Board
John Cronin is a seasoned and successful professional. He has been instrumental in mergers & acquisitions worldwide, raised equity, debt facility and vendor financing funding between $50m and $900m and set up operations in international markets. In addition he has created significant value for shareholders with 4 Company exits in Picochip, Azure Solutions, i2 and Netsource Europe totalling $600m.
John's contribution to high-tech industries includes being Chairman, CEO, NED, or adviser to Antenova, GCI Com, Aria networks, Picochip, Arqiva, i2, Cambridge Networks, Kast, Azure, Next2Friends, Bailey Fisher, Netsource, Mercury (C&W), BT and direct to private equity and VC firms.
A highly successful Chairman, CEO and MD in International markets (Europe, Americas, SE. Asia) in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications sector including, Smart Metering, IT Software companies, OSS, Infrastructure, Hardware, Broadcast, Telecommunications, Utilities, Hosting and Managed Services, John Cronin joined the board in March 2012 initially as a non-executive director, with a view to taking over from John Read as Executive Chairman following the Company's AGM in May 2012.
Dr John Read is an experienced manager with a record of developing profitable high-tech semiconductor businesses. In the late 1990s he was a director of GEC Plessey Semiconductors and joint president of GPS Inc. In California. Since then he has been involved with a number of fabless startups: he was a director of Alphamosaic Limited (which was sold to Broadcom Europe Limited), and served on the board of Anadigm Limited from 2000 to 2003. He is an active mentor for the Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre and for SETSquared in Surrey. Other positions held include technical director of Texas Instruments in the UK, technical director at STC Telecommunications, and director of engineering at Honeywell's Solid State Electronics in Minnesota. Dr Read is a director of the semiconductor company Si-Light Technologies Limited and a director of Iceni Advisory Limited. He became a Director of Cyan in November 2005 and was appointed Chairman in October 2007.
Simon joined the board in March 2010. He is an experienced financial executive with over twenty years' experience in the semiconductor and technology sectors. He is currently an independent adviser to both start-up and listed technology companies providing a range of assistance including fund raising, business planning and contract negotiation.
Prior to establishing himself as an independent adviser in 2007, Simon held the position of Chief Financial Officer/Director of Finance at multi-national businesses in both the UK and USA since 1997 and his experiences include multiple business acquisitions/disposals, fund raising, business planning, cash management and customer contract negotiation.
Before 1997, Simon was a Management Consultant in both the UK and USA where he managed a team of consultants on multiple implementations of ERP systems. Simon qualified with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales in 1991.
Roles of the Board Members
John Read is currently holding the position of Executive Chairman and Simon Smith is an independent non-executive director with responsibility for ensuring that the financial performance of the Company is properly reported upon and monitored, and considering reports from the auditors relating to accounts and internal control-systems. John Cronin is currently a non-executive director, however will take over the role of Executive Chairman from Dr Read at the Company's AGM in May 2012. They all have responsibility for reviewing the performance of and setting the compensation of the directors. Non-Executive Directors do not have any day to day involvement in the running of the business.
John Read chairs the nominations and remuneration committees and Simon Smith chairs the audit committee. All three directors are members of all three committees.
The Company is in the process of recruiting a further non-executive director in line with corporate governance best practice.