What do you do?

I look after all things ‘Tech’ at Cooper Parry.  I make sure that we have the right systems, infrastructure and support in place to enable our teams to do their best work, anywhere, any time – with the right insights available at their fingertips. 

Why do you do it?

Because tech is my language, literally.  From primary school; where I was regularly called out of class to fix the shared BBC Acorn computer (identifying at an early age that ‘switching it off and on again’ would resolve most issues); to programming on-the-fly as an 18-year-old software developer working at Standard Life on a gap year deciding that Uni would hold me back.  I learnt just what a few 1’s & 0’s could lead to if applied with creativity & expertise and have never looked back.

What kind of projects have you been involved in?

Having chosen the shop floor rather than the University campus, my early career involved multiple installations of complex systems at client sites including Goldman Sachs, EY, Unilever, the IoD, the House of Lords & numerous others.  Then, following a brief stint with the UKs first internet bank, Egg, I joined PE backed Gala Group to support their integration of Coral Bookmakers and Eurobet, creating (at the time) the largest privately held company in the UK. 

I later joined Capita, where I would discover my ultimate career passion, M&A.  The deals came thick & fast, approx one per month, and gave me the platform to develop and showcase what would become my super-powers; combining commercial & legal acumen with a deep technical understanding and strategic vision.  I loved the pace, unpredictability & challenge of bringing teams, cultures & systems together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.  Dozens of integrations and carve-outs later, I still get a huge buzz from supporting deals and everything that goes with it – whether that is being deposed by lawyers acting for the US Federal Trade Commission as part of Steris’s acquisition of Synergy Health, or helping to navigate a distressed manufacturing business through its covid lockdown acquisition.  It’s been a wild ride so far and long may it continue

What’s on top of your bucket list?

To doppelgänger Dave Grohl on the electric guitar; to deliver my three kids fully tooled up for adult life; to be the best veteran snowboarder (preferring ‘veteran’ to ‘old’) and to buy my wife an Ibiza villa situated somewhere prime between San An and Ibiza Old Town.