Lawrence Jones

Lawrence Jones - Managing Director

Lawrence is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of UKFast. Lawrence holds overall responsibility for running the business, from setting the agenda and overseeing each department to managing the senior staff.

Along with his wife Gail (a co-director), Lawrence set up UKFast in 1999 to fill a gap in the UK hosting sector. Lawrence saw an opportunity to establish his business at the heart of a bourgeoning industry and thanks to his entrepreneurial vision the company has gone from strength to strength, either doubling or coming very close to doubling turnover every year. Lawrence brings 20 years of business acumen to his leadership of UKFast. He started by selling tuck at school, moved onto selling clothes and fashion before establishing Manchester's premier corporate hospitality agency of the 90s.

In 2007, Lawrence won the coveted Institute of Directors title of Young Director of the Year. This year Lawrence was named in Crain's Manchester '40 under 40' and he was a regional finalist in Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Lawrence's philosophy: "Try to be better every day."

Directors

Gail Jones - Finance and Operations Director

Gail is the Co-Founder and Finance Director of UKFast. Her main responsibility is to manage the company's finances. Gail keeps a tight control of all purchasing and oversees every project budget. As Finance Director, Gail is also responsible for payroll. In addition to her primary finance duties, Gail also oversees all internal IT system projects.

Gail has been a Director of UKFast from its beginning. Prior to starting UKFast with husband Lawrence, Gail attended and graduated from Newcastle University's prestigious Sciences Faculty.

Neil Lathwood - Network Director

As Network Director at UKFast, Neil is in charge of delivering all hosting solutions to clients. In this respect he runs the very core of UKFast's business. Neil manages the construction of servers, data centre deployment and all complimentary software creation and implementation.

Neil is also tasked with the extremely important job of ensuring that our clients and the solutions that we manage on their behalf are supported to our award-winning standards 24x7x365.

Furthermore, it is part of Neil's responsibilities to maintain UKFast at the cutting edge of our industry. He ensures that the company continues to grow in regards to our technical abilities and stays ahead of the competition in regards to new technology, services and products.

Neil joined UKFast in 2000, making him one of the early visionaries of the fledgling company. He has 15 years experience in the IT sector, 12 of those for hosting companies, which has made him an expert in many fields of IT, including Cisco Networks, Linux and Windows hosting.

Neil believes helping UKFast to attain its industry leading position by driving growth every one of the eight years that he has been part of the team as his proudest achievement.

Philosophy: 'Technology is nothing without the support team to ensure its success'

Jonathan Bowers - Communications Director

As Communications Director Jonathan develops strategic public relations and communications plans for UKFast. He is responsible for all of UKFast's written and visual content and as a master of many disciplines, he is also heavily involved in training, recruitment and corporate relations.

He has an extensive overview of businesses on the internet, due to partnerships that he forges with UKFast's client base. In an industry surrounded by jargon, he works to clearly explain and translate complex technical information delivering UKFast's human touch to the UK business environment. Jonathan is also the driving force behind the company's podcasting and videocasting services and is the voice of the UKFast blog.

Prior to starting work at UKFast in 2004, Jonathan spent two years as a broadcast journalist with Independent UK radio and the BBC, followed by two and a half years developing writers on all disciplines for the BBC's New Writing department.

Senior Management

Andrew Gibbens - Head of Sales

As Head of Sales at UKFast Andrew is tasked with building and driving a professional sales team which articulates the value of UKFast as a hosting provider. Through regular training workshops, Andrew ensures that his sales team understand the clients' commercial and technical requirements and deliver the solution in a manner which is clear and concise. Andrew says he is building a 'high energy and high performance' sales team which will be the envy of many a hosting company, the thoroughbreds in the industry.

Andrew brings over 10 years of experience in sales management and business development in telecommunications, networking and internet related products and services to UKFast. He has built up very successful sales teams both in the UK and USA and his personal sales strategies have delivered major deals everywhere he has been. In his previous position as head of sales at Rackspace, Andrew was instrumental in increasing the US company's European sales from £5m to £60m in just three years.

Philosophies: 'Go that extra yard', 'Aim for excellence'

Neil Clarke - Director of Operations

Neil is UKFast's Operations Director. Within this role Neil is responsible for maximising office efficiency and leading staff development events. To achieve this Neil oversees, plans, briefs and directs day-to-day procedures and processes from sale of solutions to deployment. He also reviews and improves the UKFast training programme and is in charge of team building training at the company's Snowdon outdoor activity centre.

Neil arrived at UKFast in September 2008, fresh from a nine year stint in the British Army. It was while in the Army that Neil honed his leadership, organisation and training skills. He severed in various countries with both the Royal Regiment of Artillery and later the 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery before spending two years as an instructor at Sandhurst. Before joining the Army, Neil graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 1999 with a degree in IT and Biology.

Neil strongly agrees with UKFast MD Lawrence Jones' belief that it is the people that make a company successful. Through his time in the British Army, Neil developed a strong passion for working with people to improve their skill set and ability to excel. Now he has brought that passion to UKFast, where he plans to play an integral part in helping the company to enhance even further its award-winning customer service provision.

