The leaders at UKFast
UKFast's unique quality lies in the strengths that each individual brings to the team. Staff are driven through our core values to be innovative, passionate, supportive, dynamic and professional.
Lawrence Jones - Managing Director
Lawrence co-founded UKFast in 1999, following poor service from his own hosting provider. From the outset the emphasis was on providing a quality product with a customer-focused approach. Since then, UKFast has doubled in size year on year. Under his leadership it now has more than 40 full time employees and 4 highly regarded national awards under its belt.
In 2007, Lawrence won the coveted Institute of Directors title of Young Director of the Year. Not only has he featured on BBC 2 'Working Lunch' as an expert in the hosting field, he was also interviewed on BBC Radio Manchester. Click on the link to see him in action.
Lawrence’s keen business sense has been honed over twenty years. In the 1990's, his business, The Music Design Company, became the largest supplier of corporate entertainments in Greater Manchester and in 1997, the Granada Media Group bought MDC and he became their director of corporate hospitality.
“There is nothing more important than people to build the company, and employing the right people is key. One bad decision can dilute an entire team.”
Have your say on Lawrence's blog at www.lawrencejones.eu.
Gail Jones - Finance and Operations Director
As well as keeping a tight control of all purchasing and budget forcasting in her role as Finance Director, Gail Jones heads up the special projects team that oversees all in-house software that manages the UKFast departments. In addition, she manages the heads of each department. Gail co-founded UKFast with Lawrence in 1999.
Previously, Gail graduated from Newcastle University’s prestigious Sciences Faculty. Through UKFast, she has been able to employ her technical ability and a natural love of communication.
Neil Lathwood - Network Director
When Neil joined UKFast in 2000, he was already a valued member of the Internet’s open source community. Since then, he has been instrumental in developing UKFast’s award winning Linux solutions whilst overseeing the company’s Windows servers as well. Neil has spent 7 years building up a Network infrastructure that has the ability to grow and keep growing.
As a software and hardware developer, he has pioneered some of the most successful innovations in the industry. These include the CP+ Linux Control Panel, safeDNS, the SMS Gateway and the UKFast load balancers.
Jonathan Bowers - Communications Director
In 2004 Jonathan started work at UKFast, with a background in media, his creative flair has helped to build, develop and manage UKFast’s brand and reputation.
As Communications Director Jonathan develops strategic public relations and communications plans for UKFast. He has an extensive overview of businesses on the Internet, due to partnerships that he forges with UKFast's client base. In an industry surrounded by jargon, he works to clearly explain and translate complex technical information delivering UKFast's human touch to the UK business environment. Jonathan is driving the new podcasting and videocasting services of the business and is the voice of the UKFast blog.
Prior to starting work at UKFast, Jonathan spent two years as a broadcast journalist with Independent UK radio and the BBC, followed by two and a half years developing writers on all disciplines for the BBC's New Writing department.
George Frewer- Operations Manager
George joined UKFast in October 2002 as Head of Sales, and is now Operations Manager. Along with Lawrence, Gail and Neil, he is instrumental in the creation of new solutions and a key player in developing and nurturing relationships with prominent clients. With a background in all stages of the sales cycle and a keen analytical eye, George's skills lie in analysing ever changing customer requirements to shape UKFast's solutions and deliver our promise of performance, reliability and care.
Prior to UKFast, George has headed up a call centre environment in London before moving onto Business Development in the creative packaging industry. George graduated from Hull University in 1998 with a degree in Economics and Business Economics.
