The Group also announces the appointment of industry heavyweights to support ambitious growth plans.
Today, The Panoply, a technology led consultancy, announces that it had signed binding agreements to acquire Bene Agere, Manifesto Digital, NotBinary and Questers. The four companies to be acquired, all leaders in their respective fields, are entrepreneurial, creative businesses engaged in tech-related consultancy and digital transformation. The acquisitions provide the critical mass required to prepare for an IPO on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.
The Group has appointed Stifel to act as Nomad & Broker to the listing, alongside Smith & Williamson as reporting accountants, Harbottle & Lewis as lawyers and Alma PR to support the IPO.
The Panoply’s initial acquisitions, combined with the IPO, provide the platform for The Panoply to scale rapidly through organic growth and acquisition in line with its stated aspiration to become one of Europe’s largest tech led innovation consultancies.
Neal Gandhi, CEO and co-founder of The Panoply said:
“The Panoply has been created as a new style of services company; one that has been assembled from day one with the demands of the fourth industrial revolution in mind, and one that is able to service the growing technical demands of clients with true innovation, creativity and efficiency.
“It is our intention to continue to acquire businesses across Europe and bolster organic growth, taking advantage of the growing market for digital transformation services, one that IDC predicts will reach $82bn in EMEA by 2021.”
At the same time, The Panoply is pleased to announce a number of key appointments to the team:
Mark Smith joins as Chairman of the Board.
Mark was one of the founding team at Chime Communications plc and was COO at the point at which Chime was bought out for £374m. Mark was instrumental in Chime’s growth having been involved in around 100 M&A deals during his time there. Mark is currently also Chairman of Holiday Extras and a Non- Executive Director at Dods plc.
Isabel Kelly joins as a Non-executive Director.
Isabel joins the board with responsibility for guiding our strategy, specifically to provide strategic direction to our community outreach programme. The programme is designed to find talented young people and encourage them into a career in technology through apprenticeships within group companies. Isabel is also a Resident Expert at the Skoll Centre, Said Business School, Oxford University, where she is researching the organisational structures used by businesses to deliver social impact. In 2002 Marc Benioff, CEO Salesforce.com, hired Isabel to establish the Salesforce.com Foundation internationally. Isabel was at Amnesty International and Oxfam for 12 years prior to joining Salesforce.
Jim Bowes joins as Chief Innovation Officer.
Jim’s role is to be the face of The Panoply brand, representing the company at major conferences, in the press, and online. Jim is also co-founder and CEO of Manifesto Digital, one of The Panoply group companies. Jim currently hosts Alexa Stop! A popular podcast discussing how technology is changing our lives. He is also a presenter of weekly tech show de:code on Hoxton Radio.
Sarah Vick joins as an advisor to group companies.
Sarah is working with Manifesto Digital, NotBinary and Questers providing strategic guidance and helping them to grow. Sarah holds a number of other advisory and non-exec positions. Previously, she was the Group Managing Director for digital agency Reading Room, and a member of the board that sold the business in 2015, after helping it to grow to 250 people. After the sale, Sarah managed the integration with the new owner, Idox PLC.
Kevin Harrington joins as Chief Marketing Officer.
Kevin’s role is to build brand awareness of The Panoply amongst C-suite executives of large corporations. With a marketing career spanning over 30 years, Kevin has held a number of senior marketing roles at Sony, BBC Worldwide, Sodexo and Tungsten Corporation plc.
Diana Hau joins as Group Financial Controller.
Diana’s role is to build and run the control systems for the group as it scales up. Diana comes from a background in audit at Deloitte and strategy consultancy at IBM Global Business Solutions.
Michael Mädel joins as Head of Central Europe.
Michael is leading our growth in Germany, Austria and German speaking Switzerland. Michael was formerly President of Asia Pacific and Middle East for JWT and more recently Chairman of the Supervisory board of Syzergy AG, listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Oliver Rigby, CFO and co-founder of The Panoply said:
“It speaks volumes to the belief in our vision that so many great people have decided to join our team to help the Group reach its true potential. We’re excited about the future and the scale of the opportunity in front of us.”
The company is targeting a listing before the end of 2018.
All companies will now rebrand adding the TPX prefix, so will become TPX Bene Agere, TPX Manifesto, TPX NotBinary and TPX Questers.