Chairman appointments at venture capital-backed organisations

Non-Executive Chairman, Kokoon.

Kokoon Technology is a UK crowd and incubator backed venture which is developing the world’s first sleep sensing headphones.

Following an introduction by its incubator, Breed Reply, Spectrum was retained by Kokoon’s CEO & Co-Founder, Tim Anthos, to search for a Non-Executive Chairman.

The role of the appointee would be to provide strategic advice, guidance, and challenge to the founding team as it navigates through the key stages of successfully launching a consumer technology product to the global market.

Read the full case study.

Executive Chairman, SwitchMyBusiness.com

Beringea, the trans-Atlantic venture capital firm, has invested in Utility Exchange Online Limited – trading as Switch My Business. Switch My Business enables UK SOHOs and SMEs to minimise their energy spend. The same service is also offered for insurance as a secondary offering.

Beringea retained Spectrum to appoint an Executive Chairman to lead the board at SwitchMyBusiness with responsibility for delivering the business plan.  The brief was to search for an exceptional, entrepreneurial executive with the skills and experience to move the business to profitability, culminating in a successful trade sale within three years.

Non-Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, Sky-Futures

Sky Futures is a UK-headquartered organisation that broadly operates in the much talked about ‘drones’ or ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’ (UAV) space.

In tandem with an ‘A’ round of corporate financing led by Ardent Advisors – which saw MMC Ventures and the Airware Commercial Drone Fund invest over $4m in Sky Futures – Spectrum conducted searches to appoint a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) pre-fundraising and a Non-Executive Chairman immediately post-fundraising.

Read the full case study.

Non-Executive Chairman, allbeauty.com

IEB Trading is the Guernsey-headquartered online retailer that operates allbeauty.com, a fast-growth health and beauty product website that occupies a UK top 4 market position alongside Boots, Superdrug and Feel Unique.

Allbeauty.com’s consumer proposition based on value, range and convenience has enabled it to grow successfully – without institutional funding – from start-up to in excess of £40m revenue in the space of a few years.

Spectrum worked with IEB’s founder & CEO, and it’s Operations Director, resulting in the successful appointment of an independent Non-Executive Chairman to the Board.

Read the full case study.

Chairman and executive management team, Viacloud

Spectrum was retained by Stratum, an international Bahrain-headquartered private equity firm, to initially recruit a Chief Executive Officer for Viacloud UK Limited, a London-headquartered mobile service provider with Mobile Virtual Network Enabler and Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator solutions that enable Mobile Virtual Network Operators and leading brands to launch consumer propositions.

Alongside the recruitment of the executive management team, Stratum attached considerable importance to the constituents of Viacloud’s board, and Spectrum also conducted a search for a Non-Executive Chairman, which resulted in the recruitment of Tom Alexander, the former Chief Executive at Everything Everywhere, and founder and CEO of the world’s first MVNO, Virgin Mobile.

Read the full case study.

Vice Chairman, mySupermarket

This was one of two Chairman searches conducted on behalf of Laurel Bowden, a Partner at tier one venture capital investor, Greylock Partners, the backers of Facebook and LinkedIn, amongst others.

mySupermarket is an independent service that allows consumers to compare prices and shop online from the main grocery and health and beauty retailers in the UK.

Non-Executive Chairman, Camitri Technologies

Camitri Technologies is an intellectual property licensing company focussed on the communications sector.

It licenses IP from a collection of universities with specialist expertise within the communications sector, before in turn licensing that IP directly to industry customers, either for a royalty share or a license fee.

Having been engaged by the Human Capital Director at parent company Imprimatur Capital, Spectrum began a search for experienced technology commercialisation executives – a search that took us beyond the shores of the UK.

The selected candidate was appointed with 10 weeks of Spectrum commencing the search assignment. Based in Stockholm, the appointed candidate had been President, Technology Licensing, at Ericsson, for whom she had worked for the previous 13 years, spending much of her time transitioning the business for which she was responsible, from a pure R&D focus to customer sales and product delivery.

Executive Chairman, SwapitShop

This was one of two Chairman searches conducted on behalf of Laurel Bowden, a Partner at tier one venture capital investor, Greylock Partners, the backers of Facebook and LinkedIn, amongst others.

SwapitShop is the leading UK online swapping and trading community for young people. Members earn virtual currency, Swapits, for every item they swap and they can also earn Swapits from responsible brands and organisations.  There is no contact between members.