Ali is the founder and CEO of itim and has spent over thirty years working in various capacities in the retail industry. Having graduated from Cambridge University he joined IBM where he spent five years as a database specialist; in 1982 he started Inforem, a systems design and integration company, which had a strong focus in retail. He subsequently spent two years as a director of CSC after its acquisition of Inforem. After leaving CSC, Ali started itim as a consulting company and worked as a business transformation specialist within the retail sector with companies such as Woolworths, Booker, Burger King, Marks & Spencer, Homebase and B&Q. In 1999, itim started its move into developing technology solutions and Ali then built the Company into what it is today.
Ian is a Chartered Accountant and was appointed as Chief Financial Officer in October 2006. He qualified in 1989 before joining Coopers & Lybrand and has since held roles with AT&T and Standard & Poor’s, heading up the finance function in Europe. In his recent career, Ian has been responsible for funding growth and startup businesses in the technology sector in both AIM quoted and private environments.
Sandra joined itim in 2008 as General Manager for Iberia and Latin America. She brings more than 15 years’ experience in margin optimisation through pricing and promotions and consultative selling of information technology solutions for the retailer community. In addition to her management responsibility for company leadership, she also manages the development and nurturing of itim’s optimisation suite – Profimetrics.
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Michael studied law at Cambridge University and qualified as a chartered accountant with Coopers and Lybrand before spending five years in marketing for various US multinational technology companies. He went on to found Elderstreet Investments Limited in 1990 and is its executive chairman. For the past 25 years, he has specialised in raising finance and investing in the smaller companies sector. Michael is former chairman of PartyGaming plc, Computer Software Group, Planit Holdings and until August 2006 was chairman of FTSE100 company, The Sage Group plc, where he was a board director for 23 years. He is also a director and investor in many other quoted and unquoted companies including Netcall plc and Access Intelligence.
Justin is also a Non-Executive Director of Marks & Spencer plc and serves on the Public Interest Body for PwC. He was Vice Chairman of Terra Firma until May 2021, where he acted as an adviser to the General Partner. Prior to this, Justin was the CEO of Sainsbury’s between 2004 and 2014, where he led the business through a major turnaround which led to nine years of profit growth.
Before joining Sainsbury’s, Justin was Head of Food at Marks & Spencer where he was one of the pioneers of the development of the Simply Food business.
Justin is an operational leader with over 30 years of experience at leading customer-facing businesses, including Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer, Asda, Häagen Dazs, PepsiCo and Mars. During his 10 years as CEO of FTSE 100 retailer, J Sainsbury plc, he led the turnaround of the iconic UK brand, trebling profits and delivering a total shareholder return of 85 per cent.
Bob joined itim as Operations Director in January 2009 having previously sat on itim’s Board as a non-executive Director for a number of years. Bob’s experience in IT spans over 30 years with many large multi-national companies. He has been the Chief Information Office at GrandMet Retailing (pubs and gastro-pubs), Pearle Vision (spectacles retailing, Burger King Corp., IMS Health (pharmaceutical information services), ACNeilson Corporation (consumer packaged goods information services) and currently CoreLogic Inc. (property information services).
Lee is currently the CFO at Seraphine. Previously, Lee was CFO at French Connection joining in April 2016 from ASOS, the global online fashion destination, where he was Director of Finance. Prior to that, he was CFO of the WorldStores and Kiddicare businesses and Head of Financial Planning and Analysis at BrightHouse Group Plc. He spent the majority of the earlier part of his career at Wm. Morrison Supermarkets Plc and Kingfisher Plc in various senior finance roles. He also spent 4 years working for PwC Consulting with Retail assignments in the UK, US and Central Europe. Lee has amassed a wealth of UK and international retail experience, in both traditional multisite operations but also, importantly, online. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
Damian Hopkins CBE, is a respected, and highly accomplished entrepreneur and business leader who has operated within the global retail, brands and licensing industry for over 25 years, having founded, built, and sold three successful businesses in the sector.
His career encompasses manufacturing, wholesale, retail, licensing, international franchising, and eCommerce, with a proven track record of launching, repositioning, and transforming consumer and celebrity brands.
His work has generated over £1bn in retail revenue and has been recognised via business awards in the fields of licensing, retail, and fashion supply.
Damian is currently the Chair of Ambassadors of The Retail Trust Charity, founded in 1832, supporting the health, hope, happiness and well-being of British retail workers.
Additionally, Damian is the President of The Twenty Club, an exclusive retail dining club, established in 1897, supporting retail fellowship for senior retail brand owners and execs.
Chris has been a passionate supporter, advocate and champion of UK retail across his entire career. Prior to joining the Retail Trust as CEO, Chris was the Managing Director and Senior VP of Retail Week and the World Retail Congress. Chris led these brands, as editor in chief or more recently as MD & SVP for ten years, transforming the business from a weekly print title, into a digital-first information and global events brand. Earlier, Chris was a pioneer in the age of digital information, launching his first online news service in 1999 for the FMCG sector. Chris is a passionate campaigner for the positive impact of retail on the UK economy as well as a leader in the fight for diversity in business.
Jamie has been a founder, an employee and advisor to in retail and technology for over 30 years. Prior to joining Retail Trust as Managing Director, Jamie launched moonpig.com as Marketing Director, co-founded a B2B technology marketing agency, co-founded an independent group of garden centres, was the CMO at Nectar and the European B2B Marketing Director at Samsung. Since his first Saturday job working at WH Smith retail has been a big part of Jamie’s life and adopted tech in his own retail businesses early on. Jamie consults to businesses primarily to reposition them for scale and growth.
Simon joined itim at the start of 2018 as UK Managing Director. Simon brings more than 25 years experience of omni-channel retail software and services. His experience includes 10 years at Javelin Group building and leading the technology practice, leading IBM’s European Commerce software and services business, leading Alvarez and Marsal’s EMEA Retail Practice.
Simon was one of the eCommerce pioneers, having first led the build of online channels for stores retailers in the late 1990s. Since then, he has helped many of the UKs leading retailers drive customer led omni-channel transformations. He is an expert in retail omni-channel strategy, operational and financial performance improvement and digital transformation. Clients have included Tesco, Asda, Argos, B&Q, Screwfix, The Entertainer, M&S, Burberry, New Look, Clarks, JD Williams, Co-op, H&M, Ikea and many others. Simon has also worked with international retailers across Europe and the Middle East.
Simon joined itim to accelerate business growth through sales of our market leading omni-channel retail platform and to build the capabilities required to deliver the transformations retailers are looking for based on that platform.
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