Chief Executive Officer: John Goold, 53, qualified as a chartered accountant in London with Touche Ross in 1996 before a 25 year career in the City raising growth capital and advising small and mid cap companies. John initially started in corporate finance before moving into equity sales and corporate broking where he spent most of his career. During his career, John has helped raise over £5.0 billion for his clients much of which was while he was Chief Executive of Zeus from 2012 to 2021.

Chief Investment Officer: Jamie Brooke, 53, has over 25 years investment experience and has been a director on over 20 company boards. He was formerly lead fund manager for the Hanover Catalyst Fund. Prior to this, he spent 12 years with the top-rated Volantis team, specialising in strategic and active UK small cap equity investing, where he was lead fund manager for the Volantis Catalyst Funds and led the team’s corporate engagement strategy. Earlier experience was gained at 3i and Quester in private equity, after qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte. Jamie read Maths at Oxford University and is currently NED at Oryx International Growth Fund Ltd, Chapel Down Group plc and Flowtech Fluidpower plc.3

Orchard Funding Company, a finance company specialising in the insurance premium finance market, has been listed on AIM since 2015. It has been profitable and paid dividends in each year of its listing.

Rabinder (“Ravi”) Singh Takhar, Chief executive officer.

Mr Ravi Takhar has over 30 years’ experience in the management, acquisition, growth, financing and disposal of financial businesses. Mr Takhar joined Bexhill UK Limited in 2002 and has led the growth of its business to its current size. Prior to creating the group, Ravi was an investment banker and head of Financial Services investment at Nikko, the Japanese investment bank, from 1998 to 2002 as well as chairman of Mortgages PLC, the mortgage lender. Mr Takhar was also head of Mortgage Principal Finance at Investec Bank PLC from 2005 to 2008. He qualified as a banking solicitor at Clifford Chance, a leading international law firm, and has an MA from the University of Oxford. Mr Takhar is also a published author with his banking regulation book “How to Build a Bank".

Eleco plc is an AIM-listed (AIM: ELCO) specialist international provider of software and related services to the built environment through its operating brands Elecosoft, BestOutcome, PEMAC, Vertical Digital and Veeuze from centres of excellence in the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Australia and the USA.

The Company’s software solutions are trusted by international customers and used throughout the building lifecycle from early planning and design stages to construction, interior fit out, asset management and facilities management to support project management, estimation, visualisation, Building Information Modelling (BIM) and property management.

The Group’s strategy is to build on its established and leading position in the built environment through a combination of organic and inorganic growth. Executing on the strategy involves meeting the increasing challenges of companies in the construction and built environment sectors who are moving towards digitalisation and more efficient and sustainable building methodologies. Eleco’s software is crucial in improving decision-making, driving productivity and better planning of resources. Operating in such an attractive expanding market gives the Group an excellent opportunity to leverage its market position, strengthen its platform and drive organic growth.

Eleco’s vision is to create certainty for the built environment by being the trusted technology partner to all stakeholders, which is especially important in sustaining its growth ambitions in the current economic climate.

Jonathan Hunter BBus. BMm.

Chief Executive Officer

Jonathan was appointed Chief Executive Officer in September 2020 following three years as Chief Operating Officer with the Group, and is responsible for implementing the Group’s strategy. Having joined the Board in June 2016, he played a fundamental role in the transition to a software group during and post divestment of the Building Systems division and has been at the forefront of the Group’s M&A and integration activity since the  commencement of his directorship.

Jonathan holds bachelor’s degrees in Business Management and Multimedia from Griffith University, Australia and as well as attending relevant professional training and coaching, he continues to be involved in growth company roundtables and forums as a member of Criticaleye.

Neil Pritchard FCA BSc (Hons)

Chief Financial Officer

Appointed to the Board in October 2022, Neil brings a wealth of international public company experience in technology driven businesses to the Board.

Neil has previously been Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Executive Director at Corero Network Security plc, a global leader in real-time, high-performance, automatic DDoS cyber defence solutions and, prior to this Group Financial Director and Executive Director at London listed technology business CML Microsystems plc Group, and Finance Director of the UK and Eire division of the DAX-listed group Continental AG. Neil also held senior financial positions with quoted companies Delta plc Group, now Valmont Industries, and Yule Catto & Co plc, renamed to Synthomer plc Group. Neil has successfully conducted many merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions throughout his career.

Neil is a qualified chartered accountant, holding an FCA, having spent six years with KPMG London in audit, treasury and forensic transaction services (TS) for M&A transaction roles. He holds an Economics and Politics degree from the University of Bath, UK.

BASH is an acronym for Buy, Avoid, Sell and Hold a share in a company to be discussed during each panel.