to use, most trusted and innovative charging solutions for public spaces.
Carla Arrindell
Managing Director – UK of Optimise
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About Optimise: Global Performance Marketing Company
Alex Seewald
Founder, Managing Director of Openshadow Ltd
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About Openshadow Ltd: Mobile software development. Research and Development. Project Management.
Abdul Ojomu
Managing Director MMIT UK of Mobile Media Info Tech Global Limited
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About Mobile Media Info Tech Global Limited: Mobile Media Info Tech (MMIT) is a mobile payment processing company.
Andy Greener
Founder & Managing Director of Komodo Design
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About Komodo Design: We help great teams build exceptional digital products that people prefer to use.
Ben McSweeney
Managing Director – UK of ZipZap
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About ZipZap: ZipZap is a technology platform for moving money around the world.
David Wadsworth
Chief Financial Officer & Managing Director, UK of WMC Global
David Wadsworth oversees the WMC Global Group’s strategic financial direction as he plans, manages, and reports on group finances. His more than 40 years in financial management ensure the success of the group’s entrepreneurial endeavors. David brings extensive management and business development experience as a chartered accountant, having specialized in mobile technology, marketing and media, and property companies. His expertise in managing and resourcing business development for venture capital and investment finance groups enables him to evaluate markets and identify financial and business opportunities for the WMC Global Group—supporting its continued growth. In his role as managing director, David leads his team in opening new opportunities in the United Kingdom, as well as pursuing new opportunities and markets in Europe, and manages the effective delivery of products and solutions to clients. David earned his MA in History at the University of Oxford.
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About WMC Global: Worldwide Brand and Customer Protection At Scale
Keith Brown
Managing Director of Paythru
Keith is one of the founders of Paythru. Prior to his current role, Keith ran a successful business in Financial Services marketing for 15 years called KBA Marketing. Formed at the end of 1990; the original concept was to develop financial services propositions to non-financial services organisations primarily predicated on the skills of database and direct marketing. Keith has also worked for Lloyds of London, BUPA, Target Life, Grattan and Next in a number of management roles covering disciplines such as legal, business systems, marketing and more. He is a law graduate and qualified Company Secretary.
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About Paythru: Paythru is a financial services and technology business which provides an award winning.
Matt Byrom
Managing Director of Wyzowl
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About 4040 Media, Wyzowl: We create videos to explain a product or service. We make it easy, fun and interesting for people to find out about your business.
Gary Frost
Managing Director of 51zero
Gary Frost, owner and Managing Director of 51zero has over 20 years in IT and technical development experience. With an exceptional knowledge of financial services and investment banking internationally Gary focuses on within budget delivery of critical projects as well as influencing and creating agile teams that productively work together. Getting to the heart of problems quickly and communicating effectively are mainstays of Gary’s approach.
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About 51zero: Software Development Consultancy
Robert Stoubos
Owner & Managing Director of Odyssey New Media Ltd
With over 16+ years of experience in Digital Marketing I have become a results-driven marketer with the skills required to successfully implement cross-channel digital marketing campaigns that generate increased brand awareness, sales and ROI. In 2010 I founded Odyssey New Media – a leading full service Digital Marketing in Birmingham, UK. Specialising in SEO, PPC, Social Media, Inbound Marketing, Conversion Enhancement and more. If you want to improve your sales, increase sales leads and grow your customer base then contact us today and see what we can do to help your company acheive your goals. Call us now on 0844 500 6911.
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About Odyssey New Media Ltd: Leading full service Digital Marketing Agency, based in Birmingham, UK.
Iain McLean
Managing Director, Founder of Musations
Iain has over 150 apps submitted to the apps stores and over 100 Million downloads to his name, Iain is a serious developer with an eye for new technology and the Internet of things!
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About CarryCado, Musations: Mutations is a social media messaging platform that enables its users to share their inner most feelings through music.
Rob Borley
Managing Director of Dootrix
Rob Borley is the founder and managing director of Dootrix, a software engineering that helps clients accelerate their businesses through mobile, cloud and IoT software solutions. Working with clients such as Confused.com, Heathrow Airport, P&O Ferries, Clancy Docwra and Surfers Against Sewage, Rob leads a dynamic team of designers and developers, creating the next generation of mobile apps, PaaS first cloud software and best in class IoT solutions for enterprise.
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About Dootrix: Dootrix designers, developers, creatives, technologists and strategists dedicated building best in class cloud, mobile & IoT applications.
Paul Stokes
Managing Director of Gener8 Finance
Paul Stokes is a director at Gener8 Finance Ltd, one of the country’s leading independent invoice finance companies. An expert in working capital finance, banking and commercial finance broking, Paul has an in-depth knowledge of the funding options available to businesses and has a reputation for problem-solving and helping business owners obtain the funding they need.
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About Gener8 Finance: Gener8 Finance is one of the UK’s leading providers of cashflow solutions to SMEs.
Loren Barton
Founder, Managing Director of Kaleidoscope Group Ltd
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About Kaleidoscope Group Ltd: Consultancy and advisory firm focused on bridging the gap between innovation and performance in the market
Jade Warrington
Managing Director of HIROLA Group
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About HIROLA Group: HIROLA Group is a design driven digital agency based in London.
