Ric is an executive with leadership experience working with startup companies, making him an invaluable source of advice to new emerging businesses.

His career includes 14 years at IBM UK and Canada, where he held senior positions in International Procurement, Product Development and Marketing.

Ric is the “Entrepreneur in Residence” and investment committee member at Create Ventures, a boutique Venture Capital company based in Cambridge, investing in businesses with high growth potential. He is a mentor and advisor to X- sector early stage companies and is a business angel investor. His background as a software and systems application specialist has been instrumental to his success in setting up a number of businesses, including UK Direct Insurance for AIG Corp, the UK special Insurance facility for Aon Corp, and ASA Insurance.

Paul is a communications software specialist whose career has included development roles at BT Labs where he led the Internet Infrastructure Lab (IIL) and was CTO of a BT spinoff company. He founded Sharedband in August 2003 with the objective of finding new ways of efficiently delivering content across the Internet.

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Paul, a former member of the UK Government’s Parliamentary IT’s Programme Committee (PITCOM), has also provided consultancy to a number of companies and has been an investment manager at a UK leading technology investor.

 

He holds a degree from Aston University and is the author of a number of patents.

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After leaving Warwick University with a degree in Pure Mathematics, Marek qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse prior to joining Candover at the end of 1986.

 

Over the next 25 years, he led over 30 deals with an aggregate value of over £8bn. He has operated in a wide range of sectors including insurance and financial services, energy, leisure, support services and industrials. He retired as Chairman of Candover/Arle Capital partners at the end of 2011.

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Peter has over thirty years of experience in telecommunications holding senior level positions at Industry-leading companies. His most recent position was as CEO of Alcatel UK. A technology innovations leader and manager, Peter ran the laboratories that invented ADSL.

 

He has worked with the pioneering teams involved in Optical Communications, Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) and Broadband, and during his tenure at the world leading ITT Laboratory, STL Technologies, and Alcatel. While at Alcatel, and prior to becoming the CEO and Chairman of Alcatel UK, Peter held the position of Global Director of Marketing and Business Development, and CTO and President – Mobile Communications.

Peter has been a key player with UK Government organizations promoting the rollout of Broadband.

John is a director and investor in a portfolio of growth technology businesses, ranging from internet advertising software to numerical search. He is also a director of FirstCapital, which raises finance for and sells technology companies. He has over 30 years experience in the telecommunications sector as an engineer, marketeer and consultant. In his early career he set the UK Government’s telecommunications strategy, and was director of a successful venture-backed MBO. He gained marketing and sales experience at Mitel, then a fast growth New York-listed telecom company.

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As Strategy Consultant at KPMG, his clients included BT, C&W, Hughes, Oftel, Verizon and Vodafone. At HSBC he was Managing Director and Global Head of Telecom, Media and Technology Corporate Finance, and ran M&A and IPO deals worth over $40bn for clients such as Hutchison, Telenor, NTT DoCoMo, MTNL, OTE, Orange, Esprit Telecom and MSI. He has a starred first degree from Trinity College, Cambridge in Electrical Sciences.

Jon is currently Director of Small Business at TalkTalk and represents TalkTalk on our Board of Directors following the Carphone Warehouse investment in 2008.

 

He has over 20 years’ success developing and operating profitable business growth in the ISP, Telecoms and Managed Services sectors, with experience in start-up and PLC businesses.

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Jon’s career has seen him provide a complimentary mix of strategic management, business development, business restructuring and commercial and operational management expertise, gained whilst successfully building several multi-million lines of profitable business.

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