I believe the right people in the right places can make a real difference to the lives of people. I am impatient of unnecessary bureaucracy and expect public services to run efficiently and in the interests of the people they serve. This is often not the case.
Currently, I am the part time MD of a marketing company and a director of a music tuition company.
I have started and been involveed with a number of charities over the years.
I have had a lifetime interest in policing, from being a police cadet in 1976 to more latterly sitting as an independent member on Cambridgeshires Police Authority, where I was the lead for force performance and deputy chairman of two committees.
Elected as a Conservative Cambridgeshire County Councillor in 2009 and elected leader of the council May 2011, I was responsible for up to 8000 employees and a budget approaching £1 billion. I chaired a number of committees including Cabinet, Health and Well Being board and LGSS (our shared back office functions with Northamptonshire). as well as multi organisational committees including chief execs and Leaders from the district councils, police, fire and NHS.
I was a Non executive founding director of new bank Cambridge & Counties. This is a bank jointly owned by the councils pension fund and a Cambridge college. I was FSA approved.
I worked for Prism Corporate Broking, as an associate, advising on IT related companies. As an interim MD for a london based IT company I completed turn round from loss to profit in three months. I led preparing the company for a successful trade sale.
I was the CEO of an IT services company based in Cambridge UK. This loss making company was turned around in two years. we expanded into US. I opened a software development office in Sri Lanka developing .Net enabled applications. Turnover increased 150% year on year for four years. On the 31st March 2008 I closed a multimillion pound deal to sell the IT company for cash. Remained as CEO and director. Earn out period to 31st March 09.
As the Commercial manager for a LED lighting controller company using I implemented a quality regime for suppliers and distributors. I set up a world wide distributor agreement and led a sales mission to Japan.
I was the IT Director and Quality Director for ARC International a computer chip PLC. During this time we grew from 30 staff to 300 in two years and acquired three North American companies. I spent much of my time integrating all the companies before we floated for £1.2B.
As a serving member of the RAF, for 22 years, I spent much of my time working as a senior project manager developing information systems supporting aircraft.
