Governance & Trustees

Chairman and Honorary Treasurer

Paul Taylor joined StartUp Croydon as a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer in August 2021.

A Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and a founding partner of Kingsmill Partnership (now part of DSK) he brings financial expertise as well as knowledge of owner-managed businesses and start-ups.

Paul sold his interest in KMP in 2018 and now works with a select group of personal clients and start-ups.

Trustee

John Walsham is a Business Development Consultant who has worked in many sectors with businesses of all sizes providing advice and support, including helping them secure funding.

John likes to get to know the business he is working with in detail and then help the owners to realise their ambition, including growth, acquisition, disposal or exit.

Trustee

With 42 years’ service at HSBC as Commercial Bank Manager, Richard is now retired but actively assisting StartUp Croydon as a Trustee/Director since 2011 in his capacity as mentor and 1-2-1 advisor on the Building Business Horizons programme.

Trustee

Geraldine is a lawyer with over 15 years’ experience, both in private practice and as an in-house lawyer, working with personal injury and industrial disease claims, as well as advising on health and safety issues.

More recently, Geraldine has been handling dispute and regulatory matters on behalf of the Port of London Authority, the body responsible for the running and protection of 95 tidal miles of the River Thames.

Trustee

Siff Siff has over 12 years’ experience overseeing client relationships across the Financial Services sector, responsible for ensuring that value is consistently added for their clients and that relationships are mutually beneficial.

Siff’s contribution to our charity centres around volunteer management as Siff will be the first port of call for any volunteers committing their time to work with our fledgling Startups.

Trustee

Lisa McCance joined StartUp Croydon when she was working for Croydon Council Economic Development as a representative and is now part of a consultancy company, Shared Intelligence, working on economic development policy and strategy.

She is also a National Enterprise Network Director, lobbying for BEIS and SME support.

Her contribution as a Trustee encompasses all areas of her expertise together with funding opportunities.

Trustee

Georgina is a Founder and Director of GGT Solutions, a business consultancy delivering enterprise training across various sectors. As a business, they have written, developed and delivered numerous successful programmes across a breadth of industries and sectors.

Georgina is a hands-on trustee whose advice and support influence our program of support, helping to keep it current and relevant to the local areas needs.

Trustee

Co-founder and director of White Label Creative and is an alumnus of our training courses. Jo works closely with our service users to deliver training on Marketing coming from the perspective of a new startup with restricted funds rather than a Marketeer.

Jo’s knowledge and experience in developing her own PR and Marketing agency bring first-hand expertise to our board which in turn influences our programmes of support.

Trustee

As a Partner of Stiles Harold Williams, Richard Plant is very well known in the local business community and, as well as being a Board member of StartUp Croydon, he is also Chair of Develop Croydon.

Richard deals with property identification, building advice, speaking to our licensees with regard to move-on space, and workshops/talks on property matters.

Trustee

Carrie is the Principal of LSBU Business School Croydon. She joined the Croydon campus before it opened to start up this new Business School division, but has been with LSBU Business School for 18 years. Carrie’s mathematical and coaching backgrounds complement her Business School experience.

Through our partnership to complement one another’s services, Carrie joins our board to drive constant communication to help both organisations deliver excellent services for our borough.

Trustee

Dee Miller is an experienced business consultant as well as a Croydon resident. He has a passion for social enterprise and is switched on to new marketing practices. He looks forward to helping us evolve our programmes to reach s younger audience.

Dee is the founder of SIEGE, a business development, strategy and problem-solving consultancy. SIEGE is dedicated to solving private and public sector problems in design, technology and social. He has overseen key projects with the NHS, Universal Music, Warner Music, Wedlake Bell and many more.

Trustee

Mark Burgess is head of commercial banking at NatWest. He brings knowledge and connections to help our startups find funding to grow their business.

Mark’s special interest is around digital growth having worked with previous SAAS companies and contributed direction enabling significant investment via VC investment as well as advice around exiting. Mark’s contribution will enable us to advise on next steps when closing investment rounds.