Philosophies: 'Keep it simple' and 'Never take the easy option'.

Kerry Gill - Company Accountant

Kerry became a member of the UKFast team in the summer of 2008. As Company Accountant, Kerry is tasked with maximising return from all areas of the business. Kerry's expertise ensures UKFast's stability and viability for the long term. So with Kerry at the accounting helm, UKFast clients can be assured that their hosting provider is going to be there for them.

Before joining the company Kerry served as Commercial Financial Controller of SurfControl plc, she was an integral part of the finance team during the company's listing on the London Stock Exchange. During her time there the company grew from just 30 people to employing over 500, with profitable annual billings exceeding $100 million.

Kerry qualified as a chartered management accountant in 2001 and acquired an MBA with the Manchester Business School in December 2007.

Natalie Lewis - HR Manager

Natalie is our Human Resources Manager. Chief among her responsibilities are recruiting new staff and carrying out appraisals for current employees. With regard to each of these tasks Natalie has implemented formal procedures to maximise efficiency and best practice. In addition to her main roles, Natalie also takes on the important roles of ensuring office harmony on the top floor of City Tower and supporting staff with their day to day well being.

In addition to her official CIPD Human Resources qualification, Natalie has four year experience in the HR field to draw upon when going about her UKFast responsibilities. And since starting with the company in March 2008, she had been extremely busy overseeing a period of intense recruitment to complement rapid business growth. UKFast now has over 70 staff and it has been down to Natalie to ensure that each of the new recruits met UKFast's exacting standards.

Natalie's enthusiasm for taking on the role of HR manger at UKFast comes from what she describes as a shared philosophy with the company. UKFast looks for more than excellence in its potential staff, it also requires compatibility, and Natalie whole-heartedly agrees that the blend must be right to achieve success.

Philosophy: 'The right blend of product, employee and environment offers a winning edge'

Graeme Hastings - Business Development Manager

Graeme is UKFast's Business Development Manager. In his position Graeme is focused on bringing new clients to UKFast's portfolio and adding value for existing clients.

Specialising in UKFast's web programme, Graeme heads a team that provides expert advice and services helping clients to understand the potential of their online presence. Concentrating on return on investment, he works with clients in all industries who want to place the internet at the heart of their business and reap the rewards.

Videos

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In this section of the Leadership pages you will be able to see our senior managers talking about various issues to do with our business arena, the working environment and wider issues.

In our first video, UKFast managing director Lawrence Jones talks to our communications director Jonathan Bowers about how the company has grown into the UK's leading hosting provider and why all businesses should in this day and age be thinking about an online presence.

Awards

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UKFast's success comes from a blend of Lawrence Jones' entrepreneurial vision and the dedicated hard work of all the staff. We are proud that these two unique UKFast ingredients have been recognised several times in the awards that we have won.

Lawrence Jones - a winner in business

UKFast founder and managing director Lawrence Jones has received a number of honours in his career to date.

In 2007, Lawrence was named the Institute of Directors' Manchester Young Director of the Year, a very prestigious title within the UK business sector. Lawrence was also named a finalist in the EN Technology Entrepreneur award and a finalist in 2008's high profile Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year contest.

Furthermore, Lawrence has been recognised in two prestigious lists of the UK's top business minds. Earlier this year he was names in Crain's Manchester Business' '40 under 40', a list of the top 40 entrepreneurs under the age of 40. The Crain's accolade came hot on the heels of being named in Business Insider's '42 under 42'.

UKFast - a rewarding commitment to client servicing

We know that there are many companies out there offering hosting solutions and that it is a competitive marketplace. So we recognise that to stand out UKFast needs to be the best and needs to offer something that our competitors just don't have.

What makes UKFast stand out is our excellence in client services. We are dedicated to providing comprehensive support that eclipses anything our rivals have to offer and we have won the awards to prove it.

We have won the Internet Service Provider Association's 'Best Hosting Provider' award for the last four years consecutively. The ISPAs are the pinnacle of hosting industry awards and we are extremely proud to be the first company to win four years straight as it is a testimony to our ongoing commitment to our clients. Watch the video above to get a flavour of the 2008 awards ceremony.

In addition to our ISPAs success, UKFast has been named Manchester Evening News Business of the Year in 2008. Competing in 'one of the strongest fields in the event's history', we were delighted to win at a gala ceremony in early November.

UKFast's growth as a business has also been recognised by inclusion in the Deloitte Fast 50 showing business expansion over a five year period of 894%, while our innovative use of technology has placed the company as the only hosting provider in the international InfoWorld 100 list.

Furthermore, UKFast has been rated top for network availability and performance by Webperf, 2007 Best Dedicated Host by TopHosts.com and No.1 for Dedicated Web Hosting by visitors to Web Host Directory.

In addition, in May 2008 UKFast was a finalist in the Big Chip awards' Big Green Award for our environmentally friendly Ecoservers.