VC CROWD - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Head of Nutrition & Product Development
- Head of Nutrition for Natural Instinct
Until recently Bianca has been the head of Nutrition for Natural Instinct presiding over its growth to £10m of turnover as one of very few fully qualified nutritionists in the UK and the US, holding a BSc (hons), PGDip Nutrition & Canine Nutrition, MSFTR, CPN. Working as a veterinary nurse, Bianca realised the lack of un-biased support and information for optimal diet formulation for pets. Furthering her degree and post-grads in Human and Animal Nutrition, she has studied in the US and the UK and is one of a few Certified Companion Animal Nutritionist in the UK. Bianca is passionate about improving pet nutrition and within the UK she is a certified CPD lecturer in animal nutrition, regularly lecturing in the UK and abroad. Bianca is also a Member of the American Association of Veterinary Nutrition and has taken a close interest in Rockster since becoming aware of the food in December 2016. We are thrilled she will now be the head of Nutrition, not only developing new products, advising on individual cases for customers but also publicly marketing Rockster worldwide.
Charlotte Clark founded INCA Productions in 1999 having studied fashion design, building it to become the leading event and marketing agency with clients including Chanel, Samsung, Prada, Dom Perignon, IWC and Breitling. INCA is engaged in a variety of diverse projects including the British Fashion Awards and luxury product launches such as Victoria Beckham's Range Rover and is a market leader in delivering creative strategy to transform businesses both in the UK and US. Charlotte has been a non-executive Director of The Rockster Limited since its inception and has helped to provide creative strategy and direction.
Job Titles:
- Head of Digital & Graphic Design
Dave first became involved in Website and Graphic Design in 1999, after a National Diploma in Engineering at Merton Technical College. He was part of an IT trainee scheme at UCL and spend 3 years learning to design and build websites from scratch using nothing more than a Notepad program. After travelling for a year around Australia in 2002, Dave returned to the UK and joined the London Fire Brigade, whilst he started to build a freelance business designing and building websites for small companies. In 2009 he was part of a group of individuals who set up a media company specialising in Music and Design and during his time there until 2016 he lead the design arm of the business to BestFor Web awards in consecutive years for the South East and Nationally. Dave now focusses his time between small design agency, Lillian Kelly Design and The Rockster Ltd. Dave is increasingly recognised as an industry expert, Dave continues to further his skills and stay ahead of the curve.
Dominic has in-depth industry knowledge from 20 years in point of sale technology and advertising. With previous experience dealing with Clear Channel UK and USA, JC Decaux Africa, CBS UK, Times of India, IBM Store Solutions, and NCR Retail Systems, Dominic has negotiated contracts with household named companies in both outdoor media and electronic point of sale technology. Dominic was an early pioneer in digital outdoor media, with screen networks placed in travel agents and theme parks, before completing the reverse take-over of an AIM Listed Company in 2007, and completely overhauling the business model. Put the first portrait digital screens into UK-shopping malls, and signed a 10-Year sales agreement with the world's largest outdoor media company, before selling the business in 2012. Over £50m in corporate transactions and has successfully sold companies to major international buyers.
Job Titles:
- Sports Canada - Security Analyst
Gary Prince - Chief Strategy Officer
Gary Prince clocked up 18 years' experience in mobile commerce prior to being appointed as Chief of Strategy of SimplyPayMe. He has worked across all stages of the product life cycle, from the development of mobile payments to digital transformation, but his passion is user experience. Gary's prime objective for SimplyPayMe is the continued development of market-leading, customer-focused services/products for the SME market.
Hector originally came to work with Rockster as an intern in September 2016 and has become a permanent full time member of the team having impressed us with his work ethic and fantastic customer feedback. Hector graduated from Eton College in 2011 with A levels in Geography, Economics and Biology going on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree (2.1) from Edinburgh University in Geography in 2016. During his gap year he worked as a teacher at Ludgrove and spent 6 months travelling South America, Australia and New Zealand. Hector is responsible for fulfilment, office management and other operations including communicating with UK customers, both retail and wholesale. Hector is a dog lover who has grown up with dogs all his life.
