Neil Stephenson – Chief Executive Officer
Neil Stephenson has been with the Onyx Group for the past 14 years and has played an integral part of the growth of the company from Internet start up to National IT Services company. Neil graduated from the University of Sunderland with a degree in Computers in 1993 and started work as a marketing executive at Vaux Breweries that same year.
In January 1996, Neil become marketing manager at Onyx, which was at the time a fledgling start up Internet company. His career progressed quickly with promotions to operations manager 1999, and then group sales & marketing director in 2001 before becoming CEO in early 2007. During his time at Onyx, Neil has been instrumental in the growth of the business.
He has been involved in two separate management buy outs, the first in 2001, the second in 2006. Neil was also part of the team that built out and launched the groups Data Centres and Workplace Recovery Centres and was involved in the acquisition of Scottish companies Campbell Lee and Dundas IT in 2008 and London based Moffat Communications in 2009. Neil was a regional winner of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2009 and was presented with the Alumini achievement award from Sunderland University in 2009. Neil was the winner of the Tees Valley Business Executive of the Year in 2009 and a regional finalist in the same. Neil has helped to mentor many Northern technology businesses as well as supporting the embryonic Digital City project in Teesside. He was listed in the top 500 most influential people in the North East last year and is a member of the CBI regional Council and the NTI board.
Alastair Waite – Director
Since moving from accountancy to technology many years ago, Alastair Waite’s career has gone from strength to strength, as CEO of the North East’s leading Internet services company.
Alastair trained as an accountant and started work at Safeway as a management accountant in 1978. Alastair’s next move was to Bede plc, before moving to Onyx Internet in 1999. Alastair led the MBO at Onyx Internet in December 2001 and has remained an influential force in the growth of the company ever since becoming the CEO in 1999 and steering the company through the successful launch of DataBanx in 2004 and acquisition of Askaris in 2005. He has also been instrumental in the recent acquisitions of leading Scottish companies Campbell Lee and Dundas IT.
He was also instrumental in the group restructure completed in May 2006, which saw the Onyx Group take the first step towards a planned flotation on the AIM within the next three years. To aid in this process in July 2007 Alastair changed his role to focus on acquisitions, financing and strategic development.
Tim Clark - Financial Director
Tim Clark is a chartered accountant training with Price Waterhouse. Tim has over 15 years experience of senior finance positions in manufacturing and consultancy sector roles.Tim joined Onyx in August 2005 with the direct responsibility of providing the group with the key financial support needed to take the business forward.Tim was recently awarded the Financial Director of the Year runner-up award at the prestigious North East Accountancy Awards.
Nigel Hedley – Managing Director of Services
Nigel has 20 years experience in most aspects of technology, consultancy, software, e-commerce and business systems. In sales and sales management, Nigel secured some of the largest private sector outsourcing contracts for Sema (now Atos Origin), covering data centre, business process and application management, network integrity and security, and complex ERP integration.
Nigel’s career rapidly developed into strategy and general management, and he was one of the key individuals behind the turnaround to flotation of Azur, now Maxima. This included driving value and profitable growth through business systems, network integrity and security, consulting, application management and outsourcing.
Hugh Gillen - Managing Director of Infrastructure
Hugh Gillen has 20 years Information Technology experience in a wide variety of roles. Hugh graduated 1989 and started work as a Computer Operator/Programmer that same year with Wilson Sporting Goods. In 1992, Hugh left Wilson to become a dedicated programmer at Peak Systems, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of healthcare software solutions. His career progressed quickly with promotion to Programming manager, before moving to textiles company Baird Clothing in 1994 where he was involved in migrating legacy applications, infrastructure and communications to a new Data Centre build in Glasgow, Scotland.In 1998, Hugh moved to Campbell Lee Group, who took over the Glasgow Data Centre from Baird Clothing. With the help of the Group, Campbell Lee Internet Solutions Ltd was formed in January 2000 and Hugh became responsible for delivering Data Centre and ISP services to the Scottish Market place.
After steering the company through a number of successful years, Hugh was appointed MD at Campbell Lee Internet Solutions Ltd and tasked with growing the business to become Scotland’s leading supplier of Business Continuity, Workplace Recovery and High Availability services. Since being acquired by Onyx Group, Hugh’s results and determination to succeed have seen him appointed as MD for Infrastructure. Hugh’s goal is to help Onyx Group become the UK’s outstanding supplier for Cloud and Managed Services, whilst using technology to improve resilience, performance and profitability for your business.
