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 Founder operating in the Leisure space. If you think a Founder 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.
Michelle Kennedy
Co-Founder & CEO of Peanut
Michelle joined Badoo originally as lead counsel over 4 years ago. Prior to joining Badoo she was a successful corporate lawyer at leading international law firm, Mishcon de Reya, before being poached by the firm’s successful biotech client, Quotient Bioscience to head up their legal team. During her time at Badoo, she built the legal, compliance, HR and talent teams before moving into a more operationally focused role, including a position on the board. Today, Michelle is responsible for most key areas of the business, and works closely with founder and CEO Andrey Andreev, on the existing product, and exciting ‘special projects’ coming soon….
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About Peanut: Peanut is an online platform that provides a safe space for women to connect across fertility and motherhood.
Rami Zeidan
Co-Founder & CEO of Life House
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About Life House: Life House is a vertically integrated hotel software and management platform on the mission to make hotels operationally autonomous.
Stefan Hobl
CFO & Co-Founder of Butter.co.uk
Stefan Hobl joined Butter.co.uk as CFO & Co-Founder in 2017.
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About Butter.co.uk: Butter lets you spread the cost of shopping from any online store with a simple monthly instalment plan. Download the app now!
Nick Varney
Chief Executive Officer & Founder of Merlin Entertainments
Nick has over 24 years’ experience in the visitor attractions industry and was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Merlin Entertainments in 1999. He was appointed a Director of the Company on 20 October 2013. Nick started his career in fmcg marketing, first with Rowntree and then with Reckitt Colman. He went on to hold senior positions within The Tussauds Group (Pearson PLC), including Marketing Director of Alton Towers and Head of Group Marketing, before becoming Managing Director of Vardon Attractions and a main board director of Vardon plc. In 1999 Nick led the management buyout of Vardon Attractions to form Merlin Entertainments and, in 2005, initiated the process which led to its acquisition by Blackstone.
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About Merlin Entertainments: Merlin Entertainments is the largest European entertainments company operating in Europe.
Tom Valentine
Marketplaces CEO & Co-Founder of Secret Escapes
Secret Escapes has seen explosive growth since its formation in 2010, with turnover forecast to hit £100m in 2014. Tom Valentine, alongside his co-founder and CEO Alex Saint, has catapulted Secret Escapes into a well-known and respected brand in the UK, with a 60% net promoter score and 95% post-stay satisfaction. Much of the company’s success is down to a robust digital and TV acquisition framework, built and managed by Tom, which has allowed the company to confidently spend over £10m annually at a consistent, predictable and positive ROI. This has led to a profitable UK business and huge confidence in international expansion. Tom has scaled the team from less than 30 to over 100 across the UK, Germany, Sweden, Poland and the USA and recently secured GBP39m from Google’s venture arm to fuel global expansion plans.
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About Secret Escapes, Smart Pension: Secret Escapes is a members-only travel club offering discounted rates on luxury hotels and holidays in the UK.
Ben Simpson
Founder & CEO of Easol
Ben Simpson is the Founder & CEO at Easol
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About Easol: The all-in-one platform to manage your experience business, on your terms.
Lisa Simpson
Founder & Chief Creative Officer of Easol
Lisa Simpson is the Founder & Chief Creative Officer at Easol
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About Easol: The all-in-one platform to manage your experience business, on your terms.
Anna Lowe
Director of Partnerships & Co-Founder of SMARTIFY
Anna is CoFounder and Director of Partnerships at Smartify a global platform for art described by the New Scientist as “the Shazam and Spotify of art”. A firm believer that culture needs stewardship not disruption, Anna works closely with museums to embrace new technologies that support their growth and resilience. Anna is a Trustee of Tate, the youngest ever trustee of a national museum. Anna also sits on the UK5G Creative Industries working group and is an Industry Champion for the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC).
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About SMARTIFY, Tate: SMARTIFY provides instant access to inspiring art commentary, straight to your smartphone.
Anthony Collias
Co-Founder & CCO of Stasher
Anthony oversees business development and marketing at Stasher. Before co-founding Stasher, Anthony studied PPE at Oxford University and worked as a PPC specialist at Brainlabs. His interests include eating and complaining about being hungry…. Always.
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About Stasher, Treepoints: Stasher is the world’s first luggage storage network.
Jacob Wedderburn-Day
Co-Founder & CEO of Stasher
Entrepreneur, co-founder & CEO of Stasher.com. Studied at Oxford & UCL. Passionate about startups, economics, the sharing economy, game theory and football.
