Max Dobres has held Managing Director and VP positions at leading high growth US based companies who have successfully established themselves in Europe. He was European VP of services for a leading US database company. He set-up Inktomi’s European Professional Services Group defining service offerings, pricing and market strategy and selling the initial assignments. As MD Western Europe Region, for Cambridge Technology Partners he grew their systems integration business by 60% for three consecutive years, and made WER the most profitable subsidiary of CTP outside the USA.  At Gemini Consulting Max led the sale and initial delivery of large change management projects. He has also held various sales and marketing positions at Digital Equipment, both in Europe and in the United States. Max is familiar with the operation of US based companies and has a proven track record of structuring and rapidly growing businesses. Max has a first degree in Systems Analysis, an Msc in Applied Psychology and is a graduate of the Harvard PMD program.

 

Colin Medway has extensive experience as a European CFO, General Manager and VP with high growth US based companies who have successfully established themselves in Europe for over 10 years. As the founding European CFO for Cambridge Technology Partners, he drove the financial and administrative model that took the firm from a $5M pa to a $130M pa. firm in 6 years of sustained profitable growth. Previously at Banyan Systems as European Director of Finance and at Data General and Seagrams, Colin has over 14 years of senior management experience within the IT industry and 22 years of management experience at the Controller level. Having been responsible for Finance, Operations, Legal services, HR and Facilities, Colin has a close working knowledge of the requirements of US firms expanding in Europe as well as European firms expanding in their domestic markets.

Colin has a BSc in Mathematics, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (FCMA) and is an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ACIS).

Alexander Dobres has broad experience within the Financial Services market, in addition to sales management and regulatory experience. He worked as a Partner of the London office at Lockton Insurance Brokers before enrolling on the ESADE Full-Time MBA program.

During his MBA he worked on delivering a number of Business Development projects to Novartis and Allianz, and spent 6 months completing a range of projects for the UK Financial Services Authority.

Alexander is also an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Insurance (ACII).

Gary Prior is a proven Managing Director/Vice President with 25 years experience in the Consumer Markets and growth of leading household brands in B2C channels - Philips, Tefal, Krups, Robouts and Vicks within the EMEA region.  Development and implementation of European/UK business plans with leading global retailers and distributors.  New strategies implemented in B2B.  Successful launch of UK retail chain.  Major business success delivered through turnaround, organisational development and design, project management and team leadership.
 
Turnaround: Gary took on an under-performing business and made key changes: replacing the top team, implementing a new brand and distribution strategy, outsourcing warehousing and logistics.
 
Restructuring: Gary restructured operations in the Nordic territories to increase profitability. He successfully integrated the Scandinavian organisations into one entity with a reduction of back-office costs and an enhancement of front office efficiencies, resulting in year-on-year growth in market share.
 
Development: Gary headed up a major project to develop customer trading terms for the whole of the EMEA region, successfully creating and implementing a European trading framework for local and international accounts

Phil Ellis has broad experience of managing technology and services businesses in Europe.  In addition he has considerable outsourcing experience.  He is based in Austin, Texas.  Among his achievements are the following:

He turned around  services business of a major database company, in the UK and Switzerland, growing them over 200% in three years, and turning a substantial quarterly loss into margins of 18%.

He was part of the JPMorgan management team that launched Cygnifi, a derivatives pricing and risk management technology company.  He joined Cygnifi as head of the professional services group, which he grew into a profitable business in London and New York.

He helped launch Cambridge Technology Partners in Western Europe.  During the following three years, the business grew from 3 European employees to nearly 200.  He then moved to a management position at Cambridge Technology Partners in New York. At Deutsche Bank, he was the European manager for the Cross Business Technology and Operations group.  Among his projects at Deutsche Bank were managing a large intra bank merger across every country in Europe, significant outsourcing across Europe, and the implementation of new systems procedures and policies to improve the resilience of the banks’ systems. At Accenture he was the project manager for a large oil industry outsourcing program, which put in place one of the industry’s first outsourced accounting operations.