Directors

Sara Williams – Chairman and CEO

Sara founded Vitesse Media Plc in 1997 and is its chairman and chief executive. Her role includes developing the acquisition strategy, as well as leading the 50-strong team based in London and Birmingham. She is also editor in chief of the company's publications. Sara is a well-known business author. Over two million copies of her book, FT Guide to Small Business (formerly the Lloyds TSB Small Business Guide) have been published. She is a member of the London Stock Exchange's AIM Advisory Group, holds an investment advice certificate and an MSc in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics.

Leslie Koht Copeland – Chief Operating Officer

Leslie has worked in the media sector for over 12 years in an array of roles, including journalist, analyst, editor and executive director. He joined Vitesse in 1997 as a journalist on Growth Company Investor, ascending to the role of editorial director of Vitesse Media Plc by 2000, with responsibility for the delivery of Vitesse’s products across all platforms – online, events and print. Since mid-2006 Vitesse Media Plc has doubled in size, and Leslie has played a significant part in the integration of What Investment (purchased by the company in December 2006) and Information Age (purchased in December 2007). He was appointed to the role of chief operating officer in March 2008.

Kym Kingwill – Finance Director

Kym joined the board of Vitesse Media Plc in 2006 to help develop the appropriate infrastructure needed for a fast-growing business and to assist in delivering a profitable acquisition strategy. Kym qualified as a chartered accountant in New Zealand before travelling to the UK in the 1980s. He has held several finance and commercial director roles in the SME media sector.

Niki Baker – Executive Director

Niki joined Vitesse Media in 2006 as head of the group's expanding events division and has recently been appointed Managing Director (Business). She manages a team of twenty-eight staff, driving revenue for the group’s Business publications. Prior to joining Vitesse Media, she worked her way up to group show director for DMG World Media on events such as the Daily Mail Ski and Snowboard Show and the Daily Mail Ideal Home Show, visited by half a million people.

Chris Broadbent – Sales Director

Chris joined Vitesse Media Plc in 2002. His role includes new business development and leading the 15-strong sales team in London and Birmingham to deliver revenues from a range of options, including sponsorship and advertising. Chris has more than 13 years' commercial experience in media companies. He is currently the chairman of the marketing and recruitment committee for the Quoted Companies Alliance.

Peter Williams – Non-Executive Director

Peter has raised over £13 million of venture capital for companies in which he has been involved. The first firm he founded was listed in the Independent on Sunday 100 as the fastest-growing private company in the UK over the previous five years. He sold the business to Reuters for cash. Today Peter is primarily focused on Myles & Co., specialists in development and implementation of growth and exit strategies for SME’s.

Andrew Brode – Non-Executive Director

Andrew, a chartered accountant, is a former chief executive of Wolters Kluwer (UK) Plc, one of the UK’s largest business-to-business information groups, between 1978 and 1990. In 1990, he led the management buy-out of the Eclipse Group, which was sold to Reed Elsevier in 2000. In 1995, he led the management buy-in of RWS Group Plc, the UK's largest technical translations group. He is also a non-executive director of a number of private equity-financed media companies.

Chris Ingram – Non-Executive Director

Chris is a media entrepreneur with considerable experience of building and managing rapid-growth companies. He has spent his entire 40-year career in the media and marketing communications industry. He is widely regarded as the inventor of the modern media agency. In 2000, Chris was voted Ernst & Young’s London Entrepreneur of the Year and UK Business Services Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2002, with his son, he launched a private equity business, Genesis Investments, specialising in media ownership and content. In July 2003, he acquired three companies in order to launch a strategic consultancy, The Ingram Partnership, specialising in brand building and communications for senior management. Chris is also on the board of the London Business School’s Foundation for Entrepreneurial Management and Centre for Creative Business.

Key members of the management team

Tim Langford – Managing Director (Investment)

Tim joined Vitesse Media in November 2007 when Vitesse acquired Infoconomy, where Tim was managing director and co-founder. Tim has managed and launched technology business magazines internationally for the past 15 years, and also ran a US-based internet business in the US during the ‘dot-com boom’ – a company that is still running today. In 2001, Tim was awarded the prestigious Publisher of the Year (Young Businesses) accolade by the UK Periodical Publishers Association. Until recently, Tim was joint chair of IPAC (the Independent Publishers Advisory Council) and he currently sits on the UK Business Media board.

Darren Griffin – Deputy Managing Director (Investment)

Darren is Deputy Managing Director for the company’s investment products. This includes the award-winning Growth Company Investor and What Investment magazines. He also takes the lead for all events relating to What Investment and special investment-related projects. Prior to joining Vitesse, Darren worked for the Daily Mail Group and Charterhouse Communications

Keiron Root – Deputy Managing Director (Investment) & Editor, What Investment

Keiron has been a financial journalist for 21 years. Currently editor of What Investment, he joined the title in April 1989 and has held an array of senior editorial positions since January 1990. He has written regular investment columns for The Independent and GQ. Keiron was awarded the title of Consumer Financial Journalist of the Year by the Association of Investment Companies in 2005 and 2007.

