Carl Leaver

Carl Leaver is Chairman of Lebara, a telecommunications company controlled by private equity firms Alchemy and Triton, and Chairman of TopHat Enterprises, a manufacturer and developer of modular housing majority-owned by Goldman Sachs. He was previously Chairman of Eircom Group in Ireland, which he helped to sell in April 2018, and Carluccio’s.

Carl’s most recent executive role was as Group Chief Executive of Gala Coral, where he led a turnaround of the business before merging with Ladbrokes plc in November 2017, delivering substantial returns for its private equity shareholders. Subsequent to the merger, as Executive Deputy Chairman, he took responsibility for integrating the two businesses realising cost synergies of over £160m per annum, before negotiating headline terms for the sale of the combined business to GVC plc as he left the Company.

Prior to Gala Coral, Carl was Director of International, Home and Direct at Marks & Spencer, CEO of De Vere Group plc and Managing Director of Travel Inn, now Premier Inn. Before this, he held a number of positions in the hotel industry and traded equity derivatives at Nomura, having started his career on the Mars graduate programme.