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 Asset Management 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.
Oliver Oram
Founder & CEO of Chainvine
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About Chainvine: Next Generation Enterprise Systems / Identity Access Management (IAM) / Technology Providers Blockchain
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George McDonaugh
Co-Founder, CEO and Managing Director of KR1 plc
I’ve been involved in blockchain technology since 2011. Before then I was an advertising copywriter for London based agencies. I have a masters degree in Anthropology and a further degree in Creative Advertising. I helped form one of London’s most popular blockchain meetups and co-founded kr1 in early 2016 and as such it become the first token focussed investment company in the world. We have the longest track record in the space and a global network of funds, developers and investors.
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About KR1 plc: KR1 plc (KR1:AQSE) is Europe’s leading digital asset investment company focused on decentralised and open-source blockchain networks.
Matt Lilley
CEO Africa of Prudential PLC
Matt Lilley is CEO Africa at Prudential, leading the building of the company’s business across the continent. He has been at Prudential for five years, and was previously director of strategy, responsible for strategic planning, business development and M&A across the Group. Matt previously worked at Boston Consulting Group and Lehman Brothers and has a BA in maths and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Cambridge University.
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About Prudential PLC: Prudential plc is an international financial services group with significant operations in Asia, the US and the UK.
Dirk Markus
CEO of AURELIUS Equity Opportunities
Dirk Markus studied business administration in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and Copenhagen, Denmark, he was awarded a PhD by St. Gallen. During his PhD studies, he spent a term at Harvard University, Boston, United States. Dirk Markus has been involved with the restructuring and further development of companies for more than 15 years. During this time, he has been responsible for more than 80 corporate transactions. Dirk Markus is CEO of AURELIUS and responsible for the overall strategy of the AURELIUS Group.
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About AURELIUS Equity Opportunities: Aurelius Equity Opportunities is an investment firm that provides equity, growth, debt and real estate investments.
Ali Celiker
Founder and CEO of British Pearl
Ali Celiker is the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of British Pearl. He is an experienced financial professional and entrepreneur and has spent the last 19 years in financial services. He thrives on building innovative businesses with inspirational people and is principally interested in the alternative finance market , with a focus on equity and debt based collective investment platforms. Prior to establishing British Pearl Ali worked within the global capital markets as a trader and sales person. This included Vice President, Head European Financing Trader at Paloma Securities London Limited and Associate Director, Interest rates sales trader at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International plc. He has also worked for BNP Paribas, J.P.Morgan and Martins Brokers (UK) PLC. He holds a BA (Hons) in Economics and Econometrics from Kent University and other banking related professional qualifications.
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About British Pearl: British Pearl is an online property investment platform facilitating share and loan-based investment in UK property.
Julien Hammerson
CEO of Calastone
Julien became Chief Executive Officer of Calastone in October 2012. Prior to this he held the role of Executive Chairman, having joined in September 2011. Since Julien joined Calastone, the business has grown from being a solely UK domestic business to establishing connectivity across 40 countries and territories, with offices in the UK, Europe, Asia and Australia. Before joining Calastone, Julien led Corham Capital, a global investment advisory firm that he founded in 2007. Prior to this Julien held several leadership positions at institutional brokerage Instinet Group, where he ran the European segment of the global equities business before assuming responsibility for global equities in the UK, Europe and all international business in the US and Asia. Julien began his career at Lombard Odier as a US Equities trader.
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About Calastone: Calastone is a global transaction network for the mutual fund industry.
Ken Tregidgo
Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Calastone
Ken joined Calastone in 2008. As Deputy CEO, Ken leads Calastone’s business and technology strategy. He has over 25 years’ experience in business and technology transformation within the financial services industry. Ken joined from Atos Euronext Market Solutions (now NYSE Technologies), where he was Global Head of Strategy and Business Development. Prior to AEMS, Ken was Chief Operating Officer of Instinet International & Instinet Europe, joining from a five-year tenure at Merrill Lynch as Head of Architecture for the Corporate and Institutional Client Group. Prior to this, Ken was head of Fixed Income Technology at S.G.Warburg and Global Head of Derivative Technology at Chase Manhattan Bank. Ken has a B.Sc. in Physics from Imperial College and holds a D.Phil in Atomic Spectroscopy from Oxford University.
