Our People

Dave may have started out as an apprentice car mechanic but he’s worked within sales, development, engineering and product delivery at Netcall for more than 25 years. That makes him a full-on legend in these parts. He hasn’t lost that passion for vehicles though. He’s a motorcycle-fiend who grew up dreaming of becoming a pilot. If he were a car, he’d be ‘something Italian’ – fast, passionate and prone to using extravagant hand gestures as a motivational tool.

Richard is our resident sports nut. Having played football and volleyball at a semi-professional level, he now coaches his son’s football team (the mighty Bromham Under 11s), and will happily watch any sport that’s going on TV – except motorsports.

In the rare moments Richard isn’t doing/watching/coaching sport, he loves to settle down with a romcom and a nice glass of red, and regularly hits the music festival circuit. Whether it’s Adele, Stormzy or The Cure, if it’s live, he’s up for it!

Your average platform solution developer faces a lot of tricky problems everyday. But when, like Jared, you’ve faced England rugby legends Owen Farrell and Chris Robshaw in a live tackling demonstration—on national TV—you don’t quite feel as much pressure.

Jared not only coaches the Wimborne U13s (rugby again), but is also a keen gardener, heavy metal head and has long been fascinated by the Roman Empire. We hope to help him achieve his dream of retiring to his favourite place in the world: Florida (bet you didn’t see that coming).

There are only two things you really need to know about Fabio: He’s OBSESSED with Prince and dreamt of watching him play live at his Paisley Park studio – a setlist of Fabio’s choosing, of course. He’s a proud Italian (which you probably should have gathered from name alone). Growing up he wanted to become a professional footballer, and got quite close (it was his complete lack of natural talent that held him back). Football’s loss was our gain.

Like his inspiration, Jack Bauer from the series 24, Ikenna is very good at using his resourcefulness to save the day! Whilst he loves to travel with favourite places being Dubai, Paris and Vietnam, his favourite place in the world is home, because that is where the people who mean the most to him are. Not many people know, but Ikenna is a practicing Christian and his faith, which drives him, is extremely important. Ikenna is all about defying the odds and if he could meet anyone, it would be Barrack Obama for what he has managed to achieve.

German-born, Simpsons-obsessed and with a not-so-secret penchant for Welsh techno, Richard is Netcall’s long-serving CIO – he’s been with us for an impressive 19 years, meaning he’s somewhere between ‘living legend’ and ‘part of the furniture’ around here.

Paul has called on both the Coast Guard and Mountain Rescue services in the last year, so definitely don’t accept his invitation to any outdoor-sy adventures. This sounds remarkable, until you consider that his hero and decision-making inspiration is… Delboy Trotter from Only Fools and Horses. Don’t worry, he doesn’t get a say in the company finances.

As a child, Lewis always wanted to work within the software industry…. no, we don’t understand it either, but we’re glad to have helped him achieve his dream! He’s usually snowed under with the strain, stress…. and of course wonderment of watching his beautiful young daughter grow up, but still finds time for his other passions: gaming and music. All music, that is…except musicals (Disney obviously excluded from that – we’ve all caught him humming ‘Let it Go’ around the office).

Jonathan holds the title of Netcall’s longest serving employee, with more than 28 years service under his belt! He has always been a tech fanatic, at an early age he knew he wanted to be a computer programmer – and now that he’s a grown up he can’t be parted from his Apple tech.

When he is not watching The Mandalorian or keeping ahead of the rapidly changing tech field, Jonathan will probably be planning his next trip to an exotic location, where he will create vlogs about his adventures there.

When Darren isn’t busy reading, gaming, practising archery or watching comedy, he finds time to be a loving father of two. He claims not to have a favourite child, but admits to preferring the one who’s potty-trained. He’s endlessly devoted to his Kindle, and might go full ‘Shining’ if it ever ran out of battery. His favourite place in the world is the same place where he once fell over and broke a front tooth. Nope, doesn’t make sense to us either.

Mark is all action: he’s already completed Lands End to John O’Groats and the National Three Peaks challenge, with Everest in his sights next year. When Mark’s not adventuring, he enjoys cycling.

Maybe it was Yad’s appreciation of all things fast and supercharged that led him to a career in low-code and robotic process automation, as he grew up dreaming of being a pilot and he is a formula 1 fan.

Whilst Yad loves to travel with favourite places being Venice, Singapore, San Francisco and Tokyo, one much-loved place in the UK, is Villa Park and he can’t wait to make use of his season ticket again soon.

Richard once shared a lift with Roger Moore, and a plane with John Hurt… so life’s pretty much been downhill since then. Fortunately he’s had other projects to keep himself entertained. These include building a treehouse for his grand-daughters (he claims it’ll support several adults, but none of us have been brave enough to test the theory), and maintaining a healthy interest in 1960s avant-garde psychedelia. Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, anyone?

This long suffering Spurs fan can be found saving the home from the carnage of two mighty children going bananas, destroying order and peace. When he’s not playing Super Dad, he just loves anything that involves communicating with technology, which took him into marketing. Tommy’s role is to inspire, enable and deliver. Taking inspiration from the Iron Cowboy – 50 ironmans in 50 states in 50 days and Eddie Izzard’s marathon running we see him as a potential ironman in the making – go Tommy!

Adam is 1980’s through and through: he grew up wanting to be David Lightman (Matthew Broderick’s character from 1983 film WarGames), and his favourite TV show is 80’s anime The Mysterious Cities of Gold. 

