The Board

Christopher Samler

Chairman

An entrepreneur and private equity investor with extensive CEO experience primarily in venture funded European healthcare companies.

In 1997, he was appointed Weston Medical Group's first CEO and led it from concept through several rounds of funding to a full UK listing in 2000.  Prior to this he was the inaugural CEO of Imutran, a Cambridge based healthcare company that was subsequently sold to Swiss pharmaceutical multinational, Novartis. Currently Christopher sits on the Board of a number of high growth business service and other companies. 

Christopher holds an MA from the University of Oxford and an MBA from the Harvard Business School and is co-founder of Iceni Capital, the private equity partnership focused on UK service-based growth companies.

Derwyn Jones

Chief Executive Officer

Derwyn has over 20 years experience in the Marketing Services sector initially as a management consultant for BT, where he was responsible for the development of their early CRM programmes.

In 1994 he joined the SITEL Corporation where he held various Sales and Marketing roles in EMEA and the United States.

He joined Dell in 2000 where he was responsible for driving the direct model across 5 Pan European Contact Centres prior to becoming Group MD for Golley Slater, a leading independent Marketing company.

Joanne Shenton

Finance Director

Joanne was appointed The Panther Group's Finance Director in 2008 having previously spent 15 years performing a variety of finance roles in BDO Stoy Hayward.

She is an ACA qualified accountant (Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales) and much of her previous experience has been within the corporate finance team advising on private company transactions. 

In her current role she has overall responsibility for each of the operating companies' finances and the Group's corporate governance.

Karl Holweger

Director

Karl Holweger, CEO of Pell & Bales, has extensive senior management experience within both the commercial and not for profit sectors.

He has been CEO of Pell & Bales since 1997 during which time he has driven the growth and development of the business.

Prior to Pell & Bales, Karl held senior posts within the not for profit sector and spent five years marketing at Proctor & Gamble.

Mike Hough

Director

An entrepreneur and private equity investor. In 1990 he co-founded Altium Capital to provide advice to small and mid-sized companies seeking private equity, recapitalisation funds or an exit.

Altium Capital grew into a leading boutique investment bank for smaller companies with offices across Europe and over 120 employees. He began his investment banking career at Goldman Sachs & Co in New York, before joining Drexel Burnham Lambert in London in 1988.

Mike holds an MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden School and is a fellow of the UK Securities Institute. He is a co-founder of Iceni Capial, the private equity partnership focused on UK service-based growth companies.