Julie Meyer, CEO and Founder
Jo Wood, COO and Investor
Bill Burnall, Finance Manager
Paul Flanagan, EIR
Paul Flanagan focuses on the financial services and digital entertainment sectors at Ariadne Capital where he has worked on business development, capital raising, corporate advisory and M&A
assignments.
Paul has over 20 years experience selling, marketing and managing in the high-technology, entertainment and banking industries. This experience spans large corporates through start-ups
and he has worked extensively in North America and Europe with dealings in Asia and the Middle East.
Paul initially worked for I. P. Sharp Associates in Toronto, using the building blocks of international networking, mainframes, databases, and software to build and sell international solutions
for the oil, banking and securities industries with partners including McGraw Hill, Citibank, and SWIFT.
Based in London in the late 1980's with Reuters, he set up and ran a European sales and marketing structure for financial services applications. Notable successes included the establishment
of the Blend stock borrowing and lending system as the market standard and ramped up market penetration for the securities trading and clearing system across Europe
In the City in the early 1990's he managed Financial Institutions sales for Citibank N.A. packaging liquidity, a global network and advanced electronic-banking information technology. Notable
successes included multi-million dollar global treasury-management deals with Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley. He went on to work with J.P. Morgan, successfully closing fixed-income
deals with sovereigns in Russian, Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.
In 1997 he left banking to create a successful high-technology start up, Cybernetic Productions, focused on innovative uses of multi-user, computer-gaming technology. Clients included BT
Openworld, Accenture, Flemings, Citibank, Morgan Stanley and other financial services and consulting organizations.
His most recent venture is Entertain Limited which applies computer-game and computer-graphics technology to education, architecture, and brand advertising.
Paul earned an MBA from INSEAD and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
Diana Nye, EIR
Diana Nye has over 15 years of bringing start up companies from pre-product to profitability. Until recently she was the EMEA based VP of Sales and Business Development for Powerway Inc. leading
the B2B quality initiative within the automotive supply chain in Europe. In the run-up to the conception of Powerway.com, she launched Powerway Europe in 1996 and in 12 months grew the business
to the largest Quality software group in the Europe and established a 9-point European channel. Seconded to the UK in 1993 to launch a major groupware initiative for European Software Publishing,
she also delivered European market strategies and sales for Groupware (BeyondMail) CRM software (Janna Contact), Imaging (Watermark), On-line Surveys (Decisive Survey), Internet Security, and Executive
Information systems (Forest & Trees).
Prior to coming to the UK Diana worked for a number of software start-ups in Cambridge, MA including Beyond Inc., and Automated Business Development and was the Director of the Boston Computer
Society’s Special Interest Group for E-Mail and Groupware.
Diana has a BA from the University of Maine at Orono and an MA from the University of West Virginia.
Ian Hislop, EIR
Ian Hislop has over 15 years of experience in building and managing venture and development capital funds. He was previously the Managing Director of ABN AMRO Quoted Investments (UK) Limited
(formerly Causeway Investment Management Limited), raising two funds specialising in providing development capital for smaller quoted companies, totalling over £135 million. These funds made
investments in over 30 companies, and Ian also became closely involved in developing the strategy of the underlying firms.
Previously, Ian spent 15 years in corporate finance, mainly at N.M. Rothschild & Sons, where he gained wide experience, both domestically and internationally, in mergers and acquisitions, IPOs
and restructurings.
Ian has recently held Non-Executive Directorships in three quoted companies in which the funds he ran held substantial investments, helping with strategic development and the subsequent
sale of the funds’ investments.
Ian graduated from Cambridge University.
Valerie Taylor, EIR
Valerie Taylor is an international executive having lived and worked in EMEA, USA, Asia and South Africa. Her industry experience embraces Advertising and Marketing Services (incl New Media),
Outsourcing Services, Publishing, IT and Telecommunications.
She successfully established PMG Group International (outsourced services) through a managed buy-out from Hewlett Packard, and operated as a Senior Executive at ITT Corporation, Young & Rubicam
(WPP), and DraftWorldwide (Interpublic Group), where she gained significant experience in business strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and restructurings.
For the past two years, Valerie has been leveraging her experience as a Chief Executive in the marketing services, media and technology sectors, supporting a variety of new ventures, as
both business advisor and angel investor.
Jeanette Whyte, EIR
Jeanette Whyte is a former British Telecom senior executive and has over 19 years experience in the Information Communication and Technology industry. She has held senior roles in the areas
of strategy and portfolio management, marketing, product development, Mergers & Acquisitions and Information Technology.