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About Calastone: Calastone is a global transaction network for the mutual fund industry.
Simon Miller
UK CEO of Scalable Capital
Simon joined Scalable Capital after 8 years working in finance with Barclays Capital. He began trading industrial metals on the London Metal Exchange and rose to the position of Vice President and Global Head of Base Metals Options. Whilst Simon’s primary role was trading and managing risk, he also worked with both institutional and corporate clients to discover hedging solutions and, in his latter years, he helped develop an e-trading platform.Simon studied Mathematics and Economics at the University of Warwick.
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About Scalable Capital: Scalable Capital is on its way to becoming Europe’s leading digital investment platform.
Karan Shanmugarajah
CEO of WealthKernel
Karan is the CEO of WealthKernel, a regulated cloud-based provider of modular APIs and solutions to enable businesses to offer savings and investments services. Prior to co-founding WealthKernel, Karan was a portfolio manager at Barclay. He is a CFA® charter holder and holds an MSc in Accounting and Finance from CASS Business School in London.
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About WealthKernel: WealthKernel is a supplier of infrastructure for companies looking to offer digital investment services.
Chris Blackford
CEO & Co-founder of Sky-Futures
As COO, Chris drives the strategic development of Sky-Futures’ operational and technology frameworks and the development of new partnerships with leading companies across a range of markets. Chris combines extensive drone experience with a strong understanding of the technical and operational complexities and, indeed, the capacity of drones to provide cutting-edge solutions across industries.
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About Sky-Futures: Sky-Futures is a provider of drone-based inspection and data services to the industrial inspection market.
Alexander P. Coleman
Chairman & Co-CEO of New Providence Acquisition
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About Big Red, New Providence Acquisition: New Providence Acquisition is a blank check company that effects business combinations with one or more businesses.
Bradley J. Sacks
Joint Chief Executive Officer of CapitalAppreciation Limited
Bradley has more than 20 years’ experience in the financial services and investment business. Bradley is the Managing Partner of Centric Capital Ventures LLC, a private investment firm based in New York. Previously Bradley was a Managing Director, Global Head of Technology, Media and Telecommunications Mergers & Acquisitions for Bank of America. Bradley was also an investment banker with Citigroup, having started his investment banking career at Salomon Brothers. Bradley started his professional career as an associate in the corporate department of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, a law firm based in New York. Over the course of his career Bradley has been involved in evaluating, advising and investing in strategic and financing transactions with an aggregate value exceeding US$100 billion. Among others, Bradley is a director of various private companies in which Centric has invested, giving him extensive experience in the operational management of these portfolio companies.
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About CapitalAppreciation Limited: CapitalAppreciation Limited operates as a special purpose acquisition company.
Judith Sciamma
CEO & CIO of WyeTree Asset Management
Judith has over 20 years of portfolio management and asset analysis experience and launched WyeTree’s residential asset and ABS platform in September 2007. She was previously Portfolio Manager and Head of ABS at Solent Capital, London. Solent won the Risk Magazine CDO manager of the Year award for 2006. Her previous experiences include IXIS CIB (London) as a Senior ABS Analyst and ABS trader, and ODDO Asset Management (Paris), as Fund manager of structured products and securitisation. In 1999, she was part of the founding team of Equigest Asset Management (Paris). A student from the French ‘grandes ecoles’, Judith holds a masters degree from ENSAE M’, the French top tier University specialising in Statistics, Economics and Mathematics. She agrees with American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder in thinking that “It does not matter so much what happens. It is what one does when it happens that really counts.”
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About WyeTree Asset Management: WyeTree Asset Management is a systematic investment approach to source new and innovative opportunities.
Anthony Dalwood
CEO & Founder of Gresham House
Anthony Dalwood is the Founder & CEO of Gresham House & he attended University of Cambridge in 1993.
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About Gresham House: Gresham House is a specialist alternative asset manager, focused on sustainable investments.
Fadi Halout
Chief Executive Officer of BankMed (Suisse)
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About BankMed (Suisse): BankMed is a bank that specializes in providing wealth management services.
Mohammed Zulfiquar
President & CEO of Datatecnics
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About Datatecnics: Datatecnics is an intelligent infrastructure firm revolutionizing global asset management with predictive analytics.
