10 SOUTH
E
RN NTREPRENEURS
Shahid Azeem Our quarterley series profiling entrepreneurs
Year of Birth: 1958
Business: Arcom IT – A solutions provider for IT infrastructures established since 1998, which also offers 24/7 operational support Business Location: Head office in Woking, Surrey Turnover and year: £4.2 million
Description: Having already created and sold a multi-million-pound IT company, Shahid Azeem became owner-MD of Arcom IT in 2009. He has an entrepreneurial ’rags-to-riches’ career story, but one in which he has consistently put himself at the heart of his community, assisting, advising and supporting good causes and ethical aims
Business THE M A GA ZINE TM
Commentary: Coming to the UK aged 10 with no English, Azeem’s education faltered. He left school with no formal qualifications, but his positive outlook, entrepreneurial flair and IT abilities led to career advancements, notably with Price Waterhouse and American firm AT&T.
Azeem set up his own firms in the 1980s, the most successful being A&P Computers, which he sold for multi-millions in 2005.
Today, Arcom IT’s business aim – ’to provide IT support so that organisations can grow and flourish’ – would not be far from Azeem’s personal community focus in helping to improve the lives of others.
Apart from Azeem’s extensive Surrey IT-business links and work associations with world-class partners, he is a business mentor and motivational speaker, a deputy lieutenant of Surrey and visiting fellow of Surrey University.
Torsten Reil
Business: NaturalMotion – Computer game developer founded in 2001, providing natural- looking animation. Social network gaming company Zynga acquired NaturalMotion for $527 million in January 2014
Business Location: Oxford headquarters plus creative offices in Brighton, London and San Francisco. Total employees (2013 average): 201
Turnover and year: £37.3 million, year end October 2013
Description: CEO and founder of NaturalMotion. With a background of Oxford and Sussex university education in evolutionary, adaptive and complex systems, and biological sciences, Reil is a neuroscientist who, while working with the Zoology Department at Oxford, created a spin-out videogame business which is now a leading games and technology company
He has been a long-term supporter and fundraiser for charities, not least through his local Rotary Club. He is also a founder of the Woking Asian Business Forum and a senior member of the British Pakistan Foundation for Development.
An award-winning British-Pakistani entrepreneur, Azeem was named Asian Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006-07 and Pakistani Entrepreneur in 2011 and has also been described as a ’community galvaniser’ and one of the top 100 most influential Muslims in the UK.
A promising footballer in his younger days his sporting career was ended by injury, but in 2013 he helped buy Aldershot Town FC out of administration and became its chairman.
Quote: “Treat others as you want to be treated.“
Commentary: NaturalMotion is currently creating the next-generation of mobile games with technology that provides the most realistic, intelligent animation in the industry. It is one of the fastest-growing social mobile publishers on iOS and Android, with blockbuster ’character’ titles such as Clumsy Ninja.
The company creates and publishes innovative ultra-high quality free-to-play games that combine polished gameplay with high-end 3D graphics using its own proprietary Euphoria graphics middleware technologies – essentially simulating movement rather than animating it.
Its cutting-edge art and animation design teams have worked on gaming
classics such as Grand Theft Auto and are setting new standards in the industry. NaturalMotion’s technology has also assisted lifelike animation in films such as Lord of the Rings and Troy.
Dedicated to developing innovative and engaging free-to-play titles, the NaturalMotion San Francisco creative studio was founded in 2012 the same year that NaturalMotion London was established. Both are developing ground-breaking social games on mobile platforms.
Company Values: Be proud, aim high, stay hungry, be honest.
Quote: “Its not making money that has inspired me, it is wanting to be the biggest and the best.“
www.businessmag.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – FEBRUARY 2015
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 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52