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About Stasher, Treepoints: Stasher is the world’s first luggage storage network.
Daniel Spinath
Founder & Managing Director of Crepeaffaire
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About Crepeaffaire, Entertainment Ventures Group International, Frizzenti, Liberation Cocktails, Tap: Crêpeaffaire offers freshly prepared crêpes, waffles, coffees and smoothies.
Richard Downs
Founder and chief executive officer of Iglu Cruise
As Founder and CEO of Iglu.com Richard paved the way for Iglu to become the largest independent agent of ski and cruise holidays in the UK. Spearheading the company since 1998, Richard continues to motivate and inspire the growing and passionate teams behind Iglu’s UK and international presence.
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About Iglu Cruise: Iglu Cruise is an internet-based travel agency specializing in the sale of snowboarding and ski holidays, cruises and Christmas holidays.
Benjamin Todd
CEO, Co Founder & Executive Director of 80,000 Hours
In under three years with Ben’s leadership, 80,000 Hours has grown from a student society, to an Oxford affiliated charity, featured on TED, the Washington Post, the BBC Today Programme and more. Ben has a 1st from Oxford in Physics and Philosophy, has published in Climate Physics and speaks Chinese. Before 80,000 Hours, he was the first undergraduate to intern as an analyst at a top investment fund. Rather than taking the job, he persuaded the Chairman to donate £60,000 to 80,000 Hours.
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About 80,000 Hours: 80,000 Hours is an evidence-based advice on careers that make a difference.
Silvano Geranio
Founder Director of Prestige
Silvano Geranio joined Prestige Homeseeker Park & Leisure Homes as Founder Director in 2007.
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About Prestige: Prestige is a UK-based manufacturers of high quality park homes and lodges for the residential and leisure market.
Samuel Rason
Co-Founder and CEO of Viva City
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About Viva City: Viva City offers guest experience, discovery, and analytics software to help businesses thrive with the Chinese Inbound market.
Andrew Dent
Founder of Family Traveller
Andrew Dent is the Founder at Family Traveller
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About Family Traveller: Family Traveller is a multi-platform brand operating across familytraveller.com, social media and email.
Paul Martin
Co-Founder & Sales Manager of Abellio
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About Abellio: Abellio delivers rail and bus services to passengers in Scotland, England, and Germany.
Gabriella Csányi
Co-Founder of Like Locals
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About Like Locals: Like Locals is a travel media startup on a mission to inspire and empower curious explorers to uncover each city’s unique culture.
Constantinos Los
Co-Founder of Like Locals
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About Like Locals: Like Locals is a travel media startup on a mission to inspire and empower curious explorers to uncover each city’s unique culture.
Ijaz Khan
Co-Founder of Like Locals
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About Like Locals: Like Locals is a travel media startup on a mission to inspire and empower curious explorers to uncover each city’s unique culture.
Clare Julie McKeeve
Founder & CEO of Luxcite Limited
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About Eaton Gate Capital Partners, Luxcite Limited, TLNT Holdings SA: Investor – Luxury and Premium Brands
Raphael Zier
Co Founder and Executive Chairman of PerfectStay
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About PerfectStay: PerfectStay is a Paris-based B2B tour operator that offers a tailor-made travel sales offer for major brands.
Marco Scotti
Founder of Dynamo
Deeply passionated entrepreneurial spirit. At very young age, going trough international studies which were completed with a Master in Entrepreneurship in London. Foundation of two start-ups in Silicon Valley, autonomously gathering investors, partners and support from world-leading companies and personalities.
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About Dynamo, Dynamo Group LLC, TechItalia:Lab: Dynamo allows sharing Luxury Experiences (eg. Villas, Yachts, VIP Tables); thanks to its experience providers network in 20 cities worldwide
Graeme Risby
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Hiyacar
Graeme Risby is Co-Founder and CEO of HiyaCar. Simply put, HiyaCar is the Airbnb for motor cars with all the insurance barriers overcome, matching car hirers with car owners and changing the way we use cars forever. Graeme is a social entrepreneur who believes strongly in using technology and peer-to-peer networks to improve people’s lives, make new friends and bring communities together.
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About Hiyacar: Hiyacar is a UK peer to peer car sharing platform.
Rob Larmour
COO & Co-Founder of Hiyacar
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About Hiyacar: Hiyacar is a UK peer to peer car sharing platform.
Léa Bourratière
Co-Founder & CMO of Live2Leave
Building brands, generating impactful content and breakthrough communications, that is what I am known for, and passionate about!
