About The Team
The Silverstone Office
Nick Wright
nick@earlygrowthfund.com
Nick is Fund Manager for the East Midlands Early Growth Fund and is based at the Silverstone Office in Northants. He oversees all aspects of the Fund and sits on the Fund’s Investment Committee. Prior to this, he was Commercial Director of a £6m proof of concept fund that commercialized research at the universities of Stanford (in California) and Edinburgh, where he also founded two technology entrepreneurship courses.
Nick previously established the technology research team at an Oxford-based business publishers and research consultancy, during which time he worked with the founders of chip designer ARM Holdings to identify partnering opportunities and also edited an annual business technology supplement for The Sunday Times. He began his career with Financial Times when he joined and later ran China's first foreign Internet joint venture, reporting to Hong Kong and London. Upon returning to the UK as a private consultant he helped assess the FT Group's Internet strategy in the Far East, before working for a publishing start-up in London and an Internet incubator headquartered in Amsterdam.
Nick is a co-founder of CereProc, the leading speech synthesis company and an advisor to GP Bullhound, the London and California-based technology investment bank. He was also an advisor to Scoopt.com, the leading citizen media company, from initial trading until its acquisition by Getty Images in Feb 2007. Nick has also spent time on the advisory board of UnLtd Ventures, a £100m social entrepreneurship fund financed by the National Lottery.
Nick holds a BSc from the London School of Economics and an Advanced Diploma in Computing from the University of Oxford, and is an authorised person under FSA.
Amy McNeil
Amy@earlygrowthfund.com
Amy is based in the Silverstone office and assists with co-ordination, marketing and event management related to the East Midlands Early Growth Fund.
Amy has nearly ten years experience co-ordinating and planning teams, offices and events, from small groups to International VIP Corporate events. She started her career at Northamptonshire Auctions, organising and planning livestock sales and events, before joining international house wares retailer Bodum. Here, as Project Manager, she helped organise trade shows in Frankfurt, London and the NEC.
In 2003 Amy joined Barclaycard Business in the B2B Marketing Department, specialising in SMEs and ‘start up’ businesses.
Amy holds a BA (Hons) in Art & Design with Media Studies from Plymouth University and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
The Nottingham Office
Robert Cawdron
rob@earlygrowthfund.com
Robert manages the Nottingham office, which opened in July 2008 in response to increasing investment activity by the Fund and a need to provide a more effective service to portfolio companies. Robert is involved in all aspects of the Fund, from initial enquiries through to completion meetings and portfolio management. He also sits on the Fund’s Investment Committee.
Robert joined the Fund after completing his MBA on a scholarship at Nottingham University Business School. Amongst other subjects, he received the top mark of his year in the venture capital module. Prior to this he spent 15 years as a corporate lawyer, most recently as a Partner in regional law firms Actons and Roythornes.
Robert qualified as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court in 1989 and has undertaken a wide range of corporate and commercial work including acquisitions and disposals; managements buy outs/ins; venture capital/private equity; joint ventures and intellectual property rights. His venture capital client list included 3i plc, NatWest Ventures and Charterhouse Development Capital Ltd, as well as a number of UK banks.
Robert began his career with international law firms Osborne Clarke and Eversheds in Bristol, Cardiff and London, before moving back to his roots in the East Midlands in 1995.
Robert holds an MBA from Nottingham University Business School, and an LLB (Hons) from the University of Wales.
The London Office
Dr. John White
j.white@e-synergy.com
John is a director and co-founder of E-Synergy Ltd, and has final signing authority on all investments by East Midlands Early Growth Fund. He also sits on the Fund’s Investment Committee.
After an early career at DERA Malvern and as Technical Manager at Marconi, he was appointed Managing Director of CRL in 1993. He developed the company from a corporate R&D house to a commercial operation with extensive overseas business. John later led an MBO from Thorn EMI, named Scipher plc, at a valuation of £340m, which was successfully floated on the London Stock Market in 2000.
John’s expertise includes electronic devices, commercialisation of intellectual property and the development of high technology companies, and he has spun-out a number of companies in diverse fields ranging from liquid crystal displays, spread spectrum wireless software and VOIP to Bioinformatics.
John is founding director of E-Synergy Ltd, Chairman of OLED-T Ltd and NCIMB Ltd and Director of Seabait Ltd, Microsharp Ltd and Aquapharm Ltd. He is an authorised person under FSA since 2004 and Coordinator of The Emerald Fund.
John holds a degree and PhD in electronics from Southampton University and an MBA from Henley Management College.
Claire Hodson
c.hodson@e-synergy.com
Claire is Compliance Office for E-Synergy and works across several funds, especially E-Synergy’s new Northern Ireland funds. She is an occasional member of the Investment Committee of the East Midlands Early Growth Fund, and a member of the London Emerald Proof of Concept Fund Assessment Panel.
Claire has over 25 years experience leading and developing entrepreneurial enterprises in the creative industries, both as a technology transfer officer and as CEO of a number of media production companies. In the 1980s, she founded two award winning television production companies and established an arts and media centre specialising in incubating start-up and early stage arts and media businesses.
In the 1990s Claire was CEO of a spin-out from University of Birmingham. The company won a variety of awards including the 1997 West Midlands Enterprise Board's Business Idea of the Year and a DTI Foresight award (one of only 12 awarded in 1998). The company’s products were awarded the Millennium Products mark by the Design Council and featured on the BBC’s ‘Tomorrow's World' programme.
From 2000 to 2006, Claire was Managing Director of Middlesex University Innovations, a £6.5m enterprise division with 65 staff and including eight spin-outs and licensing and contract research income in 2005/06 of £3.3m.
Claire is a qualified Company Director, member of the Licensing Executives Society, a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures & Commerce and has participated as panel member in Board of Governors Reviews. She holds an MBA from the University Of Nottingham Business School and an MA. She is also an authorised person under FSA.
Mike Bowman
m.bowman@e-synergy.com
Mike splits his time between the East Midlands Early Growth Fund and managing E-Synergy’s various investment readiness programmes in the UK and Europe. He occasionally sits on the Fund’s Investment Committee.
Mike began his career as a systems engineer with GEC in the telecommunications and defence sector. He then moved into software development with responsibility for numerous large development projects with teams of over 100 programmers, during which time he also managed the introduction of several software development methodology improvements.
Mike then moved onto the sales side of GEC, where he built the company’s software and hardware products business, becoming a major reseller for Sun Microsystems. During his ten years as Sales and Marketing Director for EASAMS he saw sales exceed £100m per annum. When GEC started to transform itself into Marconi, Mike was given responsibility for the overall software strategy of the Group.
In 2002 Mike left Marconi to co-found spin-out company KeCrypt, which pioneered a number of products using advanced biometric techniques applied to signatures for authentication and authorization. As Business Development Director, he helped raise several rounds of investment and established the company’s sales channels.
Mike holds a degree in Electronic Engineering from Hull University.
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