Value Creation in Information Services 2024

Jim launched Plural Strategy in 2014. He has worked in the information industries for over 20 years, both as a consultant and in industry. Jim has advised many of the leading global players in b2b information, data and analytics, media and marketing services, and software. He helps clients with growth strategy, performance improvement, digital transformation and acquisition, and has supported private equity clients on some of the pre-eminent deals in the sector.

He is also a member of the Plural band!

Rory started his career with Metal Bulletin and went on to work at a range of business information companies - MEED, Risk Waters and Incisive Media. He left corporate life during the financial crash of 2008 and co-founded his own business. In 2012 Rory led the management buy-in of media assets from UBM in a private equity supported deal. The business then morphed over the course of the next 10 years to focus on providing market data and prices for the agricultural commodity and food sector. Over 2 further cycles of private equity backing AgriBriefing acquired businesses in France, the US, South America and Asia to become the pre-eminent provider of data for this sector. AgriBriefing was sold in a highly competitive process to the Five Arrows / Synova backed business, Mintec in 2023.
Rory is now pursuing a plural career of advisory and non-executive positions alongside angel investments, primarily in the media, data, information and events sectors. He is Non-Executive Chair of scale up financial information business, Realfin.

Jonathan has over 15 years’ experience advising corporate and private equity clients covering the intersection of information, media, marketing and technology sectors in London, New York and Hong Kong.

He leads client engagements, ensuring that the team addresses the key strategic issues facing our clients.

Jonathan holds a BSc in Management from the University of Warwick.

Outside of work, you can find Jonathan in the kitchen cooking!

Spencer has been the Chief Executive of Mintec since 2018. Focusing on strategy Spencer leads the development of the business into becoming the World’s #1 agri food PRA and intelligence company. Spencer has a background in business intelligence, commodities and finance having worked at companies such as Fastmarkets, Datamonitor and Viant Capital, although he started his early career in book publishing in London before moving to San Francisco where he worked in software start-ups. His particular passion is trying to perfect the company’s recurring revenue subscription business model, but also spends a lot of time in product development and data, especially around the company’s price benchmarks which underpin so many of the food industry’s contract negotiations.
Spencer is married to Loraine and has two children, Oliver, and Tristan. They live in Berkshire, England.

Media and information services executive focusing on the future of transportation.

I have been an entrepreneur for almost three decades.

My career started as a business school teacher more than 25 years ago, and I continued that passion, honing my skills as I led Melcrum from very humble beginnings to a leader in the industry, providing thought leadership and services to the top Internal Communication leaders and organizations around the globe.

I have a belief that, when you unleash the full potential of people, extraordinary things happen. That belief is what continues my determination to elevate the communications profession as a critical driver of superior performance.

I also help B2B businesses develop new strategies to scale and develop.

Catherine joined Plural from Landmark Information Group, where she was Director of Strategic Innovation. Prior to Landmark, Catherine was a strategy and M&A consultant supporting clients in the B2B information and media industries.

Catherine has a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.

Outside of work, you will find Catherine keeping up with her two young children or running by the river close to home.

Gehan is an entrepreneur and investor who specialises in using data and analytics to help businesspeople make better decisions. He is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Ishka (ishkaglobal.com) which provides data, analytics, advice and events to the global aviation finance community.

He also holds several non-executive chairman roles on both sides of the Atlantic. He works closely with management teams to transform traditional media/database businesses into high value analytics companies. He chaired strong exits for Smart Analyst (US and India based pharmaceutical research), AgriBriefing (UK headquartered agriculture pricing and data) and OAG (UK headquartered global flight information, intelligence and analytics).

Previously Gehan co-founded and ran several venture and private equity backed businesses including Ascend (aviation data), Hoovers Online (company information), eccelerate.com (trust and workflow software) and Cognizant Technology Solutions (IT services); all of which made strong trade or public market exits.

Gehan was born and raised in Sri Lanka, educated in the US, and lives in London and Cape Town. He chronicles his travels on MartiniMandate.com.