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About Live2Leave: Live2Leave is a travel app where you can record your favorite spots & get recommendations from people you know.
Kiki MacDonald
Co-Founder of Euan’s Guide
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About Euan’s Guide: Euan’s Guide: Disabled Access Reviews by disabled people for disabled people
Euan MacDonald
Co-Founder of Euan’s Guide
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About Euan’s Guide: Euan’s Guide: Disabled Access Reviews by disabled people for disabled people
Adrian Wong
Founder & CEO of MOXI AI
Founder & CEO at MOXI AI, the personal butler for your social life. Building the future of socialising by being the fastest and easiest way to plan a group activity that everyone wants, and make it happen. Multi-disciplinary leader having led UX, creative, agile IT & business relationship management teams, cross-industry for tech start-ups, digital agencies & major corporates. 20 years building products, brands and experiences. Launched a global online gaming product in a saturated market securing one million users in 15 months. Hands on expertise in UX/UI Design, Marketing & Branding.
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About MOXI AI, Venture Agenda: MOXI is an AI butler for your social life. The fastest way to achieve group consensus.
Nishul Saperia
CEO and Founder of Beachfix
Co-Founder of $5bn financial services firm Markit, launching multiple products across London and New York. Currently launching www.beachfix.co.
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About Beachfix: BeachFix helps you find and plan your next beach holiday.
Perry Chan
Co-Founder of PermaGO
Co-founder & CEO at PermaGO
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About PermaGO: The 21st Century Travel Experience
Nick Smith
Co-Founder of Alpkit
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About Alpkit: A Nottingham, UK-based outdoor clothing and equipment retailer.
Colin Stocker
Co-Founder of Alpkit
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About Alpkit: A Nottingham, UK-based outdoor clothing and equipment retailer.
Timothy O’Neil-Dunne
Co-Founder of Air Black Box
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About Air Black Box: Air Black Box The world’s first dedicated multi-carrier booking system.
Nishal Desai
Founder of Imin
Founder at imin
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About Imin, London Sport: Imin is a technology firm that makes physical activity searchable & bookable by using open data in the health and fitness sector.
Dominic Fennell
Founder of Imin
Founder at imin
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About Imin: Imin is a technology firm that makes physical activity searchable & bookable by using open data in the health and fitness sector.
Dominic Mills
Co-Founder & CEO of Yuup
After starting his career as a consultant with global system integrator Unisys, Dominic founded Auros, a digital agency specialising in tech build, in 2001. Auros built a reputation for delivering large-scale, technically complex digital projects for clients such as the NHS, Swinton Insurance and Virgin Media. Auros was acquired by Zone in 2013 with Dominic joining the Zone board. As CTO he played a key role in the team that led the combined business through a period of significant growth, following a minority investment from BGF in 2015 to fund further acquisition. Zone was acquired by NASDAQ listed Cognizant in 2017 and Dominic stayed with the business until September 2019 to oversee the transition. He was a non-exec director of community interest company Bristol Media from 2017 to 2020. In January 2020 Dominic conceived and co-founded Yuup – a startup inspired by his vision of what experiences could be and driven by a desire to help local people and enterprises identify new opportunities to thrive.
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About Yuup: Online marketplace for local experiences
Jose Pablo Julia
Co-Founder of Kymboo
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About Kymboo: Kymboo is a booking social system for professionals and owners to promote other establishments, hotels, and apartments.
Gareth Thomas
Co-Founder & Shareholder of Reserve Apartments
Building online comunities and useful, appealing and generally really cool websites is what Gareth does. Now sprinkling this magic in the short term let sector.
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About Reserve Apartments: Reserve Apartments provides web-based solutions for the short term letting/self catering market.
Gareth Thomas
Co-Founder & Shareholder of Reserve Apartments
Building online comunities and useful, appealing and generally really cool websites is what Gareth does. Now sprinkling this magic in the short term let sector.
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About Reserve Apartments: Reserve Apartments provides web-based solutions for the short term letting/self catering market.
Chris Lait
Founder of Sailchecker Ltd.
Founder at SailChecker
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About Sailchecker Ltd.: Travel Tech • The original global yacht charter booking platform & community
Chris Clarkson
Founder of sunshine.co.uk
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About sunshine.co.uk: Sunshine.co.uk is a hospitality company that helps its clients book and reserve inexpensive holidays.
Erik Biorklund
Founder of Day 8
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About Day 8: We are a unique experience provider within travel, culture and leisure.
