22 Mike Taylor Jonathan Davies
Year of Birth: 1974
Business: Innovise – Fast-growing award-winning IT company with two separately managed divisions: Innovise ESM (driving business outcomes in enterprise service management) and Innovise Software & Solutions (the UK’s leading specialist for the facilities management industry)
Business Location: Slough
Turnover and year: £18.5 million, year end September 2013
Description: Taylor has used his City-learned corporate finance knowledge and skills to entrepreneurial advantage to build an impressive IT business
Commentary: Innovise is the resultant corporate combination of businesses acquired, one at least almost every year, since 2002. The underlying businesses were started in previous decades and operated independently prior to consolidation into the company. In February 2006 the group (previously Contemporary Enterprises plc) adopted Innovise plc as its name and started to use Innovise within the title of its main trading businesses. Innovise plc converted to Innovise Limited in 2014.
Business THE M A GA ZINE TM
After gaining an MA Hons in Economics from Cambridge University, Taylor’s professional career started in the City where he was a research analyst, rising to director level and heading the media research team at Credit Suisse First Boston. Ranked highly within professional circles Taylor was involved in a number of high-profile capital raising exercises for companies such as BSkyB, Granada Media and Thomson Corporation. He left the City in 2003 to focus on private investments.
Taylor founded what was to become the Innovise group as a private company in 2003, floated on AiM through a reverse takeover of Contemporary Enterprises plc in early 2006. He has led Innovise acquisition growth strategy to date.
Innovise operates globally from offices in Slough (head office), the Midlands, Southampton and South Africa.
A Microsoft gold partner also accredited with Investors In People gold standard, Innovise was18th in the 2011 Times Tech Track Top 100, ranked among the UK 2012 Deloitte Technology Fast50, and EMEA winner in the 2012 Deloitte Technology Fast500. In 2012, Innovise IES (part of Innovise Software & Solutions) was named as a Gartner ’Cool Vendor’ for its Cortex Intelligent Automation technology advancement.
Company Values: Innovation, excellence, collaboration, integrity, performance
Quote: “I run a fast-growing IT company. Our focus is on delivering profitable growth through a combination of organic and acquisitive channels.“
www.businessmag.co.uk Year of Birth: 1974
Business: The Training Room – full-service careers provider, established in 2006, specialising in high-quality professional training across a range of industries
Business Location: Poole, Dorset head office. 21 training academies across the UK
Turnover and year: £9.8 million, year end December 2013
Description: Educated at Loughborough University, Davies spent four years with easyJet at Luton Airport before founding The Training Room, which he led until October 2014, when former COO Andrew Powell was appointed CEO. Davies now has a non-executive director role focused on strategic development, new partnerships and business expansion
Commentary: Davies started his career working as business operations manager for Stelios Haji-Ioannou, one of the ultimate entrepreneurs, back when easyJet only had seven planes. When easyJet floated Davies left and, aged 29, invested money from his shares into a gym, which highlighted the business opportunity for qualified personal trainers.
The Training Room began as a careers provider within the fitness industry, offering fully accredited courses to those looking to start a new career as a personal trainer. In its first seven years, the company grew substantially, becoming the UK’s biggest provider of personal trainer qualifications.
To keep overheads lean and maintain flexibility within the business, Davies initially adopted the easyJet model and outsourced all that he could.
Student numbers doubled and tripled as The Training Room developed a reputation for creating ’industry-ready’ professionals, equipped with the skills necessary to forge a successful career.
The Training Room’s innovative yet scalable training and support model is now being applied to a number of new industries, including beauty and catering, with the aim of training 10,000 students by 2016.
At the close of 2013 a multi-million pound investment from private equity house LDC helped The Training Room to accelerate company growth – and to win the 2014 Solent Deal Awards Management Team and Deal of the Year awards.
Later, in November, The Training Room was the Business Growth Award winner at the Dorset Business Awards.
Quote: “You couldn’t work at easyJet at that time and not think about setting up your own business. That was all any of us talked about.“
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH CENTRAL – FEBRUARY 2015
SOUTH
E
RN NTREPRENEURS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44