For the past 7 years Jeanette has been working in Asia where she played a leading role in M&A wireless transactions in Singapore, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong and South Korea. She has gained a
reputation for implementing transformational strategies that have created value for both BT and its Asian wireless joint venture partners. Her approach to achieving successful results is through
her ability to quickly identify the key issues and business drivers and to successfully persuade senior corporate executives to implement solutions that, over time, have proven to greatly improve
business profitability.
Jeanette lives in Hong Kong and for the past two years she has been advising and supporting ICT companies accelerate their business in North Asia - Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and South Korea.
Her clients range from small start ups to global companies and government investment agencies.
Jeanette graduated from Loughborough University in the UK with a BSc (Hons) in Management Sciences. She is a Sloan Fellow and has an MSc from London Business School. She has a post graduate
Diploma in Marketing from the UK-based Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).
Steve Melhuish, EIR
Steve Melhuish has 16 years international business development experience. He is passionate about building early-stage businesses, and focuses predominantly on mobile, new media and
communications sectors. He p rovides advice and support on commercialising new business ideas, developing sales strategies and skills, forging partnerships, expanding into new markets,
fund-raising and business plan development. Steve has traveled and conducted business worldwide, particularly within Europe and Asia Pacific.
Steve previously held senior manager positions in Cable & Wireless, as well as commercial and technical roles within Mercury Communications, AEG GmbH and Plessey Defence Systems (now
BAE). His experience includes managing $500M turnover P&L's; Building and leading a $200m turnover mobile business into market leadership; Developing business plans
and raising capital for early-stage technology firms; Creating new corporate venture propositions; Turning-around a $450m turnover business; Forging board-level relationships with multinational
corporates; Securing and negotiating $150M+ outsource and global contracts; Developing and executing wholesale VoIP strategy; Recruiting and leading multi-cultural sales and marketing teams across
multiple countries.
Steve has a Communications Engineering honours degree from the University of Plymouth, and post-graduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).
Nigel Dixon, EIR
Nigel is a Wireless Communications business specialist - an authority on the wireless industry, in particular wireless terminals & infrastructure manufacturers, network operators, technology
providers, market & technology trends.
Nigel has held senior management positions in such as Texas Instruments (Japan), Agere systems (Japan), Lucent Microelectronics (Japan), VLSI Technology (Singapore, Europe) and Motorola
(USA). He has forged strategic partnerships with the majority of Asian manufacturers and operators, most notable being Samsung, NEC, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Sharp, BenQ, GVC, Amoisonic, DoCoMo, Vodafone,
Hutchinson, T-Mobile.
Shamsa Rana, EIR
Shamsa has extensive deal and transaction exposure in the UK, Europe and US gained during her time with KPMG Transaction Services/Private Equity, Egg Plc, Deloitte Financial Advisory, and
Associated New Ventures.
She has worked with venture capital, private equity and corporate firms to value private and public companies or new venture projects including the provision of corporate development services
- internal analysis, writing of business case(s), financial modelling and supporting private equity transactions.
Her passion is new-media, where she has an extensive network base and understanding of trends/developments placing her in the ideal place to identify new investment and acquisition targets.
Cornelia von Sheven, Associate
Cornelia joined Ariadne Capital in 2003. She manages the New Opportunity Pipeline as well as looking at RFID opportunities. She has extensive valuation and financial modelling experience
as well as market research and business planning skills.
Previously at DN Capital in London, she evaluated investment opportunities in the technology and telecommunications infrastructure, software and hardware space. Cornelia is also the
Co-Founder of NETCOMMA Ltd, a start-up specialising in software development for wireless devices. Cornelia is a qualified architect.
Amy Chiaverini, Analyst
Amy Chiaverini joined Ariadne in late 2004 as an analyst. She supports the client team with in-depth industry and market research, financial modelling and analysis, as well as managing
the New Opportunity Pipeline.
Amy recently graduated from the University of Edinburgh with an MSc in Economics (Finance). Before obtaining her Masters, she taught Mathematics at the high school level for a year in California.
She also has a background in semi-conductors, having worked for Rockwell Scientific testing infrared detectors for both government and the private sectors. Amy has a Bachelors degree from Boston
College in Political Science and Mathematics.
Jenny Levitan, Analyst
Evgenia (Jenny) Levitan is an analyst at Ariadne Capital. She is responsible for client work involving market research, company analysis, trend spotting and the preparation of presentations.
Before Ariadne, she worked as a Fixed Income analyst with Salomon Smith Barney and as a currency broker with Tradition (U.K.) Ltd. She has previously worked as a researcher for information
service provider Primary Source Online.
Jenny has a Bachelors of Science in Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She also has an International Baccalaureate from St. Claire's in Oxford, England.
Jenny has a keen interest in technology and business development. Her other interests include music, visual arts and design, traveling and roller-skating. She is fluent in Russian.