Ingmar Adlerberg
Co-Founder of Bali Luxury Villas
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About Bali Luxury Villas: Bali Luxury Villas group of companies includes a fully licensed villa management company and a villa rental company.
Thomas Ableman
Founder & CEO of Snap
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About Freewheeling, Snap: Snap is a technology marketplace that aggregates and fulfils travel demand
James Mannings
Co-Founder & CEO of The Top Villas
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About The Top Villas: The Top Villas is a firm providing rental services for luxury vacation properties.
Tom Mannings
Co-Founder of The Top Villas
Tom Mannings is a Co-Founder at The Top Villas.
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About The Top Villas: The Top Villas is a firm providing rental services for luxury vacation properties.
Rich Turnbull
Co-Founder & CTO of HotelFlex
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About HotelFlex: An award winning, VC backed hospitality tech startup, transforming the way hotels manage and sell their inventory
John Walker
Founder of gloudio
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About gloudio: gloudio offers an application that enables its users to access audio clips of travel guides.
Paul Andrews
Director & Founder of School Lettings Solutions
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About School Lettings Solutions: A comprehensive management solution
Ali Clabburn
Founder and CEO of Liftshare.com
Ali Clabburn is Founder & Managing Director at Liftshare.com
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About Liftshare.com: Liftshare.com is a car sharing system provider in the UK.
Henric Larsson
Co-Founder and CTO of Dashl
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About Dashl: A digital hair and beauty booking platform.
Jamie Reece
Founder and CEO of Booking Spaces
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About Booking Spaces: Booking Spaces Disruptive venue booking platform, connecting those looking for spaces with the spaces available for hire.
Matti Fruhman
Co Founder & CEO of Azooki
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About Azooki, Unbound Global: Azooki helps you book & discover amazing things to do in South East Asia’s most enchanting destinations
Gregory Geny
Co-Founder & CEO of BeRightBack
Gregory is the Founder & CEO of BeRightBack, the world’s first travel subscription service billed as the ‘Netflix for Travel’ by The Telegraph. BRB is an early stage travel start up whose mission is to remove all the hassle for travellers by delivering 3 surprise trips per year to Europe, with flights and hotel included, for a fixed monthly cost. The company was voted by Skift as one of the ‘Top 25 Startups to Watch in 2019’, was featured on the CNBC documentary ‘The Edge’ about the ‘Future of Travel’ and made it to the final of the PITCH competition at Web Summit in 2019. Originally from France, Greg has spent the last 17 years building and growing start-ups in a range of dynamic industries including Sports & Fitness, Media / Publishing, Music Publishing, Financial Services, Fintech, Education and has spent over 10 years in Travel tech.
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About BeRightBack: The world’s first fixed price travel subscription service.
Sarah Stanley
Founder and Director of Unique Home Stays
Sarah Stanley is the Founder and Director of Unique Home Stays.
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About Unique Home Stays: Unique Home Stays is a leisure company that develops and innovates a unique portfolio of luxury private homestays.
Peter Ward
Co-Founder & MD of WeTrack
After completing an MSc in Biology from Oxford University and turning his back on a life in academia, Peter started his professional career at a $25 billion international mutual fund based in Bermuda. Here, as well as becoming a level 1 chartered financial analyst, he learnt to design and project-manage custom built software for the finance world. Quickly he saw that, regardless of the systems functionality, the end user must always be at the heart of the system if it is to reach its full potential. After 2 years in Bermuda and London, Peter left the finance world to learn Spanish and travel around South America. Peter was involved at The London 2012 Games where he was responsible for tracking ~4000 objectives and tasks across all the departments of the Organising Committee (LOCOG) to ensure London would be ready to host the games. It was in this role that he fused the software development skills of the finance world with the complex project management requirements of the event industry to create WeTrack. Peter has directorships at CSPW Consulting and YouSoft. In his spare time he enjoys golf, cricket, solving the cryptic crossword and was a member of the British Wakeboard Team for a number of years.
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About WeTrack: WeTrack provides event delivery software for major events, federations, venues and governing bodies
Chris Green
Co-Founder of Young Foodies
Chris Green is the co-founder at Young Foodies.
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About Young Foodies: Young Foodies provides a community and specialist services for the most exciting food and drink challenger brands
Thomas Cleverdon
Co-Founder of Plantribe.io
Entrepreneur and founder of over a dozen companies in both Tech, Entertainment and Automotive sectors. A galvanized optimist, inspiring team player with a can-do attitude and unrelenting perseverance – Enjoying life & making it count! Recent projects include a portfolio of 14 high profit e-commerce ventures across 8 major international markets. Stoked to be gearing up for the launch of an MVP peer-to-peer marketplace project.
