Working for Mercury, the first competitive telecommunications company in Europe, Stuart spend three years doing business development and corporate restructuring helping to win mobile licences in Europe and disposing of non-core businesses in the UK. He moved on to spend a couple of years doing business development with Cable & Wireless in Singapore before being appointed the President of Cable & Wireless Japan in 1998. 

Spending more and more time in IT related services Stuart took the logical next step and left C&W to help found a managed service provider set up to provide services such as storage and applications to tenants of data centres and other customers of telecommunications providers. Stuart held the position of Senior Vice President with Nupremis before joining Ariadne Capital at the end of 2001.


Q. When was your first big break?

During my time at Mercury I was lucky enough to work with a very dynamic if demanding manager from who I learnt a lot about what really counts in business. He also helped secure the chance to work in Asia which having spent my career to date working in Europe certainly broadened my horizons.

Q. What are the main differences you found when working in Asia?

The main difference is the relative importance placed on relationships in business. Relationships are important elsewhere but in Asia you do not get past ‘GO’ unless you know the right people. The other thing in Asia is never to take anything at face value. People approach things from many different angles, which sometimes is not a bad approach to use in other parts of the world.

Q. Why do you work with Ariadne Capital?

Ariadne has a great network of emerging companies, investors and increasingly corporates, which it connects to develop a variety of business opportunities. This is a very dynamic environment where I can contribute my experience to help develop businesses at the cutting edge of innovative technology and services. 

Q. What motivates you?

Never really thought about it. I guess the desire to achieve financial independence together with the satisfaction of watching companies grow and become successful doing everything possible to make that happen. The most de-motivating place to work is in an environment where everything is in decline.


Q. How do you see the future of communications and technology?

Everyone is very down on communications and technology at the moment. I see the future as being a very exciting one where communications services, having previously been very vertically integrated, will become increasingly horizontally organised. Services providers are providing more and more complex applications while network operators in a lot of cases are becoming commoditised. In addition to encouraging the proliferation of exiting new services horizontal fragmentation will create other opportunities, one of the biggest being the need to coordinate all the various functions and technologies required to deliver complex services. This is one of the largest challenges currently facing service providers and is creating huge opportunities for applications and software developers.

Q. What or who has been the biggest influence on your life?

It has to be my children who continually remind me of the priorities of life.

Q. What would you like to do if you weren't doing what you are doing now?

There is a quote in the Woody Allen film Crimes and Misdemeanours that goes something like ‘you are nothing but the accumulation of the all of the choices that you have made in your life’. Perhaps I’ll live to regret the choice not to become a professional ski instructor but for the time being I cannot imagine myself doing anything different to what I am up to now.

Q. Who would you most like to meet?

I would like to meet Nelson Mandela and try to understand what makes him tick. I think it is fascinating how he can spend all those years in prison only to emerge without a hint of bitterness and go on to lead his nation in the way that he did.