Started an early career in the Air Force where Vorland got through as one of the 0.7% who made it through the pilot academy. Despite this, Vorland had other ambitions and instead became an instructor at the Officers Academy leading as many as 150 soldiers. Following the military career he moved on to study economics and corporate finance in the US where he received straight A's and high honors which landed him a job on Wall Street directly after graduation. Within a year he was regional manager on the US West Coast with the highest closing % worldwide for the company, The Corporate Presence. Once again ambition drove Vorland to London where he started a consultancy helping people with business development and growth, through which he met SmartTrade App. After almost 2 years of boosting SmartTrade's strategies, switching to a partnership focus, bringing in potential partners like Lloyds Bank he was offered the role of CEO after Keld van Schreven. Since Vorland stepped in, December 2017, with no resources at hand, the card volume has doubled, partners like MasterCard, Wirecard and CardOne Banking have been signed, marketing campaign has been sponsored and growth projections are looking better than ever.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Co - Founder of Ditto Music
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Finance Director
- Fellow of the
As a fellow of the ACCA, Mark qualified as a Chartered Certified Accountant while working for "big 4" firm, EY. Mark joined the SimplyPayMe team as Finance Director, bringing with him over 15 years' experience in a range of industries including offshore wealth management at UBS and as Head of UK Finance for global sports brand Scott Sports. Leading the finance function of an independent Veterinary Hospital, Mark led the successful exit, for a then UK record at a 17.5x EBITDA multiple. Mark's knowledge and experience will ensure the stability of SimplyPayMe as it enters its next stages.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Sports Canada - Security Analyst
Michael started his career in the City working in Equity Capital Markets and spent 15 years in various corporate finance and broking roles and advising the Boards of small and mid-cap companies on all aspects of fundraising, M&A, market access and governance. In 2008 he left the City to join Proximagen Group plc, a listed biotech company with a market cap of £30m, as Head of Corporate Development and was an integral part of the fundraising and transaction team that grew the business which led to it's sale in 2012 for $350m. In 2013 he co-founded BenevolentAI Limited and took up the same role as Head of Corporate Development leading fundraising and transaction capabilities and growing the company into the world's leading AI based drug discovery and development company. Benevolent has raised just under $300m to date and is one of a handful of UK based companies to achieve Unicorn status to date. As well as being Chairman of SimplyPayMe, Michael is a Non-Executive Director of Adarga Limited, an AI analytics software development company, he remains on the Board of Benevolent and maintains several other active advisory positions
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- American Entrepreneur, Lifestyle Blogger, Founder of Luna Talent Management
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Managing Director of Partnerships for Online Retailer Wish
A former stockbroker with more than 30 years' experience working within the financial industry, Steven Metcalfe has been responsible for the majority of SimplyPayMe's fundraising activities.
During the course of his career, Steven has helped to raise more than £40m for the companies he's worked with and as Director, he's played a pivotal role within the evolution of SimplyPayMe.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Director / Founder & Managing Director, Board Director
Sven Ley is the only child of Margaretha & Wolfgang Ley, founders of ESCADA and has grown up within the Luxury brand industry. Under the management of the Ley family, the Escada group grew to sales of $1.5 billion. Sven graduated with a Masters in Economics from Webster University in Geneva and aside from working within Escada and other group companies such as Primera in Hong Kong, Sven has advised or initiated a number of brands ranging from clothing to watches. Following the bankruptcy of Escada under new management, Sven launched a high profile bid to buy back Escada together with Zoe and a number of prominent figures from retail and the fashion industry. He is the co-founder of Artsation.com a successful online art business operated out of Munich and advised brands such as Huntsman prior to co-founding The Rockster Ltd. Sven is known for his global contact base and speaks 4 languages.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Chairman / Founder & Managing Director, Chairman of the Board
Zoe (nee Appleyard) graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and had a successful career in the City, first at Merrill Lynch and then at NM Rothschild where Zoe was the managing Director of Rothschild Ventures. Zoe subsequently started and Life Capital which she successfully sold to Durlacher in 2003, now Panmure Gordon and owned by QInvest. Due to her Godfather, Sir John Vane, Zoe specialised in medical ventures including Viacell, Silence Therapeutics, Cardiatis and also advised Channel Four in its corporate and brand restructuring. Zoe also founded the Life Neurological Research Trust in 2000 and has been a Trustee of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. In 2004 Zoe was honoured by the Queen as one of the 200 "high achieving" women in England alongside Margaret Thatcher, JK Rowling and Tamara Mellon and was elected by Management Today in 2003 & 2005 as one of the most powerful women in England under 35 years old. Zoe is mother of Balthazar and Clementine and helped to develop Rockster food alongside some of Germany's leading nutritionists based around the autoimmune responses triggered by dysbiosis within the gut microbiome. Following the success of the food, Zoe cancelled her advisory contract with Cardiatis to focus on building The Rockster Limited.