Cyrus Kapadia
Chief Executive Officer, UK of Lazard
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About Lazard: Lazard is a financial advisory and asset management firm focused on income strategies, alternative investments, and private equity funds.
Vishnu Chundi
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of AssetVault
Vishnu Chundi is the Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at AssetVault.
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About AssetVault: AssetVault allows customers to catalogue all their physical and digital assets in one secure register.
Martin Newson
Chief Executive Officer & Chief Investment Officer & Partner of Optimus Capital
Martin is the CEO and CIO of Optimus Capital, and he chairs the Investment Committee meetings. Martin NewsonIn 2015 Martin took control of Optimus Capital. Until recently he was CEO of Religare Capital Markets an Emerging Markets investment bank headquartered in London with offices in eight countries. Prior to that he was Head of Global Equities, Equity Capital Markets and Hedge Fund Solutions at Dresdner Kleinwort Investment Bank (DKIB) and a member of DKIB’s Executive Committee. He has been Head of US Equities at Deutsche Bank based in New York where he was also a board member of Deutsche Bank Securities and member of the Global Equities Management Committee. At Credit Suisse he was latterly Global Head of European Equities, a member of the Global Equities Management Committee, board member of CSFB Europe Ltd and Deputy Chairman of CSFB Germany. Martin has also been involved in various entrepreneurial ventures and started his career as an equities analyst. In this capacity he was latterly a number one ranked analyst in the equity research department of Goldman Sachs in London and a member of the department’s stock selection committee. He holds a B.Sc.(Econ) from the London School of Economics and holds the UKSIP Level 3 Certificate in Investment Management. He is married with two children and enjoys tennis, skiing and the theatre.
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About Optimus Capital: Optimus Capital provider of asset and portfolio management services.
Daniel Tammas Hastings
CEO of Risksave Technologies
Dan Tammas-Hastings is CEO and founder at RiskSave. He founded the company in response to inadequate risk measures and a lack of transparency dominating the financial services industry. After a successful career as a fixed income trader specialising in GBP derivatives at Merrill Lynch and as a hedge fund manager, managing multi-billion £ portfolios across credit and rates, he is now a leader in risk management and is in charge of strategy and investment at RiskSave. Dan has been awarded both the CFA and FRM charters, is a graduate of the LSE and the University of Cambridge and holds the CISI Diploma in Investment Compliance.
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About Risksave Technologies: Risksave Technologies is a fast-growing provider of regulatory hosting services.
Loic Fery
CEO and Co-CIO of Chenavari Investment Managers
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About Chenavari Investment Managers: A group of alternative investment management companies focused on a broad range of credit,structured finance, real estate and private debt
Khing Oei
Founder & CEO of AlphaSwap
Khing is an investor and entrepreneur. Prior to founding AlphaSwap, Khing founded and ran Eyck Capital, a hedge fund with peak AUM of $200mm. Khing started his career at Goldman Sachs in M&A and subsequently worked as an investor/portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Investing Group and multi-billion dollar hedge funds Fortress and Halcyon. Khing holds a Master of Science in Econometrics and an Associate’s Degree in Business Mathematics & Computer Science from VU University in Amsterdam.
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About AlphaSwap, Privium Fund Management: AlphaSwap is an investment technology platform, bundling its analyst community’s best stock ideas into Data-as-a-Service
Hemal Mehta
Founder & CEO of Atominvest
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About Atominvest: Cutting-edge tech for Private Equity, VC, Real Estate and Hedge Funds
Steve Marsh
Founder and CEO of GeoSpock
Steven Marsh is a Co-Founder of GeoSpock Limited and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Steven Marsh is also the lead architect of the Collide platform and co-lead architect of GeoSpock DB. He has experience of building real-time and highly-scalable systems he has overseen the creation of GeoSpock’s state-of-the-art geo-location and social networking mobile development platform. Steven Marsh is a computer scientist. As part of his research, Steve is part of a team building a customisable FPGA-based super-computer designed to carry out real-time simulation of extreme-scale neural networks such as the brain. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
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About GeoSpock: GeoSpock builds GeoSpock DB, the unique space-time analytics database that delivers rapid insights at a fraction of the cost.
