Investors :: Directors' biographies

Sir Rodney Walker, , Chairman
Sir Rodney is the former Chairman of both Sport England and UK Sport. He is currently Chairman of Empire Interactive plc, Healthcare Communications plc and a number of private companies. He was Chairman of Brands Hatch Leisure plc and for a time Chairman of 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games and Wembley National Stadium. He is also currently President or Chairman of a number of national and local charities. He was awarded an Honorary degree by the University of Bradford in 1996 in recognition of his service to the County of West Yorkshire. He became Chairman of Spice in August 2002.

Simon Rigby, , Chief Executive Officer
Simon graduated from Hull University in 1983 and joined the then Yorkshire Electricity Board with whom he qualified as a Certified Accountant in 1987. He went on to run a number of Internal Service Providers to Yorkshire Electricity, including Management Services, Transport, Catering Services and Information Technology Development. Following its privatisation Yorkshire Electricity Group plc had a major drive to outsource non-core operations. Simon worked on a number of these projects. As a result of there being no obvious external service provider for buildings and grounds maintenance services, Simon spotted the market opportunity to form Freedom Maintenance. Accordingly, he led the management buy-out of the Freedom Maintenance business in 1996 from Yorkshire Electricity. Simon has been Chief Executive of Spice since its formation and has been instrumental in its growth by the development of other niche outsourcing operations as well as complementary acquisitions. In 2000 Simon was awarded an Honorary Masters Degree in Business Administration.

John Taylor, , Non-Executive Director
John is a Chartered Engineer with more than 30 years’ experience in the water industry. He has held a number of posts at director level in operations and capital investment management and as the Director of Water Services was a member of Yorkshire Water Services’ Board. Since 1995, he has worked as an independent consultant for a number of international technical and management consultants on projects in Africa, America and Europe. John is a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management and a Member of the Energy Institute. He has been a Non-Executive director of Spice since February 1998. John is Chairman of Spice's remuneration committee.

Michael Shallow, , Non-Executive Director
Michael is a Chartered Accountant and currently a Non-Executive director and Chairman of the audit committee of Britvic plc and Domino's Pizza UK & IRL plc. He was appointed to the Board of Spice in September 2006 and also as Chairman of the audit committee. Between 1991 and 2005, Michael was finance director of Greene King plc and prior to this held senior positions with Accenture and Woolworth.

Tim Huddart, , Non-Executive Director
Tim was appointed as a Non-Executive Director, shortly after the end of the financial year, on 24 May 2007. He is Chairman of the Group's Nominations Committee and a member of Spice's Audit and Remuneration Committees. Tim has significant experience of advising major FTSE companies having been Managing Director and Head of EMEA Debt and Equity Research at Merrill Lynch until 2002. Prior to this he was Director of Sales at Credit Lyonnais and before that Citigroup. He is senior partner of H2Glenfern Limited, an advice based management consultancy.

Oliver Lightowlers, , Group Finance Director
Oliver is a chartered accountant having qualified with Coopers & Lybrand in 1998. He is a graduate of UMIST, where he gained a degree in management sciences. Oliver joined Spice, as Group Financial Controller and Company Secretary in December 2002, from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he had worked as a senior manager, servicing a portfolio of blue chip businesses. Oliver was appointed as Group Finance Director in May 2005.

Andrew Catchpole, 59, Group Strategy and Development Director
Andy is the Managing Director of Spice's Electricity business and was appointed to the Spice board in December 2007. Born in Suffolk, Andy attended College at Havering and Norwich City. He started his career as an apprentice at Eastern Electricity and held several positions with the company prior to privatisation of the industry. After privatisation Andy held a number of senior positions within Eastern Electricity, The Energy Group & TXU Europe and as the Network Asset Management Director at 24/7, which was a Joint Venture between Eastern & London Electricity. In 2001 Andy became the Managing Director of Lamva Ltd, a Stowmarket based Civil & Electrical Engineering Company, which subsequently became one of the fastest growing engineering companies in the UK; recognised by the award of Virgin Atlantic and Financial Times Fast Track 100. In 2005 Lamva Ltd was acquired by the Freedom Group of which Andy became Group Managing Director.