Colin has worked in banking and financial institutions for over 35 years. Starting as a trainee at Barclays bank in Park Lane he then worked extensively in the foreign exchange, bond and finance markets in various geographical locations including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, New York and Chicago. He was instrumental in setting up several overseas branches of the National Commercial Bank in the offshore banking sector in Bahrain and then went on to open the New York office in the mid 1980’s before being transferred to London to replicate the process.

In 1988 Colin joined E D & F Man company (Man Group) to head up their non- commodity trading area and was involved in all aspects of Treasury until the flotation of the brokerage unit in the USA during July 2007 where he was part of the senior management team during the IPO.

Colin retired from the City in May 2008 and is an active investor in a range of organisations in technology, media, packaging and logistics, property and various not for profit organisations. He holds numerous Board appointments.

Quentin is a corporate finance lawyer. Having trained with Pinsent Curtis, spent a dozen years in the City (many as a senior partner at Berwin Leighton Paisner) and established his own firm in 2002, specialising in corporate and commercial advisory services for high growth technology businesses, including several that he led through IPOs (one of which successfully transferred from the London market to NASDAQ). He was engaged by Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman as a corporate consultant in its London office from 2004 to 2007 and transferred his firm to Burlingtons Legal LLP in 2012, where he continues as a consultant.

Quentin was also one of two founders of Eurovestech PLC, an early stage technology investment company, which was listed on AIM for over a decade, he remains on the Board. He has a wide range of interests, having trained as a mediator, lectured at CASS and Cranfield School of Management and been an adviser to the Investor Relations Society he has also been a partner in a Far Eastern merchant banking advisory business and introduced a company to AIM and then transitioned it to NASDAQ.

He specialises in advising early stage companies both on aspects of funding and structuring commercial deals, he commonly takes an equity position in the company he advises and sits on their advisory boards.

Robin’s career has been for the most part in management consulting and advisory services (Price Waterhouse, Crane Davies, Penna plc). He has worked for a range of FTSE/International companies:
AT&T, BT, BP, eBay, Goldman Sachs, Diageo, National Grid, Novartis, Standard Life.

His expertise is in change management: from strategy to organisation design to leadership and team development. He has been coaching Executives and Boards for 30 years + and travels globally presenting on leadership and change.

He has over the last 30 years been investing and supporting ‘young’ companies in the technology/software, media/social media, music, professional services and manufacturing sectors. He has also worked with and alongside some of the leading venture capital firms to:
• Improve their approach to evaluating the management capability of potential investee companies
• Work with the CEO’s/Boards of investee companies during the difficult times.

Robin is/has been Chairman of several companies and has been a non-Executive Director on the Board of many: currently TORI Global (IT Professional Services), Eskimo (creative marketing to music and media), Intent HQ (social media marketing and data analytics), westbrook International (Salesforce Platinum Partner for implementation).

Steve started his career with Pinchin Deny & Co a jobbing partnership, moving to Morgan Grenfell as Head of Equity Trading and as a member of the management committee.

He joined County NatWest with responsibilities for building customer and proprietary trading teams.

After six months as a consultant to The London Stock Exchange Steve joined Hoare Govett as a director and was promoted to The Global Equities Directorate as head of equities trading. During this growth phase Steve had periods based in New York Sydney and several European financial centres, building and supporting equity teams and developing client relationships.

Since 1997, Steve has pursued private investments, one being TORI Global, a consultancy specialising in innovation, change and leadership development in the financial services sector, where he was a partner and still remains an active shareholder and advisor on corporate actions (since 2002).

In 2003 he became a Director of Meon Capital and then a director of IAF Securities in Feb 2006 until it ceased trading in 2009. In 2012 he became chairman of the Pallite Company a manufacturing business based in Wellingborough.

Over the last twenty five years, Steve has supported many private companies by assisting them in raising capital through his city network as well as advising on structure. Etc.

Sarie has a degree in English and Italian. Having worked with project teams in a range of multinational and start-up businesses she has developed first class project management, sales and design skills.

Her first project management role was for Regent International helping to develop its first hotel in Milan. She subsequently relocated to London and was appointed by the Four Seasons Hotel group as its group co-ordinator for conferences and incentive plans. Sarie has also worked in an international pharmaceutical business on an Italian merger for a cancer research project.

Taking a "family break", Sarie provided temping services for an office relocation and fitting out service; the family break plan didn't quite work when she was appointed as the company’s design manager!

We are delighted to have tempted her out of “retirement” to work with CQRS.

Jacques has over 25 years’ experience of consulting, technology and business management and is currently the CEO of BQu a business services company based in the UK and Sri Lanka which he founded as well as a partner of TORI, a technology consultancy to financial institutions and a non-executive director of the charity nacue, the national association of college and university entrepreneurs.

Jacques developed leading consulting capabilities and knowledge management capabilities as Vice President of Mercer Management Consulting, Principal of Booz|Allen|Hamilton in the UK, France and USA and as a founding Director of Spicer and Oppenheim Consultants. His focus in was mainly in Financial Services with an additional focus on Investment Banking and Capital Markets

He was also the CEO of Patsystems plc, a leading on-line trading software developer, where he took the company from a 6 man start-up, through a London Main Market flotation; growing it into a £200m market capitalized company in 3 years. Jacques was also a Director of ICL Financial Services in the UK and France. Over the last years Jacques has been involved with over 15 start-ups as founder, mentor or funder.

Jacques has an MA in Physics from Oxford University and an MBA from London Business School and is married with three wonderful daughters.

Sarah has worked in the field of financial regulation for over 25 years, with a focus on investment banking. Latterly, she was European Head of Compliance for MF Global UK Limited and from 2005 to 2010, at BNP Paribas, she held various roles including Deputy Global Head of Investment Banking Compliance; Global Head of Fixed Income Compliance; Regional Head UK/Americas, Investment Banking; and throughout, Head of UK Territory Compliance across Corporate and Investment Banking, Asset Management, Wealth Management and Retail. From 2003 to 2005, Sarah was Global Head of Fixed Income Compliance and Head of UK Compliance at West LB, following her roles at UBS from 1992 to 2002, where she was Global Coordinator for Fixed Income/Commodities Compliance in addition to Head of UK Compliance for Private Banking, On-Exchange Derivatives, and Corporate Banking. Sarah's Compliance experience followed a Head of Operations role, prior to which she worked outside the financial services sector and primarily in the fields of architectural and environmental conservation.

Sarah has had in depth experience of building and managing Compliance teams across different cultures; upgrading Compliance advisory expertise and developing Compliance systems and controls to create a function delivering the identification, measurement, mitigation and management of Compliance Risk; handling regulatory inspections and investigations, including Section 166s; and working through regulatory enforcement proceedings and the wind up of a company under 'Special Administration'. In addition to Sarah's Compliance experience, her involvement in projects to enhance Governance arrangements across a number of firms, in response to regulatory scrutiny, has given her a broad understanding of the potentials for effectiveness through efficient interconnectivity between Risk functions and Management strategies, structures and rewards.

Sarah is married with four children and has helped her husband develop a small holiday letting business in the UK and France.