About Us

About Us

The company was founded by John Courtney.  John has started 7 of his own businesses and has been highly ranked on the Top 100 Entrepreneur’s List collated by City AM. He was twice shortlisted for Best Mentor/Advisor and also presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by techSPARK.

John has been a Board Director himself for over 40 years, has been involved with placing of Non-Executive Directors for over 25 years, trained as a strategy consultant and ran a Management Consultancy for 10 years, and ran a Digital Agency for another 10 years.

John has built an amazing team of senior professionals in the Regional Directors and Advisors

Company Directors

John Courtney – Chief Executive

John is highly ranked in the Top 100 UK Entrepreneurs list by City AM and is winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from techSPARK.

He has been a Board Director himself for over 40 years and first started placing Non-Executive Directors over 25 years ago. John founded and ran six of his own businesses including a Management Consultancy for 10 years, a Corporate Finance offering for 10 years and a mid-sized Digital Agency for another 10 years.

He is also a very experienced business Mentor, with Microsoft Ventures then Microsoft Accelerator (now Microsoft Scale-Up), HRH Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace, SETsquared (scale-ups spinning out of the Universities of Bristol, Bath, Exeter, Surrey and Southampton) and Entrepreneurial Spark (now NatWest Accelerator). He is also on the Advisory Board for the Oracle Start-up Cloud Accelerator (OSCA).

Having trained as a Strategy Consultant, John has run strategy training in the UK, Holland and West Indies and advised over 100 scale-ups, family businesses and SME’s in strategy. He has also been conference speaker at Tech For Britain, Digital Marketing, LikeMinds for Entrepreneurs and others.

John is Chairman, NED or Board Advisor to several scale-up and SME businesses in both London and Bristol.

John is a lifelong cricket lover, has captained Gloucestershire Seniors and is a proud Ashes winner with the full England Seniors side. He has recently taken over as Chairman of The Lord’s Taverners (West), a national charity focused on helping disabled and disadvantaged children through sport.

Kath Dawson, MBA FCIM – Marketing Director

Kath has been a Board Director for over 17 years for a management consultancy, a mid-sized digital agency and her own consultancy. She is now also a Fellow and Board member for the Chartered Institute of Marketing where she is also the Digital Ambassador for the South West Region. Kath is currently a Board advisor to five early stage businesses.

A digital marketing strategy specialist, Kath has a grounding in digital strategy, content marketing, SEO, social media, conversion rate optimisation and paid search.

Kath has also worked in computer software and financial services as well as the Universities of Exeter and Wolverhampton.

Kath is a Trustee and Vice-Chair of her local Mencap, the learning disabilities charity, and is also a regular volunteer for them.

Regional Directors and Advisors

There is a vast amount of experience in our team of Regional Directors and over 150 Advisors who are available to help businesses grow by providing Part-time Director services.