Leadership

The Board of Directors at Dotdigital bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the senior governance of the business. They are key drivers behind the company's corporate goals and growth strategy.

Executive
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Milan Patel FCCA ACA BFP
Chief Executive Officer

Milan joined the Group in 2007 and was appointed Group Company Secretary in 2009, CFO in 2015 and CEO in 2016. Milan is a fellow member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). He has been responsible for the Group’s admission to ISDX (now Aquis - AQSE) and the Group’s listing onto AIM.

Milan was responsible for the Group’s functions in financial management and reporting, regulatory compliance, legal and corporate governance prior to being made permanent CEO of the Group over seven years ago. He also brings substantial strategic financial and commercial experience to the Board. As well as financial acumen, he has developed a broad range of operational competencies, a grasp of and execution of strategic objectives, clear leadership, international business development, mergers and acquisitions and strong decisive management skills.

Milan is responsible for leading the executive team, its vision, and the growth strategy for the business. More specifically Milan is leading our international growth strategy, accelerated product innovation, developing strategic partnerships and executing on the acquisition strategy. He has a strong track record of delivery of performance against plan through the life of the company on the public markets.

Executive
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Alistair Gurney FCA
Chief Financial Officer

Alistair joined the board on 19 September 2022 as CFO, bringing experience of senior finance leadership roles in international technology businesses. At Dotdigital he leads the finance and legal teams and uses his experience to improve productivity and accelerate growth through sound commercial and strategic decisions. Alistair also plays a leading role in driving the Group’s M&A programme.

He was previously at Unit4 Business Software, where he revised the Group’s management reporting and business partnering processes. Additionally, he led the financial due diligence process in Advent’s sale of the business to TAAssociates and Partners Group.

Previously he held a Finance Director role and led the Group Commercial Finance team at Iris Software Group, having supported the sale of the group in 2018.

Alistair is a Chartered Accountant (FCA ICAEW), having trained in Deloitte’s corporate finance practice, working primarily on financial restructuring projects.

Non-executive
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John Conoley
Non-Executive Chairman

John was appointed as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board on 5 July 2022, following the resignation of the previous Non-Executive Chairman. He brings significant executive and non-executive Board-level experience of both fully-listed and AIM-quoted businesses.

He began his career in the IT industry with IBM in 1983 where he worked in a range of industries in technical, sales and marketing roles. Since then, John has held general management and director-level roles in small and medium-sized private and public companies. Recent public company roles include Chief Executive Officer of Psion PLC, the fully-listed international mobile device company, from April 2008 to October 2012 when it was acquired by Motorola; Non-Executive Director of Net Dimensions (Holdings) Limited, the AIM-quoted human capital management software company, from October 2016 to April 2017 when it acquired by Learning Technologies plc.

In addition he was Non-Executive Chairman of Wameja Limited, the AIM and ASX quoted innovative mobile financial services company that was acquired by Mastercard in 2021. He was Executive Chairman of the AIM-listed Fire Angel Safety Technology Group PLC until June 2023.

Non-executive
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Boris Huard
Non-Executive Director

Boris joined the Board on 26 March 2019 and is the EMEA Managing Director for GBG Plc, bringing present day experience of running software, big data and analytics businessestopics of key importance to Dotdigital.

Boris joined GBG in 2020, having previously held roles in the technology industry for 20 years, ranging from divisional Managing Director at Logica, Board Director with Maxima Plc, Chief Executive at Sword CT Space and UK & I Executive Board at Experian.

During those years, he delivered sustainable organic growth and executed bolt-on acquisitions. From turnaround to successful public to public exit transactions, Boris drove performance through hands-on P&L management, international business development, cross-continents operations, mergers and acquisitions and company restructurings and integrations.

Non-executive
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Elizabeth (Liz) Richards ACA
Non-Executive Director

Liz joined the Board on 1 May 2020 andalso chairs the Audit Committee. She is a highly experienced executive and Non-Executive Director with a career spanning the Financial Services, Data and Software sectors. After an early career with Lloyds Bank, Liz qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young.

Liz was Chief Financial Officer for Callcredit (now Transunion), a successful consumer data business, where as a founder member, she oversaw its rapid growth from start-up in 2000 to a £150m revenue business by 2015. During that period, she was instrumental inthe purchase and integration of several successful acquisitions and has end-to-end experience of significant private equity and trade corporate transactions.

Liz is also currently a Non-Executive Director and Audit Committee Chairat Tracsis plc, an AIM-listed software business in the transportation sector. She is also a Trustee and Chair of Finance and Investment for Yorkshire Cancer Research. Previous NED and Audit Chair roles have included LINK Scheme, the ATM operator, and Leeds Trinity University.

She brings experience of high-growth acquisitive business, and financial, audit and governance expertise to the Board at Dotdigital.