Chief Executive Officer, Richard Vertigan:

A graduate of Leeds Metropolitan University, I started out as a project-based Quantity Surveyor in the construction sector. In 1992 my role evolved into the implementing of Building Information Modeling (BIM) on live projects. Eight years implementing BIM followed between 1992 and 1999 which cemented my view that there are a number of fundamental pre-requisites to make BIM a success.

Integrated project teams, aligned objectives and technology solutions that transcend organisational boundaries are all key ingredients within the construction sector but I quickly recognised that internally focused IT solutions often didn’t meet the real needs of project teams.

In 2000, I founded 4Projects - a business dedicated to supporting web-based project information management across project teams. In 2010, 4Projects celebrated ten years of achievement. Our business is proud to host millions of drawings, documents, RFIs, instructions, submittals and all the myriad of information created during the development of tens of thousands of projects.

These projects include sports stadia (e.g.2012 Olympic Games stadium in London), power stations, wind farms, commercial office developments, retail property portfolios, schools, hospitals, rail projects and the like – all benefiting from our web-based team collaboration solution.

I’m really looking forward to the next ten years, further developing 4Projects across the Middle East, the United States and Canada. We are also busy exploring new sectors which could benefit from 4Projects collaboration such as the retail and asset management sectors.

In 2009, alongside our CFO Steve Nelson, I was a winner at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, an accolade that we dedicated to the first class team we have at 4Projects.

Chief Financial Officer, Chris Baty

After completing a master’s degree in Physics at both Manchester University and Université Libre de Bruxelles in 1994, I went on to qualify as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse (now PwC).

During my time at Price Waterhouse I worked in both the Newcastle and Paris offices. I worked with a number of high profile clients including Sage, Tesco and Schlumberger, mainly managing audits, conducting due diligence, and assessing management controls.

In 1998, after a successful period working with PwC I moved to the head office of Kvaerner PLC as a Group Accountant where I gained invaluable experience of financial reporting and budgeting in a PLC environment.

In 2000 I got the opportunity to move to Biomni as Financial Controller where I received my first taste of the fast paced world of eCommerce and Software Development. In 2001 I was promoted to Financial Director enabling me to help steer the company through a number of rounds of funding, reorganisations, an acquisition, and international expansion.

Whilst at Biomni I took the opportunity to study Financial Strategy at Oxford University which has helped me to lead the way in facilitating development throughout the business. After over 10 years at Biomni I felt it was time for a new challenge.

4Projects is one of the most dynamic and fastest developing software businesses in the market and as such I was delighted to be offered the role of Chief Financial Officer at the end of 2010. Given 4Projects recent international growth, and the consistent commitment to product development, I already know this will be an exciting and interesting role and can’t wait to get my teeth in to developing the financial strategy for 2011 and beyond.

Senior Vice President Global Sales, Jason Warde:

I joined 4Projects in 2005 and brought with me over ten years experience in sales management, focusing specifically in technology- related businesses. After eleven years in the Armed Forces, specialising in Voice and Data Communications, I decided to take my management and technical skills into the commercial world.

In the past, I have recruited and developed successful sales teams to deliver quality services to major blue chip clients within the telecoms, banking and finance, manufacturing, construction and energy sectors throughout the UK and Asia Pacific.

My role at 4Projects encompasses all sales globally which includes our operations in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Canada and USA at present. In all locations, our deep understanding of the business technology needs of our key market sectors helps our clients improve business performance and project delivery through the delivery of tailored and innovative solutions.

Vice President of Sales UK and Europe, Steve Spark:

With a Business Management degree from Leeds University, I put strong interpersonal skills and good all round business knowledge to the test during my early career as a key Account Manager for both Railtrack and Ford. I joined 4Projects in 2006 as an Account Manager having spent three years as business development manager at Newcastle United FC.

