Chairman Experience

RECENT CHAIRMANSHIP

• Non Executive Chairman and investor in private equity backed COFFEE NATION, the leading self serve gourmet coffee vending company supplying through retail partners such as Tesco, Moto, Sainsbury and Welcome Break across 900 locations - also in universities, hospitals and business and industry.
  
  Milestone Capital backed the secondary management buy-out of Coffee Nation in March 2008 with Investec Growth & Acquisition Finance providing the mezzanine finance. The business almost doubled its installations within 3 years.
  
  I created and led the exit to Costa/Whitbread Plc in March 2011 where the company was sold for £59.5m and which generated a 3.7x return on Milestone’s original investment in under three years.

PREVIOUS CHAIRMAN ROLES

• Executive Chairman of CHOICE CARE HOMES GROUP, a private equity backed (Sovereign Capital) group of 40 care homes employing 750 staff that specialise in the residential care of people with a wide range of learning disabilities and complex needs including epilepsy, sensory impairments, Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. Completed Sept 2008.
  
  
• Non Exec assessment assignment for a leading European distributor of vending machines on behalf of private equity investors Beringea, and provided guidance on next round of investment. Nov/Dec 2007.
  
  
• Executive Chairman of Claims Management Group (CMGL), a 600 person £41m turnover insurance services private equity backed company which managed over 165,000 claims worldwide, representing in excess of $5 billion in gross liabilities and $1.1 billion reinsurance recoverables. The company administered 8 Lloyd's syndicates representing £0.9 billion of open year capacity. The company transacted RITC deals to acquire run-off insurance portfolios. The company was the industry holder of 'Run-Off Provider of the Year' award. This assignment was successfully completed in April 2007 with the turnaround of the company's performance and the sale of the company to Capita PLC for £32m which returned a significant multiple of investment to investors.
  
  
• Non-Executive Chairman of a Lloyd's London Broker which also provides Business Process Outsourcing to the Lloyd's Market and back office support to London Market companies and Lloyd's Managing Agencies. Sold company to Capita plc.
  
  
• Non-Executive Chairman of an insurance company for venture capital investors, Atlas Venture, Frontiers Capital and Shore Capital. (Company turned around and sold August 2003).
  
  
• Non-Executive Chairman of telecoms managed software and services company based in New Zealand and UK for venture capital firm 3i. (Company sold to New Zealand venture capital investor in February 2003)
  
  
• Interim Non Executive Chairman of a 400-person call centre business in Leeds for private equity firm, Aberdeen Murray Johnson. (Company sold April 2002)
  
  
• Non Executive Chairman of 200 person software solutions and consultancy company in Poland – for private equity investors including Advent International. (Completed April 2002)
  
  
• Non Executive Chairman for London based telecoms software company for 3i. (Completed Sept 2001)
  
  
• Vice Chairman, The Federation Against Software Theft - The UK software industry’s anti-piracy policing body represented whose board comprised main board directors of leading software companies such as Microsoft and Lotus.
  
  
• Executive Chairman, European Software Publishing, working with private equity and venture capital firms, Advent International, Atlas Venture and Hambros. (Company sold to USA company in which I remain an investor)