Charles Fairbairn

Charles is a Non-Executive Director of the Company and investor. He is currently the senior independent director of Plus500 a FTSE 250 company that has grown over tenfold in the past five years. He has held similar positions for a number of publicly traded companies over the past 20 years including Research Now Ltd, the online research company of which he was a founder investor, Statpro Group plc, providing analytics for asset managers, and Brightview plc, an internet service provider. Charles graduated from Durham University with a BA (Hons) in Economics in 1983 and then qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte Haskins & Sells in London in 1986. Having spent seven years at Deloitte Haskins & Sells, he joined Pearson Plc in 1990 as group accountant, group chief accountant and latterly finance director of Pearson New Entertainment, a start-up division. Over the following 20 years, since leaving Pearson New Entertainment in 1998, he has held a number of positions as chairman, finance director, executive and non-executive director of a portfolio of companies, helping to develop and scale growth companies from start-ups into global companies. Charles is an active investor in growth companies and reviews new business and turnaround opportunities, exposing him to a multitude of sectors and business models.