In 2010, I was appointed Vice President of Sales UK and Europe and am responsible for the retention and development of all existing accounts and new business development. I head up the internal and external sales teams focusing on customer retention as well as new business conversion. As more organisations in both the public and private sectors are recognising ‘cloud computing’ and the benefits of collaborative technology solutions in meeting their business needs, we are leading the way in driving through change as experts in the field.

As 4Projects continues to grow at an incredible rate, we have successfully taken our collaborative solution into the energy and retail sectors and are looking forward to continued year-on-year growth.

Chief Technology Officer, Andy Ward:

After a Micro-Electronics & Software Engineering degree at Newcastle University, I began my career as an Analyst Programmer at Spark Response developing systems for the likes of British Airways, Harrods and PowerGen. In 2000, shortly after its inception, I joined 4Projects, where I architected the original 4Projects solution, and subsequently lead the team developing the software that forms the basis of today’s collaboration product.

 

After five years at the company I moved to Edenbrook Consulting where I was engaged on a number of software development projects for national banking and insurance firms. Subsequently I moved to Sage to manage development teams producing enterprise-class financial products, during which time I established myself as a specialist in agile software development.

 

I returned to 4Projects at the end of 2010 as Chief Technology Officer. I have responsibility for anything technical, from development of new functionality to maintaining the current applications and the hardware. I ensure technical decisions made within my team are in the best interest of our customers, the product and are in line with business strategy, while protecting the integrity of our single instance multi-tenant software model.

Vice President Infrastructure, Mike Metcalf:

As an IT graduate from the University of Sunderland my IT career began in a division of the Cooperative group 14 years ago. I followed the traditional route, starting out in desktop support and over the next 9 years moved onwards and upwards to system administration, networking, design, databases and more than a few other roles in between. I was always the ‘go-to’ guy in the IT department and generally had a queue of people requiring assistance every day.

I joined the 4Projects team in 2004 as Database Administrator. Since that time there have been a great many other challenges and the system has gone from strength to strength, growing in what seems to be an almost exponential manner. I have continued to progress as the business has grown taking on additional responsibilities along the way. I was made a Vice President in 2010.

My role at 4Projects includes security, hosting, capacity planning, performance, trouble shooting and disaster recovery. In a nutshell, I make sure our clients’ data remains secure and look after anything relating to IT except writing code. Amongst other things I am also a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH).

My role presents me with a great number of diverse challenges; thankfully, I have the sort of personality that thrives on this sort of thing and treat every challenge as an opportunity to grow in understanding and experience.

Non-Executive Director, Steve Nelson:

I’m an Economics and Statistics graduate from the University of Salford, and a Chartered Accountant. My early career days were spent in the accounting profession with Arthur Andersen (now Deloitte) and Price Waterhouse (now PwC), before a move into the software sector beckoned, to one of my clients, The Sage Group PLC.

Over the next five years, I worked for Sage as Group Financial Controller, temporary UK Finance Director and finally as Corporate Development Manager, responsible for acquisitions and disposals. In 1999, I became Group Finance Director at QSP PLC, where I spent two years, before leaving to join the 4Projects Board which at the time, was part of the Leighton Group.

During the last decade, my role at 4Projects and roles within several other innovative, customer-focused SaaS businesses, have seen me witness how collaborative solutions have shaped a number of key sectors.  I’ve been fortunate to be part of an industry that has proved a breeding ground for the development of innovative technologies.  4Projects is at the vanguard of those technologies and has proved revolutionary in our client’s delivery process, enabling them to task, discuss, disseminate and control their activities through to project fulfillment.

In 2009, alongside our CEO Richard Vertigan, I was a winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, an accolade that we dedicated to the first class team we have at 4Projects. In 2010, I was given the accolade of “Outstanding Finance Director” in the Directorbank / Grant Thornton national review.

In January 2011 I took the decision to  step down as CFO and become a Non-Executive Director. Although my role has changed I will still be actively working with 4Projects on corporate strategy and specific high value projects for the business.