Management team
Alastair Mitchell, Co-founder and CEO
Since graduating with MSc in Naval Engineering from Southampton University, where he learnt how to build boats and submarines, Alastair has spent the last 10 years in the online services industry.
During early years, he helped to build the first online market place for the global food commodities market, which provided marketing, auction and logistics capabilities to companies across Europe, Africa & the Far East. There he also became a professionally trained tea taster. Alastair then moved to dunnhumby, where he led the growth of its web-based marketing intelligence product to £20m in three years. Alastair joined dunnhumby’s Strategic Management Board in 2005 to head up the group’s Shopping Experience practice, a $60m+ business globally.
Alastair’s grandfather was the inspiration behind starting his own dot-com, Huddle.net. To celebrate this, Huddle’s holding company is named after one of grandfather’s inventions – Ninian, the biggest ever concrete platform ever built.
When not running the company, Alastair enjoys skiing, snowboarding, hiking, diving and driving. The latter has become an infrequent affair as Alastair passionately believes in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. You can follow him on Twitter @alimitchell where he tweets once every six months.
Andy McLoughlin, Co-founder and Global VP Business Development
Defying his mother’s advice that ‘the internet will never take off’, Andy began tinkering with the web in the mid-nineties before starting his career at Fibernet Group plc as the company’s European webmaster in 2001.
In 2003 Andy helped found KnowledgeCenter, a knowledge management consultancy focused on the London insurance market. During his time at the company he provided web content and knowledge management consultancy to a number of prominent global clients including QBE, Benfield, Catlin, Arthur J Gallagher and Montpelier Re.
With more than 10 years of industry experience, Andy is an expert in field of online collaboration and is heavily involved in the London start-up community. Andy holds a degree in Economics from the University of Sheffield, but has always regretted not studying something more practical like Computer Science. In his spare time he enjoys fencing and skiing (both rather badly) but excels at sitting in sunny beer gardens discussing films, music and cool stuff he recently saw online. You can follow him on Twitter @bandrew
Charles Blake Thomas, Global VP Sales
A big fan of Glengarry Glen Ross’ ABC, Charles has spent the last 10 years in business development and sales both in technology and FMCG.
Before joining Huddle.net, Charles led Library House’ membership sales efforts and created the account management function to drive retention and growth of their extensive client base. Previously, Charles worked for Mars, developing its business on key lines across specific regions of the UK. It is perplexing how he remained slim, considering the amount of free chocolate he consumed over the years.
At South African Airways, Charles was responsible for establishing the UK corporate sales team and driving its growth, winning business from BA and Virgin and generating extraordinary sales growth, completely at odds with the overall airline market. In 1999, Charles founded a web-based digital photo storage and sharing company that he successfully sold after two years. He spent most of this money on a new motorbike chain.
Charles main hobby is talking about all the new hobbies he’d like to take up but never has the time to do so. He is disastrous at DIY and not allowed near any ladders, glass or cans of tuna. Charles holds a BA (Hons) in European Business from Loughborough University Business School (yes, Loughborough does teach other subjects other than just sport). You can follow him on Twitter @lepapa
Jonathan Howell, Chief Technical Officer
Jonathan Howell has more than ten years’ experience in delivering industry-leading technology solutions in both blue chip and dot.com environments. He has successfully lead large software development projects, process improvement initiatives and enterprise architecture changes, and is a particular advocate of Agile development practices. At Huddle.net is responsible for scaling up application, infrastructure, team and process.
Before joining Huddle.net, Jonathan was Director of Software Development at Travelocity, where he led the convergence of technology systems across numerous acquired companies, and ran online software development at lastminute.com prior to their acquisition by Travelocity. He has also worked as a technical architect in a variety of organizations, from IBM to a failed dot com.
Jonathan holds a Masters degree in Engineering and Computer Science from Oxford University. You can follow him on Twitter @jonathanhowell
Martin Eriksson, Global VP Product
Martin has more than 14 years experience working with the web, having started designing and developing web sites in 1995. Through university he spent more time in the computer lab than the lecture hall and afterwards ignored his business degree and jumped head first into a career online.