Francesco is a visionary intrapreneur with over 15 years of experience in steering product development and commercialization across a spectrum of industries. His role as a transformational leader has catalyzed business acceleration for Fortune 200 brands across the globe. Francesco's expertise spans product management, marketing, and technology, underpinning his success in building and nurturing high-caliber teams across Europe, Asia, and the United States.
Francesco's early work in artificial intelligence, especially its use in legal practices while he was reading law, laid the foundation for his innovative career. Presently, as the Global Chief Marketing Officer at S&P Global Ratings, he is instrumental in enhancing the company's brand presence, amplifying content and solution awareness, and stimulating demand.
Francesco's career is adorned with digital milestones that have pivoted major brands to the forefront of their industries. Noteworthy achievements include the launch of Vodafone's inaugural self-care mobile application MyVodafone and the deployment of a pioneering real-time dynamic pricing algorithm on Acer's e-commerce platform. His tenure at JLL was marked by a remarkable revenue surge—from doubling it to over $16 billion within seven years—attributable to his strategic overhaul in sales, marketing, and digital product spheres, emphasizing change management and people development.
Beyond the professional world, Francesco resides in West London, where he indulges in his passions for the culinary arts, aviation, and hiking, enriching his personal and professional life with diverse perspectives and experiences.

I have worked in technology for over twenty years and during that time I have specialised in trading, credit and risk. I formed CubeLogic with a former colleague to focus on delivering a next generation suite of risk solutions for trading and risk using the latest Business Intelligence (BI) platform. BI, and Cubes in particular, can transform how we manage data, delivering flexibility and real-time performance in place of traditional batch-based approaches. Combining BI with an in-depth domain knowledge in Risk, CubeLogic delivers off the shelf applications in BI for immediate business benefit for front, middle and back office departments in Trading Organisations.

Over 16 years of CEO experience; proven executive and leader within global business to business publishing and education markets. A strong strategic thinker, with an excellent track record of value creation in mature and high growth markets. Highly experienced in the development and implementation of customer-centred change management programmes. Successful in client relationship building and business development; operates at executive level in client (private and government) organisations.

Bart has a MScBA Finance & Investments from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and a BSc Economics from Fontys University of Applied Sciences.

Phil is a founding Partner at Plural. He is a highly experienced strategy consultant with deep expertise in media, events, and agribusiness.

He is also a member of Plural’s running club!

Tara is a Partner in the Genesis fund, specialising in the global B2B data & analytics, regulatory compliance and information services sectors.
With over 20 years in investment banking, she was previously a Managing Director in the Technology team at Houlihan Lokey, and prior to that she worked at Quayle Munro and Citigroup.

Charlie Kerr is the chief executive officer of With Intelligence, a company he co- founded over 25 years ago. He recently spearheaded an overhaul of With’s strategy, transforming it from a traditional B2B media business into a leading provider of data and intelligence for the global investment management industry. What began in 1998 as Pageant Media, with one magazine and a staff comprising just Charlie and co-founder Seb Timpson, by 2004 had reached £1 million in revenue.
It was during the financial crisis of 2007-2009, however, that the company’s growth really took off. While other businesses were cutting costs, Pageant decided to invest. Through a series of new events, especially in the hedge fund space, the company accelerated its expansion, eventually reaching £10m in revenue by 2014. It was also around this time that Charlie began shifting Pageant’s focus away from news to insight-enriched data. This data offering, along with a line-up of exclusive events for investors, laid the groundwork for the recently rebranded With Intelligence – a fully global company with over 550 employees dedicated to its core mission: connecting investors and investment managers to the contacts and data they need to raise and allocate assets across all major asset classes.

François Cazor is co-founder and CEO of Kpler, the leading provider of data and analytics in commodity markets. After graduating as an engineer in Paris, Cazor started his career in the banking sector (HSBC) as a fixed income trader.

Raju has served as CEO at Fastmarkets since 2006 and has spearheaded a significant transformation for the company, overseeing its evolution from a 100-year old print publication to a globally recognized price reporting agency (PRA) data business. He began his career in the business as a commodities economist in 1995 and was a member of the Executive Committee of Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC from 2006 to 2022, following its acquisition of the Fastmarkets business (then known as Metal Bulletin).

In 2022, Fastmarkets underwent a transition to private ownership by Astorg as part of a Public to Private transaction of Euromoney PLC. Raju has played a leading role in the separation and carve-out process from the parent company, which is scheduled to be successfully completed this summer.

Raju was born in Hong Kong before moving to the UK to continue his education. He started his career within the commodities market at Rio Tinto Alcan. He holds a degree in Economics and Finance from the London School of Economics.