Ben Prouty
CEO & Co-Founder of Shepper
Builder of innovative new on-demand services. Previously part of the early Zipcar and LOVESPACE teams.
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About Poncho, Shepper: Shepper collects data on physical assets for businesses using the power of technology and people
Erich Bonnet
CEO, Partner of Smart Lenders Asset Management SA
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About Smart Lenders Asset Management SA: French AMF registered Asset Manager specialised in investing in loans through online marketplaces.
Robert King
Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board of Acuity Knowledge Partners
Robert King is the executive director of Moody’s Analytics Knowledge Services.
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About Acuity Knowledge Partners: Acuity Knowledge Partners is a provider of research, analytics and business intelligence to the financial services sector.
Christian Gabriel
CEO, Founder of Capdesk
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About Capdesk: Capdesk is an equity management platform helping companies manage cap tables, shareholder registers, and employee shares.
Mark O’Connell
CEO of OCO Global
Mark O’Connell is CEO and founder of OCO. Mark has worked in more than 80 countries and has cultivated in depth government, industry and trade association networks across the world. Core experience includes strategy and policy, business, sector and market analysis and evaluation, business planning, project management and performance review. Mark is currently a Board Member of the International Economic Development Council.
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About OCO Global: OCO Global is an economic development advisory firm, working with governments and companies worldwide.
Gareth Hagan
Deputy CEO/Commerical Director of OCO Global
Gareth Hagan is the Deputy CEO/Commerical Director @ OCO Global.
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About OCO Global: OCO Global is an economic development advisory firm, working with governments and companies worldwide.
Jamie Seaton
Chief Executive Officer of GVQ Investment Management
Jamie is Chief Executive of GVQIM and has been the Lead Fund Manager of the GVQ UK Focus Fund since April 2009 and the GVQ Opportunities Fund since launch in October 2015. Jamie is also a member of GVQIM’s Research Committee. Prior to this, Jamie was an equities analyst for GVQIM, and its first recruit following its formation. Previously he was an Investment Manager at Rothschild Asset Management and worked at Goldman Sachs. Jamie is a CFA charterholder and also has the IMC qualification.
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About GVQ Investment Management: GVQ Investment Management is a manager of public equity funds.
Lennart Asshoff
CEO of Nucoro
After years working at one of Europe’s largest quantitative asset management firms, developing made-to-measure investment portfolios for institutional clients and UHNWIs, Lennart became the driving force behind Exo Investing. Exo is the first AI-powered wealth manager, delivering tailored portfolios and individual risk management to retail investors in the UK. Lennart graduated with an MSc in Investment Management from Cass Business School and is a CFA Charterholder.
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About Nucoro: Nucoro enables financial institutions to build digital savings, investment and wealth management propositions at speed and scale.
Waleed Sarwar
CEO of CoVi Analytics
Waleed Sarwar joined CoVi Analytics as CEO in 2015.
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About CoVi Analytics, RegNut: Productivity solutions for regulated firms, reducing compliance effort & freeing staff to focus on business.
Michael Messele
CEO of Pillar Project
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About Pillar Project, Pillar Project: Platform to contextually manage your identity and transact with the services of the emerging web3 digital economy.
Abdullah Hiyatt
Founder and CEO of THETA Trading Systems
20 years of experience in capital markets working with sell and buy-side firms on e-strategy, design and building e-trading solutions. In 2013, Abdullah’s focus shifted to the buy-side and more recently worked with Deutsche Wealth Management leading the design and delivery of SPARTA, its new global multi-asset trading platform.
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About Deutsche Bank, THETA Trading Systems: Capital Markets London based FinTech
Harris White
Founder and CEO of IB Group
Harris White is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at IBGroup. He is a member of the investment committee and leads IBGroup’s financial services focus. Harris is also a Non-Executive Director of a number of companies. He spent his early career as the Head of a private financial company in UK, Europe. Mr. White was also a board member of an investment office which that manages about US$3 billion of retirement and investment products.
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About IB Group: IB Group is a trading company using quantum mechanics to maximize the potential of its trading practices.
Jimmy Bach
Co-Founder & CEO of Music Manager
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About Music Manager: Music Manager is an asset management company that specializes in the administration and commercial optimization of music copyright assets.
