Michael Tobin

Michael joined the Board and became Chairman in September 2015. Michael chairs the Board’s remuneration and nomination committees and is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee.

Michael is a highly successful serial technology entrepreneur & pioneer with over 30 years’ experience in the telecoms & technology sector.

As Chief Executive, Michael Tobin OBE led Telecity Group plc, a leading FTSE250 Technology company from 2002 to 2015.

He joined Redbus in 2002 delisting it from the main market to AIM, & then took it private, winning the London Business Awards “Business Turnaround of the Year” award in 2005. After engineering the merger with Telecity he successfully re-listed Telecity Group in October 2007 winning the accolade of UK Innovation Awards IPO of the year 2008 & the techMARK Achievement of the year in the same year. Subsequently he grew the business from £6m market cap in 2002 to being a top performer in the FTSE250 worth over £2bn, being recognised as Britain’s Most admired Tech Company in 2012.

Prior to joining Telecity Group, Michael headed-up Fujitsu’s e-Commerce operations in Frankfurt, Germany. Before that, he ran ICL’s Danish outsourcing subsidiary out of Copenhagen Denmark. He also held several senior positions based in Paris for over 11 years including Business Development Director at International Computer Group coordinating global distribution of IT infrastructure. As a Non Exec Director, Tobin was instrumental in transforming PACNET in Hong Kong from a Sub Sea Cable operator to a successful Datacenter operator culminating in its sale in 2015 to Telstra for $800m

Michael holds a number of non-executive and Chairmanship roles including EdgeConneX, Audioboom, Ultraleap, Pulsant, NorthC Datacenters, Everarc PLC, Sungard Availability Services, DC Byte, Instrumental, ScaleUp Group UK. LeaseWeb and The Lewis Moody Foundation where he is Ambassador.

He was named ‘UK IT Services Entrepreneur of the Year’ by Ernst & Young in 2009, 2010 & 2011; PWC Tech CEO of the Year 2007; London Chamber of Commerce ‘Business Person of the Year’ for 2009 and 2010; In 2009 was named techMARK ‘Personality of the Year’; In 2007 and 2009 he was the winner of the DCE Outstanding Leader of the Year, and in 2008 won ‘Data Centre Business Person of the Year’ at the Data Centre Leaders awards. He was awarded ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Industry’ at the Data Centre Europe awards and in 2011 received a Lifetime Achievement Award for services to the industry. In 2005 he was named number 31 of Britain’s Top 50 Entrepreneurs and in 2014 he was honoured in the Queens New Years Honours List with the Order of the British Empire medal for Services to the Digital Economy.