Bob Dowson Email & Phone Number

Guildford, GB

London, England, GB

Sanctus now brings together the exceptional coaching, mentoring and listening services of Scale Up investees Pushfar, Sanctus and Rungway Ltd. Having helped to steer two of those businesses through that merger as Chairman and brought in new leadership to the group, I now act as a hands-on adviser to the new board, leading on projects that they have less.

London, England, GB

Sanctus’ exceptional coaches combine personal and professional development with proactive mental well-being support. I steered the business from Scale Up Capital investment to a successful merger with Pushfar Limited, before stepping down to become board adviser of the larger Sanctus group.

Brighton, Brighton, GB

Pi Datametrics, an SEO SaaS solution, helps customers to outperform in organic search through data-driven insight. I help all levels of the leadership and commercial teams.

I have chaired the board of trustees ever since we set up the trust in August 2000. We now provide up to £200k of grants per year to charities particularly operating in sub-Saharan Africa.

Adviser to SMEs, mentor/coach for B2B commercial leaders and early stage investor. Clients (paid and pro bono) include: Intelligent Positioning, Sifted, Winmark Global, The Tree Hub, Capital Economics, Exoshock, Sanctus, B4SH (Broadband for Surrey Hills), various VC and PE funds on target acquisitions and two confidential projects.

London, England, GB

PushFar: The Mentoring Platform helps hundreds of organisations to set up and scale up mentoring programmes, improving employee empowerment, productivity and retention. I steered the business from Scale Up Capital investment to a successful merger with Sanctus Limited, before stepping down to become board adviser of the larger Sanctus group.

London, England, GB

Sifted is a new media platform backed by the Financial Times, providing content and events that cover the world of startups in Europe. I advised the senior team on strategic, commercial and product priorities.

London, England, GB

Working with the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, Exoshock provides a SaaS-based solution for modelling the future.

London, GB

We grew sales from £16m in 2014 to £24m by 2019, raising EBITDA by 50%. I led a leveraged management buyout, selling a majority stake to Phoenix Equity Partners in March 2018 at a £95m valuation. We transformed many parts of the business, digitising all services and redesigning the commercial model whilst having to replace the senior team. Circa 145 staff.

London, GB

Established proper sales and operational practices in a business with an exceptionally strong service offering but rather old-fashioned commercial and product approaches. This included opening new offices, launching new services, setting up a dedicated account management team and new CRM system, growing the global sales teams, establishing proper sales.

PLC board director running two divisions: Web Performance and Software Testing. Formal title: 'Operational Director'. 220 staff. £22m sales. Turned around the latter division, increasing profit by over 50% by redesigning the service proposition, the management team and delivery. Continued to grow web performance division and its SaaS services, including.

NCC Group acquired Site Confidence (below). I became a board director, in charge of the web performance division. Grew turnover from £4.6m to £9m, and EBITDA from £1.3m to £4m. Primarily a B2B subscription sales model for SaaS tools. Grew to 60 staff (from web development and tech operations through to sales and professional services teams).

I had the privilege of chairing this family foundation (circa £100m at the time), helping it to give about £2m per year to incredible charities as effectively as possible. See: www.samworthfoundation.org.uk

Having co-founded this charity to help Tanzanian and Kenyan orphans amidst the AIDS crisis, we raised £15 million over the first 20 years and used it to provide educational and health support to over 250,000 vulnerable children and their communities. I played a leading role for 12 years as a trustee and have continued my involvement as a donor since I.

My second start-up business grown until a successful exit and beyond. I ran sales and commercial strategy from near the beginning with a turnover c. £100k/year, growing it to £4.6m by 2006 and EBITDA to £1.3m. I led the sale of the business to NCC Group plc in Jan 2007 for £9m, after which I became the MD of their acquiring division.

Cambridge, MA, US

Forrester acquired Fletcher (below). I ran a UK-based sales team in a fast-growing technology research business including an account management team delivering £9m/year of sales. Responsible for commercial strategy in the UK and input into Europe.

A start-up internet research business. As one of the three directors, I grew the business in 15 months from £100k/year turnover run rate to £2m/year, then sold it to Forrester Research for $19m in Nov 1999.

US

Master Of Arts (M.A.), Politics, Philosophy And Economics

Education record