TRAKM8 - Key Persons


John Watkins - CEO, Chairman

Job Titles:
  • CEO
  • Chairman
  • Executive Chairman
John Watkins, as Executive Chairman, has long been the key link with shareholders. We believe this dual Chairman/CEO role is acceptable for a company of our size. John has been CEO for thirteen years and Executive Chairman for eight years. This extended timescale brings wide experience and is not unreasonable for a company of our size. However, we also recognised the need to supplement his position by appointing senior independent director Keith Evans as Deputy Chairman in 2017 to provide an independent focal point for shareholders. We believe this appointment goes some way to balancing John Watkins' dual role of Chairman and CEO. Both John and Keith, individually, hold meetings with major shareholders throughout the year, to understand their views on, and expectations of, the Group's performance. John provides ad hoc updates to other shareholders as required. John Watkins is Chairman and CEO. We believe this is not inappropriate for a Group of our size. However, to balance this, Keith Evans has been appointed Deputy Chairman. As required by the QCA code, the Board has independent non-executives, Keith Evans and Penny Searles. This is complemented with the non-executive directorship of Nadeem Raza, who cannot be considered to be independent due to him being the CEO and principle shareholder in Microlise which is a substantial shareholder in the Company. However, the Board still does not currently meet the requirements for a balance between executive and non-executive Board members. On the Board are the two founding directors, who still are key members of the Management Team. We believe they contribute substantially, given their long association with the Company and, with over 8% of the shares in issue combined, they represent significant shareholders. Jon Edwards, CFO and Mark Watkins as COO are key directors of the Group and so are rightly on the Board. John Watkins has a Master's Degree in Engineering Science from Oxford University and considerable engineering and international sales experience. He has been a Director of several Public companies, Managing Director of a wide range of private and subsidiaries/divisions of public companies and Chairman of two very successful private equity companies that exited with significantly better than average IRRs.

Jon Edwards - CFO

Job Titles:
  • Chief Financial Officer
  • CFO, Is Responsible for All the Financial Aspects
Jon Edwards, as CFO, is responsible for all the financial aspects of the company. Jon joined Trakm8 in 2007 as part of the Finance department. He held the position of Group Financial Controller for six years and in that time was responsible for the integration of acquisitions into the Group's finance functions & also gained his Association of Accounting Technicians qualification. In 2016 Jon moved into the Operations team where he held a number of positions, most recently Operations Director with responsibility for Manufacturing, Customer Services, Product Engineering and Product Manager of Business Systems.

Keith Evans

Job Titles:
  • Non - Executive Deputy Chairman
  • Senior Independent Non - Executive Director and Deputy
Keith Evans is the senior independent non-executive director and Deputy Chairman. Keith Evans graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Economics. Keith is a former partner for over 25 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP with very extensive experience of commercial and financial roles having worked with companies operating in the financial services, automotive and information technology sectors.

Mark Watkins - COO

Job Titles:
  • Chief Operating Officer
Mark Watkins is COO and responsible for all aspects of Operations and Engineering. Mark Watkins has a Master's Engineering degree and worked for Ford Motor Co in the group IT team. He has previously held positions in IT and Operations having been Head of Manufacturing Operations at Continental UK for several years. In 2014 he joined Trakm8 Holdings as Managing Director of BOX Telematics following its' acquisition and is now responsible for all operational matters.

Miss Maddie Cowley

Job Titles:
  • Big Data Director
  • Software Engineering Director
One of the founders of Trakm8 along with her brother Tim Cowley, Miss Maddie Cowley is a highly experienced software Engineering Director with over twenty five years' experience within the Telematics and Telecommunications industry. Awarded an MSc Software Engineering with distinction from University of Oxford in 1998, Miss Maddie Cowley now leads the in-house Big Data team and is passionate about algorithms, machine learning, computer vision and data science.

Nadeem Raza

Job Titles:
  • Non - Executive Director
Nadeem joined the Board following the strategic investment by Microlise Group Holdings Limited in December 2018. As CEO of Microlise, Nadeem has complete responsibility for the operational management and control of all Microlise business activities. During his 20 year career with Microlise, Nadeem has fulfilled various responsibilities and gained experience across all elements of the business, including sales, system integration, marketing, operations and business computing.

Penny Searles

Job Titles:
  • Independent Non - Executive Director
  • Non - Executive Director
Penny joined Trakm8 as Non-Executive Director in June 2020 and has worked in Financial Services for over 25 years, latterly as a CEO and founder of two successful FinTech Companies; Wunelli Ltd which was purchased by LexisNexis in 2014 and SmartDriverClub purchased by Calamp in 2020. Penny brings her impressive operational experience in both Motor Insurance and Telematics to the Trakm8 team.

Tim Cowley - Chief Strategy Officer

Job Titles:
  • Strategy Director
Tim Cowley is responsible for Product strategy and development. Tim Cowley has 30 years' experience in Engineering & Technology sector. After graduating with a degree in Electronics Engineering in 1988 from Brunel University, Tim Cowley was awarded a prestigious Michael Cobham scholarship, and stayed with the Cobham Group for eleven years. Alongside Maddie Cowley, he founded Trakm8 is 2002 and is now responsible for the Group Product Strategy and the Advanced Engineering function.