Martin started as a freelance designer/developer before combining his business degree, technical skills and focus on the user as a product manager for several start-ups in Stockholm. He moved to London to join Monster.com in 2000 and spent seven years helping build their European presence. Latterly, Martin led the Solutions team, one of the first software as a service offerings, and tripled the product’s turnover in two years.
Before joining Huddle, Martin spent two years at the Financial Times, running their online classifieds business before working with the board on social media strategy.
Martin has a uniquely international background, having been raised in Jakarta, Nairobi, Bangkok, Baghdad and Istanbul before returning to his native Sweden to complete his studies. He still enjoys travelling around the world when given the opportunity and loves all things online, shiny or fast. You can follow him on Twitter @bfgmartin
Zuzanna Pasierbinska-Wilson, Global VP Marketing
A published sociologist, Zuzanna abandoned academia in favor of marketing in 2000. She spent several years at Rainier (currently Speed, a part of Loewy Group) advising more than 50 various B2B companies in networking, software, hardware, electronics and engineering including Virgin Media Business, Texas Instruments, Wind River, Phoenix Systems and NextiraOne.
In 2005, Zuzanna co-founded Custard PR, an agency specializing in digital media and mobile whose clients boasted innovative start-ups and early stage companies such as AdMob, 7Digital and PlusNet as well as top global brands: Disney, Garmin, Nokia and ICQ.
Zuzanna is behind Silicon Stilettos (www.siliconstilettos.com), a meet-up for women in tech, start-ups and social media. She holds MA in Sociology from Jagiellonian University and MSc in Public Relations from University of Stirling. When not in front of her computer, Zuzanna spends time surfing, horse riding, rounding up cattle and dreaming of Huddle’s world domination. You can follow her on Twitter @huddlesuz
Board of Directors
Alastair and Andy are joined by:
Charles Mcgregor, Chairman
Charles co-founded Fibernet in 1986, becoming Chief Executive in 1993. Initially a systems integrator, Charles has overseen the transformation of Fibernet into a leading UK communications business and its eventual sale to Global Crossing in 2006 for over £100m.
Charles graduated in business studies from John Moores University. After a brief period working in the finance sector, Charles settled into telecom sales. Prior to Fibernet, Charles spent six years working in the data communications at Telephone Rentals, Network Technology and Norand Ltd. Charles is Chairman of Gamma Telecom and investment partner in a new venture fund due to be launched later this year.
Ben Tompkins, Non-Executive Director
Ben has 20 years’ experience advising and investing in privately-owned and venture capital-backed business in Europe and North America. Ben spent the first 18 years of his career in corporate finance, advising on over 75 transactions and specializing in the software and digital media sectors.
Ben worked in London and New York before joining Broadview International (now Jefferies Broadview) in 1993. At Broadview, Ben was a Managing Director in the European office, was Co-head of the software, services and media global market group and led the development of the global digital media group. He has advised on transactions involving Yahoo!, IAC, Vivendi, News Corp, Microsoft, Openwave, Lagardere, British Telecom, Cendant, E*trade and Experian.
A lawyer by training with a LLB business law degree and a barrister, Ben joined Eden in September 2006 and brings exceptional fund-raising and exit experience to the team.
Josh Hannah, Non-Executive Director
Josh Hannah is a general partner with Matrix Partners. His entrepreneurial career began in 1999 when he cofounded Flutter.com in London and later led a merger with his biggest competitor, Betfair.com. The combined entity revolutionized the gaming industry by building the world’s first online marketplace for sports betting. Today privately held Betfair manages more than $50 billion in transactions each year, is licensed in the UK and Australia, and operates legally in dozens of countries around the globe.
Josh returned to the States in 2004. Soon after, he and a partner purchased eHow, an ailing, Web 1.0, how-to directory. Josh and his partner outsourced content creation to the community and employed then-new advertising and search engine optimization techniques. They increased revenue and traffic 30-fold before selling the company to Demand Media in 2006 for a 400-X return. Josh has also advised and invested in Aardvark, Blingo (sold to Publisher’s Clearing House), Friendster, Minted.com, Ning, uShip and Wetpaint.