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About Plantribe.io: Plantribe.io is the online community for houseplans. Launching 2017
Tom King
Founder of Velruso
Chartered Accountant (ICAS), starting his career in the Banking & Capital Market Division at EY, now working for Rapha Racing Limited as a FP&A Analyst.
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About Velruso: Workout. Be rewarded.
Edwin Bailey
Founder of Tasting365
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About EJB Consulting, Tasting365: Peer-to-peer marketplace for food and drink experiences
Gordon Hamilton
Founder & CEO of Torszo
Gordon Hamilton developed the concept for the Torsorest, or mini flight bed He was inspired, firstly, by years of observing international travelers struggle during the one part of their journey when they should have reasonably expected to sleep (…in the seated and passive part of their journey). And, finally, by the personal focus that one 24 hour coach journey to ski in the Italian Dolomites can bring. In 2012 Gordon completed the acquisition of the global IP for the Torsorest, setting the scene for the introduction of a standalone version of the product to the market. This will be the first step towards the longer term objective of integrating the torsorest into the multi-billion dollar hand-luggage market. Previously, Gordon has enjoyed a successful 22 year international career spanning shipping & logistics in the UK, Canada and USA. He was deputy MD and Chief Accountant within the P&O group, and held a variety of senior management roles with Canadian Pacific, leading the implementation and global role out of a number of groundbreaking projects. Gordon’s educational background is in Pure Maths, Natural Philosophy and Accountancy at Glasgow University and Caledonia University.
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About Torszo: Torszo designs, develops, and commercializes the Torsorest mini flight bed.
Eugene Shestopal
CEO and Co-Founder of Poptop Entertainment Booking Platform
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About Poptop Entertainment Booking Platform: Poptop helps event planners find and book entertainment professionals quickly, easily and safely.
Ignat Thorovsky
CTO and Co-Founder of Poptop Entertainment Booking Platform
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About Poptop Entertainment Booking Platform: Poptop helps event planners find and book entertainment professionals quickly, easily and safely.
Cristobal Matte
Co-Founder of Airkeep
Business Administrator and Strategic Innovation Manager. Fan of design and digital audiovisual production, as well as an amateur developer. I’m motivated by digital business with the capacity to create and return value to the community and environment. Key features: Strategy and digital marketing, metrics (G-Analytics), social media, gamification and UX.
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About Airkeep: Airkeep is an online community marketplace where people can find places to store their luggage during trips, available in LatAm & Caribbean
Gareth Thomas
Founder of Turtle Rabbit Travel
Founder at Turtle Rabbit Travel
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About Turtle Rabbit Travel: Turtle Rabbit brings you a totally new way to experience the U.S.A. Grab your mates and join our RV fleet, exploring the best of America.
Hassan Awan
Founder of bnbBoat
Founder of bnbBoat.
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About Appointmente, bnbBoat: Explore and find cruises where you can celebrate Christmas, Easter, Eid or Diwali.
John Robert Mizutani
Co-Founder of Limitless Travel
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About Limitless Travel: Limitless Travel provides holidays, tours, accommodation, and travel for people living with disability.
Angus Drummond
Co-Founder and CEO of Limitless Travel
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About Limitless Travel: Limitless Travel provides holidays, tours, accommodation, and travel for people living with disability.
Angus Drummond
Co-Founder and CEO of Limitless Travel
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About Limitless Travel: Limitless Travel provides holidays, tours, accommodation, and travel for people living with disability.
Alberto Comino
Co-Founder of DropBy
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About DropBy: DropBy any cities and places across the world – sharing and uncovering – every single day!
Alberto Comino
Co-Founder of DropBy
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About DropBy: DropBy any cities and places across the world – sharing and uncovering – every single day!
Paul Morrice
Founder of Archispek
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About Archispek: Uber for kitchen designers
Paul Morrice
Founder of Archispek
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About Archispek: Uber for kitchen designers
Yan Zhang
Founder & Managing Director of Glamorous Travel
Yan Zhang is a Founder & Managing Director at Glamorous Travel.
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About Glamorous Travel: Glamorous Travel is a U.K.-based tour operator that provides special interest tour packages and programs for Chinese nationals.
Yan Zhang
Founder & Managing Director of Glamorous Travel
Yan Zhang is a Founder & Managing Director at Glamorous Travel.
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About Glamorous Travel: Glamorous Travel is a U.K.-based tour operator that provides special interest tour packages and programs for Chinese nationals.