When not immersed in 80’s nostalgia, Adam enjoys adventure: skiing, sailing, kayaking or being somewhere up the side of a mountain—preferably with a longwave radio for entertainment.

While we can’t quite deliver Lynley’s dream afternoon of sitting by a river listening to jazz, she’s been with Netcall since 2008, so must like something about us! When she’s not busy working on useful business solutions to customer challenges, researching market trends or case studies, she’s outdoors, capturing nature with her camera.

Paul is a film-loving, thrash-metal-obsessed Everton fan (someone has to be!) and a listening volunteer for the Samaritans. What he’s doing at Netcall is anybody’s guess! He interviews bands and presents a weekly podcast for the UK’s biggest metal festival, and once unexpectedly received a signed photograph from the sitting President of the United States of America, complete with a personal handwritten note at the bottom. Weirdly, he won’t tell anyone why.

Although James never quite reached his childhood dream of being an astronaut, he used to play for the Newark Vulcans American Football youth team, which is sort of the next best thing. Maybe not ending up in outer space was for the best, as nowadays James prefers settling down at home with his beloved wife and kids, or settling in for a long night at his equally beloved local.

Simon’s last challenge was riding the ‘Way of the Roses’ coast to coast cycle route from Morecambe to Bridlington in a single day – 242 km in 12 hours and 10 minutes. In another life, Simon is pretty sure he would have spent his time mingling with the best Chefs across the globe and eventually opened his own restaurant.

Volunteering in Uganda and visiting their local hospitals provoked an interest and appreciation of our amazing health service, which drove Clare to work with the NHS and she has been helping Trusts to achieve transformation goals with us since 2005. She fits in adrenaline fuelled challenges, travels and being a gymnastics judge around her busy family life, which is accompanied by a Disney soundtrack. This sounds exhausting to many but Clare completed an MBA whilst on maternity leave, so she takes all of this in her stride!

Jonathan’s childhood dream was to become an actor. Spurred on by superhero Iron Man and all the cool tech devices it was inevitable that he would end up with a career in the tech space. When he’s not saving the world Jonathan can be found chilling on Chesil Beach, Dorset tucking into Phish Food ice cream listening to a bit of Cyprus Hill.

It’s amazing that music nut Jonathan has time to be a Trainer at Netcall, now he’s a (very proud) full-time dad. Something had to give, so he was forced to hang up his decks and retire from his night gig as a DJ, much to the disappointment (or was it relief?) of weddings and dancefloors across the country.

When he’s not working you can find him cooking, reading, cycling or roller skating—in fact, he even recreates some of the roller skating jumps and tricks he used to do as a teenager for his daughter…we’re amazed he’s never broken anything.

The phrase ‘marketing guru’ gets tossed around a lot these days, but it was practically invented for Laura. She has over 20 years’ experience in all aspects of the field (but she still considers her 3-year old son her greatest achievement). Laura loves cooking (read – eating), Game of Thrones and exploring exotic places – or the South Coast, depending on how much time is available.

Sam always wanted to be a computer programmer when he was growing up and did his first work experience for one of the Netcall group of companies during his Uni summer holidays, back in 1997. He made a brief appearance on Blockbusters, but he didn’t quite make it to the Gold Run, so he decided to continue on his path with Netcall and he is now our Development Director.

In his free time, you’ll either find Sam indoors playing some jazz and blues on the piano, or if he’s outside he’ll in his kayak or in his tent somewhere! He also likes to hunt out exotic and beautiful beaches, but Sandbanks makes a great retreat between adventures.

Whilst his boyhood dream was to become a footballer, Martin settled for joining Netcall as his first job and he is putting his immense product knowledge to good use still, several years later! He enjoys spending time at the beach or watching a good box set – a recent favourite was ‘Killing Eve’ (and the many accents of Jodie Comer) and he has also recently run a marathon (but one is enough!).

An avid road cyclist, time trialist, book reader and board game player, Mark’s’ favourite TV show, both as a child an unironically as an adult, is the A-Team. He still proudly owns all the VHS boxsets just without the technology to play them! He returns annually to Thailand for both the weather and food and is semi-fluent in speaking Thai. Depending on the time of day, his favourite musician’s fluctuate between Royce da 5’9” to Willie Nelson.

Ken combines a major passion for the arts (he loves watching theatre, stand-up, opera, modern dance and ballet) with a love of all things sci-fi and fantasy (from fiction, film, TV and not forgetting US comics).

As a child he dreamed of being an astronaut or a professional footballer, but unfortunately didn’t make it further than Star Wars and a season ticket at the MK Stadium. Space’s loss is Netcall’s gain, but Ken has committed to exploring this planet for now, with South Africa, Jordan, Scandinavia and Arizona being favourite destinations so far and a future itinerary which will involve Japan, China and New Zealand.

We’re not saying Mike’s crazy, or that Yorkshire isn’t wonderful, but his favourite place in the world is Hull. Plus, he once dreamt of becoming Chief Cashier at the Bank of England… solely so he could have a famous signature (there are other ways, Mike!). Mike once appeared live on BBC TV Nationwide (yes, that long ago) during the Liverpool University Rag Week and narrated an ode to BBC Rugby League commentator Eddie Waring. Despite a successful career, he insists this moment will remain the crowning glory.