Piers Linney is the Joint CEO and a major shareholder of Outsourcery, a world-leading Cloud Service Provider. Outsourcery was named the Microsoft worldwide Hosting Partner of the Year 2010 and Piers is regarded as one of the UK’s cloud computing pioneers. He sits on the governance board of the UK’s Cloud Industry Forum.
Although Piers is best described as an entrepreneur, he has a professional background in the City. After studying Accounting and Law at The University of Manchester, he qualified as a solicitor in the City with SJ Berwin. He left law to join the UK investment banking team at Barclays de Zoete Wedd and then Credit Suisse where he specialised in M&A and LBOs.
Piers left banking in 2000 to start an Internet business and have since been involved in a number of technology, media and telecommunications businesses as a founder, director, investor or adviser. After becoming the CEO of a corporate finance boutique, Piers became a Partner in an alternative investment fund providing structured debt and equity financing to small cap public companies.
In May 2011, Piers featured on the Channel 4 series, ‘The Secret Millionaire’. He was recognised in the JP Morgan sponsored Power List 2012 as one of the top 100 most influential black Britons.
Simon qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG in London then moved into the firm’s nascent mergers and acquisitions department after qualification. He then moved his advisory career to the next level as a banker with a stint at the London-based Hambros Bank (now part of Société Générale) before he joined Barclays de Zoete Wedd, which was subsequently acquired by Credit Suisse First Boston in January 1998 – where he met his business partner, Piers Linney.
Simon joined ING in 2000, working in the Dutch investment banks corporate finance division where he was appointed Managing Director, Corporate Finance in 2006.
Together with Piers Linney, he structured a management buyout from DSG International plc in March 2007. Simon’s M&A experience has also been brought to bear on the subsequent three acquisitions that Outsourcery has carried out, the latest and largest being the acquisition of THUS Mobile from Cable & Wireless.
Simon is a major shareholder and board director of Outsourcery.
David was born in Australia but now lives in the UK with his English wife Nicholla and their son Joe.
He originally spent four years with Ernst & Young in their Melbourne audit practice before moving to the UK in 1995.
In the time since, David has held several roles for the Atex Media Group, the world’s leading IT specialist in developing and installing software solutions for the media industry. Originally as part of the groups M&A division, David became the UK Finance Director before moving on to head up the financial division for the company’s EMEA businesses. In 2002 David became the Group CFO, moving the head office to the UK and working closely with the Board to restructure and refinance the group.
In 2006 David left Atex and took up a consultancy role to help manage the sale and transfer of The Link to O2 for DSG International plc, before becoming involved in the management buyout of Outsourcery, from DSG International plc. He has been the Finance Director of Outsourcery since April 2007, sits on the Outsourcery Board and is a shareholder in the business. David’s passions are skiing, travelling and seeing England lose at cricket and rugby.
Simon Howitt joined Outsourcery in January 2010 to head up the newly created Channel Business Unit. This is a discreet team within the business which focuses solely on the needs and requirements of our Indirect Partners. The summer of 2011 Simon’s role broadened and he assumed the role of Sales & Marketing Director across all the interests of Outsourcery. He sits on the Outsourcery Board and is a shareholder in the business.
From 2005 to 2009 Simon was Sales and Marketing Director at Yes Telecom, a Vodafone owned specialist B2B Service provider.
Until joining Yes, Simon’s career was developed working in major London Advertising Agencies where he honed his strategic thinking skills. In addition to working on a number of well-known household brands, he embraced the telecoms and technology, working on the launch of a number of high profile brands.
With over 10 years’ experience in the hosting industry, James is responsible for driving the cloud services strategy at Outsourcery. Prior to joining, he was Director of Hosting Strategy at Star and was responsible for transforming their business into a mid-market cloud service provider.
Dan leads the technical delivery of our infrastructure and application platforms, and is accountable for the delivery of Outsourcery’s cloud services. Since joining in August 2010, he has delivered a next-generation, business-grade hosting platform based on Microsoft Hyper-V Cloud with business automation from Parallels.
Ryan has over 13 years’ experience in the hosted communications industry. His role includes building out and managing the UK data centres and core IP network and telecommunications infrastructure in addition to our unified communications platform.
Andy O’Connor joined Outsourcery in 2000 as Commercial Manager, and was appointed Commercial Director in March 2009. He has fulfilled senior Financial and Commercial roles for DSGi and his background is with some of the Top 100 fastest growing companies in the UK.
Outsourcery appointed Andy as Director of Mobile in September 2011, to lead the relationship with O2, as well engage with its existing smartphone device manufacturers and partners.
Claire is a chartered member of the CIPD, with over 14 years’ experience in Human Resources.
She started her career managing outsourced recruitment and HR for blue chip companies. Claire then left outsourced HR and recruitment for an in-house role with Outsourcery.
During this time she has led the HRD function in supporting the business through four acquisitions and TUPE transfers, merging various skills and cultures into the business. She has worked with the Directors of the business through organisational development and the changing focus the business into the Hosted services market.