Jonathan Sumner – Deputy Managing Director (Business) & Online Publisher

Jonathan is the company's online publisher. He has responsibility for delivering the revenue figures for all online activities and is the driving force behind new developments for existing websites and for ideas for new websites. Jonathan has been with Vitesse Media since 2003 and has a degree in marketing from Bournemouth University.

Marc Barber – Deputy Managing Director (Business) & Editor, Business XL

Marc is managing editor of all print and web titles at Vitesse Media, and is also editor of Business XL. Before joining the company in October 2006, he spent three years as editor of The Accountant and International Accounting Bulletin. During that time he also commissioned a number of reports in the financial services sector and co-wrote a report on what the collapse of Arthur Andersen meant for the global accountancy profession.

Michael Beech – Commercial Director, Infomation Age

Michael joined Infoconomy in June 2007 as commercial manager to lead the sales and commercial aspects of the Information Age portfolio. His responsibilities are to lead the sale team to generate revenues online, offline and through the Information Age events programme. Michael started his career in media sales in 1995, and over the years has worked and sold in b2b, consumer, and international markets.

Katrina Neal – Account Director, Information Age

Katrina is account director on Information Age and sells across the portfolio of print, online and events. She has spent over 20 years working in the advertising industry – for the last 15 years she has worked in the b2b IT/ business press working latterly for Ziff Davis & IDG before joining Information Age in 2003.

Ben Brougham – Head of Event Sales

Ben is head of event sales across the Vitesse Media portfolio of events. He has over 12 years' experience in the global publishing and events industries. Before joining Vitesse Media in February 2008 he worked as business development manager at Caspian Publishing and group publisher at Euromoney Institutional Investor.

Martyn Black – Group Sales Manager, Birmingham

Martyn is the group sales manager at Vitesse Media with overall responsibility for M&A Magazine. He served with distinction in the army for 21 years, before moving into media in the 1990s, starting in the regional press with Northcliffe Newspapers and progressing through the group to become senior advertising manager at Euromoney Institutional Investor, working predominantly on business-to-business titles.

Kenny MacIver – Editor, Information Age

Kenny MacIver is editor of Information Age. A writer and analyst on strategic IT in business issues for over 20 years, he was previously editor of US magazine Global Technology Business, a Silicon Valley correspondent for The Times and the founding editor of Computer Business Review.

Patrizia Rossi – Editor, M&A Magazine

Patrizia has been a journalist and editor for ten years, starting out as a national news reporter on The Mexico City Times. She was also editor of the US news-stand magazine, Latino Leaders – a who’s who of high-profile US Hispanics. After returning from overseas, she edited several award-winning b2b, internal and external publications for clients across a number of sectors. At Vitesse Media, Patrizia manages the Birmingham-based editorial operation, which includes M&A magazine and accompanying online products.

James Crux – Editor, Growth Company Investor

James Crux is editor of Growth Company Investor and GrowthCompany.co.uk. He covers a wide range of small-cap companies on both AIM and the Full List. He has been with the team for more than seven years.

Robert Tyerman – News Editor, Growth Company Investor

Robert specialises in mining and insurance stocks. He is the former assistant city editor of the Sunday Telegraph and has been researching small-cap companies for 30 years.

Cathy Humphrey – Financial Controller

Cathy is a qualified chartered management accountant. Her previous experience includes ten years as the finance director of a leading specialist recruitment agency and two years as the finance director of a contract caterer, including facilities management. For the past three years she has worked as the financial controller of Infoconomy, now Information Age Media Ltd. She took over the post as group financial controller in March 2008.

Ellie Weir – Brand Marketing Manager

Ellie joined Vitesse in 2008 from Emap Communications, where she spent two years working on a number of different media titles. Prior to Emap she worked at Cambridge University Press, firstly in the academic books department and finally working for journals. Ellie looks after the brand marketing for the company's publications and events.

Jenna Parker – Events Manager

Jenna's introduction to the media world was working for a marketing company when traveling in Australia. She joined Vitesse Media in July 2006 as an events and marketing assistant and she now manages the events department, covering the operations for all Vitesse Media events.

Neil Purvis – Head of Design & Production

Neill originally trained at commercial typesetting group Progress Graphics, gaining the City and Guilds in pre-printing processes. After this, Neill worked for publishing group Gee Publishing and Lloyd's Register of Shipping. Neill has now been with Vitesse Media for eight years.