Douglas Richard – Non-Executive Director
Doug Richard is a successful entrepreneur with 20 years’ experience in the development and leadership of technology and software ventures. Doug featured in the first two TV series’ of Dragon’s Den. He is the co-founder of the Cambridge Angels and Chairman of the Conservative Party Small Business Task Force. Between 1996 and 2000 Doug was President and CEO of Micrografx, a publicly quoted US software company. Prior to that he also founded and subsequently sold two other companies: Visual Software and ITAL Computers.
Doug holds a BA in Psychology from University of California at Berkeley and is a Juris Doctor at the school of Law, University of California at Los Angeles. In 2009 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex for his contribution to the teaching of Entrepreneurship; and was also the Guest Lecturer on Entrepreneurship at Cambridge University for the Nanotech Masters and PhD programmes. Working with Brightpearl, Doug provides a strong link to the SME community as well as bringing a broad range of international industry experience to the board.
Salman Malik – Non-Executive Director
Salman joined Brightpearl with 15 years of experience in building and growing Web and business software companies. Prior to his role at Brightpearl, Salman spent 8 years at Siebel Systems, where he was a member of the Siebel Founder's Circle and initiated the development of Siebel's Web-based products. Prior to Siebel, Salman was a co-founder of Firefly Network, an early pioneer of personalization and recommendation technologies, acquired by Microsoft in 1998. Salman also served as VP of Product Marketing at AMEE, a London-based technology business providing a platform for carbon data aggregation. Salman was born in Pakistan and grew up on four continents. He holds a BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Chris Chapman – Non-Executive Director
Chris has over 20 years experience in finance, working in sectors such as software, online services, renewables, clean technology, consulting, engineering and new media, in companies ranging from Lotus Cars to General Electric and numerous high growth small businesses. Chris is now the founder and Managing Director of mybusinessFD, an expanding group of commercial Finance Directors who are passionate about helping growth businesses and enabling those entrepreneurs to access top level FD experience on a part time basis. Chris is non-executive Director or Board adviser to many of the client technology businesses that he supports.
Charles Grimsdale – Non-Executive Director
Charles is a co-founder of Eden Ventures and one of Eden’s Investment Managers.
His investment focus is on opportunities within the Internet and digital media sector due to his prior experience in the space. Charles was founder of On Demand Distribution (OD2), a digital music distribution provider which today powers the digital music services of many major online brands. The company was acquired by Loudeye in 2004, and subsequently acquired by Nokia in 2006. One of Charles’ investments at Eden, Secerno, was recently acquired by Oracle. Charles brings a wealth of operational experience to the Brightpearl board and supports the team in helping to set strategic direction.
Chris Tottman – Non-Executive Director
Chris is a founding partner at Notion Capital and, together with his general fund responsibilities, specialises in sales and HR strategy within portfolio companies including Brightpearl. Chris joined the executive team of MessageLabs Group in 1999 at it’s incorporation and held a number of executive level roles both within MessageLabs and Star, its sister company. Chris originally joined as Chief Commercial Officer where his responsibilities covered sales strategy for both Star and MessageLabs overseeing several years of fantastic growth for the group. Messagelabs was sold to Symantec Corporation for $790million in November 2008.