Our Directors

Geoff Shingles CBE - Executive Chairman

Prior to joining Celebrus Technologies Geoff had over 40 years of multi-national experience, all gained in a high technology, rapid growth environment.  The first part of his career was spent at Digital Equipment Co. Limited. He held board level positions from 1968 onwards, was Corporate Vice President for European Operations and later managed Digital’s business in 13 European countries.  From 1983 until 1993, he was Chief Executive and Chairman of Digital Equipment Co. Limited, with turnover in excess of £1 billion.

Geoff Shingles was awarded the CBE for Services to Information Technology in 1987 after a quarter of a century in the IT industry. He is recognised as one of its founders.

Geoff's present positions include Chairman of Imagination Technologies Group PLC- a London Stock Exchange listed semiconductor design company, Chairman of Sarantel, an AIM listed  producer of high frequency antennas, and Chairman of Prevx, a company with advanced new technology in internet security.

Since leaving Digital he has been involved in several successful trade sales including the highly valued trade sales of uDate and Gatton Consulting. He was a director and investor in these businesses.

Jeremy Barker - Non-executive Director

Jeremy was co-applicant for Celebrus Technologies' patents on its underlying technology in his initial role as CTO.

For three years prior to joining Celebrus Technologies, Jeremy managed the Customer Briefing Centre in Geneva for Sun Microsystems. It was during this period that Jeremy recognised Java's potential as a powerful systems programming tool for network applications.

Prior to this, Jeremy managed the Customer Benchmarking center for Digital Equipment Company in the UK for five years. Here he was responsible for the load testing of large enterprise scale systems including VAX Clusters and networks. This included the development and deployment of tools for the whole of the load testing, measurement, monitoring, reporting cycle. Prior to working for Digital, Jeremy worked for a Digital OEM as systems programer.

Today, in addition to his role with Celebrus Technologies, Jeremy is also a founder and director of SilentKnight Technologies Ltd (Insider Threat and Data Leakage management) and Flintrock Ltd (software development and systems performance consulting).

Trevor Hope - Non-executive Director

Trevor Hope is the Chief Investment Officer of the transatlantic venture capital firm ‘Beringea LLP’.

During his 14 year venture capital career he has invested in over 60 fast growing companies in the technology, media, leisure, retail and manufacturing sectors, having worked with companies in the UK and USA.

Trevor currently holds a number of Non Executive Directorships including;

Fjordnet Ltd – Fjord is a cross platform digital design agency serving clients such as Nokia, BBC and Yahoo via its 128 employees in London, Berlin, Helsinki, New York and Madrid offices.

SPC International Ltd – SPC provides support for electronic and computer hardware. It has 205 employees in its UK, French, Slovakian, Thai and Indian facilities.

Steak Ltd – Steak is a full service digital agency with 80 employees in its London, Melbourne and New York offices.

Think Ltd – Think is a strategic digital agency serving clients such as Blackberry, Northern Rock, BUPA and the BBC from its offices in Newcastle and London.

Paul Klinger - Non-executive Director & General Counsel

Paul has a long career history as a solicitor who specialised in computer law from the beginning, back in 1977. He qualified as a lawyer after first spending five years with Burroughs Machines as a systems analyst. He took his law degree at Leicester University and was articled to the County Secretary at Leicestershire County Council.

After four years as UK Legal Counsel at Digital Equipment Paul moved to the private sector and established a specialist computer law practice in 1981. His clients have ranged from start-ups to established companies across the computer and telecommunications sectors, including Sun Microsystems, Telematics International, Virtual Access, Aspective, Autofile, ComponentSource, Cray Systems, Centerprise International and Test Solutions.

In 1995 and until the end of 2000 Paul took up the position of Director of Legal Services for Silicon Graphics EMEA, leading a legal team with offices in the UK, France, Germany and Switzerland and dealing with external counsel in most EMEA countries. He is also experienced in the US approach to legal matters and has visited there frequently.

Paul’s extensive legal experience embraces all aspects of computer contracting, international transactions, general commercial and corporate law, commercial litigation and employment law.

Paul is the co-author of a book, ‘Drafting and Negotiating Computer Contracts’, an established reference work on this subject which has been published in two editions by Butterworths and Tottel.

John Lythall - Non-executive Director

As well as being a non-executive director of Celebrus Technologies John is also the Managing Director of AIM listed IS Solutions Plc., a systems integrator specialising in web based Analytics,  ‘Line of Business’ web applications and managed services. 

John co-founded  IS Solutions in 1985, building up the company and taking it to the AIM market in 1997, moving up to the main board of the LSE in 2000 and back again to AIM in 2008.

Prior to this,  John was Managing Director of Hawke Electronics, a company formed from a  management buyout from its American parent company which subsequently resulted in a successful trade sale, before leaving to start IS Solutions.

Before moving into general management John was a ‘backroom boy’ involved in R&D of hardware and software within the computer industry.

Ian Taylor - Non-executive Director

Ian Taylor was a founder non-executive director of the company in 1999.  He is also Chairman of Living PlanIT SA and his non-executive directorships include Next Fifteen Communications Group plc and STFC.

Ian was a Member of the UK Parliament for 23 years until standing down at the May 2010 General Election. He was Minister for Science and Technology at the Department of Trade and Industry during 1994 - 1997 in a Conservative Government, and subsequently chaired the All-Party Parliamentary and Scientific Committee and the Space Committee as well as being an officer of PITCOM and the European Information Society Group (Eurim).

Prior to entering Parliament in 1987, Ian had 18 years experience of providing corporate finance and management advice to companies in the UK, France and USA.