Anton Padmasiri
Founder and CEO of WealthOS
Anton has worked in wealth management and pensions for over 16 years for Edward Jones, Towry, Fidelity and Smart Pension. Building and shipping great products that solve big inefficiencies is Anton’s thing. At Fidelity he was the product lead for its retail pension products and more recently, at Smart Pension for developing a modern workplace pensions platform. WealthOS is the idea born out of years of frustrations from working with substandard WealthTech platforms, entirely unsuited to digital adoption and innovation.
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About WealthOS: Enterprise, cloud native core wealth management SaaS. Launch and run superior digital wealth management propositions faster & cheaper.
Konstantin Fominykh
CEO and Founder of Tenviz
Konstantin Fominykh is the founder of TenViz.
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About Tenviz: Tenviz delivers data-driven solutions using traditional statistical and machine learning tools to solve complex problems.
Liliana Reasor
CEO, Founder of SupraFin
Liliana is the founder & CEO of SupraFin. SupraFin provides an intelligent app with institutional-like investment algorithms that assess the relative value of hundreds of cryptocurrencies and recommend the most appropriate as part of a diversified portfolio based on the client’s risk profile preferences.
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About SupraFin:
The SupraFin app offers many benefits:
- Simplicity: create a diversified portfolio of cryptocurrencies at the click of a button.
- Smart: create and manage a diversified portfolio of cryptocurrencies by leveraging risk models in the background.
- Safe: store your cryptocurrencies securely.
- Exclusive cryptocurrency reports: access exclusive crypto investment reports on each cryptocurrency on your portfolio.
Leanne Kemp
Founder & CEO of Everledger
Leanne Kemp is the Founder & CEO of Everledger, a leading emerging technology enterprise that tracks the provenance of high-value assets on a global digital ledger in an authenticated immutable manner. Using her extensive background in emerging technology, business, jewellery and insurance, Leanne is pushing boundaries with Everledger in building a global verification system that asserts transparency along the entire supply chain process. This enables the tracking and protection of high-value assets, consequently mitigating risk and fraud in global marketplaces. Her leadership role in technology has been recognised, winning awards including Innovator of the Year 2018 at the Women in IT Awards (London) as well as being named in UK Business Insider’s 26 Coolest Women in UK Tech 2016 and Brummell Magazine’s Top 30 Female Innovators 2016 in Brummell Magazine. She has also been named an IBM Champion for 2018. Leanne is an appointed member of the World Economic Forum’s Blockchain Council and a Co-Chair for the World Trade Board’s Sustainable Trade Action Group. She is also on the IBM Blockchain Platform Board of Advisors.
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About Everledger: Everledger provides an immutable ledger for diamond and other asset ownership and related supply chain history.
Ashutosh Natraj
CEO & CoFounder of Vidrona
Oxford University Researcher turned entrepreneur with 9 years of experience in academia and industry across the world such as IBM Research. Ash holds a PhD in Robotics and Computer Vision for UAVs(Distinction), Erasmus Mundus (ViBOT) scholar with 3 Masters in Robotics and Computer Vision.
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About Vidrona, Vine Rangers: Vidrona is a British AI Based Predictive Prescriptive Analytics Company for the Utilities. It helps utilities to increase RoI.
Raj Verma
CEO & Co-founder of Opinsta
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About Opinsta: Opinsta is a single platform to manage defect reporting (QA), health and safety checks, Inspections, 3rd party maintenance and more.
Sumir Karayi
CEO of 1E
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About 1E: 1E provides fully scalable Windows servicing solutions that can handle both routine IT tasks and emergency actions in real time.
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.
Tim Matthews
Chief Executive Officer of Blue Marble Asset Management
Tim is a chartered surveyor with over 30 years’ experience throughout which time he has been primarily based in the midlands region. His experience extends across a number of disciplines having held senior management roles within private practice as well as development and property investment companies. Tim initially established Blue Marble Asset Management which began operating in 2011 and has grown the business to offer its investment and asset management services to a broad range of clients including private offices, family trusts and high net worth individuals and for which he is able to employ his diverse range of skills to ensure the maximisation of income and capital growth for their property portfolios.
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About Blue Marble Asset Management: Blue Marble Asset Management is a real estate investment firm.
