Richard Muirhead

Richard Muirhead is an Australian-British technologist, Internet entrepreneur, investor and bitcoin pioneer. He was Main Board Director, Chairman of Compensation Committee and Interim CEO of Automic Software, an international enterprise and IT software company and Managing Partner of Firestartr.co, a Europe-focused seed acceleration platform with over 40 portfolio companies including AdBrain, ClusterHQ, Rightster and YoYo. He co-founded and was Senior Vice President of Orchestream which IPO'd in 2000 attaining a market cap of $1.4Bn and whose product is now successfully sold by Oracle. In 2002, he was founder, CEO & chairman of Tideway which he sold to BMC in 2009 giving them today’s market-leading 'real-time CMS' product.

Early Life and Education

Richard Muirhead was born on 24 January 1972 and was brought up in both Adelaide, Australia until 1979. His parents moved to England and lived next to the entrepreneur & inventor Sir Clive Sinclair who is most commonly known for his work in consumer electronics in the late 1970s and early 1980. Richard picked-up his first home computer directly from him the SinclairZ81 in 1981. Richard graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge University where he graduated with a Master of Arts with Honours in Engineering.

Career

Richard Muirhead interned as a trainee mechanical engineer at Lotus, using Finite Element Analysis for test-bedding the Corvette engine and working on the design of the electronic variable-timing camshaft. During his time at Cambridge University, Richard also interned at McLaren Cars working as a composite design engineer. He designed the structure of chassis and the body for components of McLaren F1 Sports Car as well as manufacturing process design. In his final year as a student he worked in Dubai at Gulf Eternit Industries, a pipe manufacturer, where he was a Production Engineer, initiating and formulating the redesign of Management Information Systems. Upon graduation he founded his own technology companies.

Monitor (now Monitor Deloitte)

Upon graduation in 1994, Richard served as a strategy consultant at Monitor, a multinational management practice, setting up the Moscow office and executing a wide range of projects in France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, Serbia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia. This work built on Richard’s Russian language studies and participation in the first non-lingual exchange between the UK and the Soviet Union for the Maths-Physics Summer Olympiad of 1988. Monitor was acquired by Deloitte in 2013.

Orchestream (now Oracle)

In 1996, Richard Muirhead co-founded Orchestream with his brother Charlie Muirhead and was senior vice president. He held a number of roles from Product Concept Origination to Mergers & Acquisition encompassing Corporate Strategy, Marketing & Product Management, Alliance Development and Technical Services. He initiated the strategy shift that propelled the company to a NASDAQ listing in April 2001, adding to its LSE listing in 2000, attaining a market cap of $1.4Bn and whose product was sold to Oracle . Orchestream has been since developed and re-marketed as Oracle Communications IP Service Activator.

Accel Partners, Entrepreneur in Residence

In 2001-2002, Muirhead was Entrepreneur in Residence at the inception of Accel Partners London office. He held a dual role during the establishment of their European office and investment portfolio : working on the Development of individual business proposition for potential investment and Accel European entry – evaluation of new business plans; sourcing of new projects and hires; development of entrepreneur network within Europe; advice on development of their investment strategy.

Tideways Systems Ltd (now BMC)

In 2002, Richard Muirhead founded, was chairman and CEO of Tideways Systems Ltd. an IT Discovery platform recognised as a market-leading product by Gartner. Richard originated the product concept, conducted primary market research, hired the management team and lead the company to exit. He redesigned and built a distribution model in face of collapse of financial services sector. Tideways had hundreds of successful engagements including worlds largest deployments with marquee clients including JPMorgan Chase, Apple and Inland Revenue. Tideway raised $35m in investment raised from angels, Accel Partners, Apax Partners and SEP. The Company was valued at $110m October 2007 on $20m annual revenues and had a Highly Successful exit to BMC Software in October 2009.

Fanatix

In 2009, Richard co-Founded Fanatix with his brother William Muirhead. Richard was appointed Chairman in November 2009 at time and repositioned it from a business to a consumer focus. Increased monthly visitors on network to 5 million. iOS apps have now hit 200,000 downloads and 45k DAU. Raised $2m seed financing and bootstrapped to launch new products www.fanatix.com and in the Apple AppStore.

London Labs

Richard Muirhead is co-founder of London Labs.co, an incubation, investing & advisory company. Investments to-date: Pusher, Oriel, Fanatix, UC4, Rightster. Advisor: Rightster, Evolven Software, Maiyet, EQT Partners, Archimedia and SIME. Incubation: Duelring, Oriel&Co.

EQT Partners

Richard worked with EQT Partners, to assess and secure the purchase of UC4 from Carlyle group in October 2012. He invested alongside EQT and joined the main Board as a director in October 2012 alongside Jonas Person and Henning Kaggerman as the specialist industrial advisors. As a Board member and consultant, Richard was instrumental in the rebranding of the company as Automic and the definition of the Business Automation category. In February 2014, in an effort to accelerate the pace of effective change in the company, Richard was asked by the Board to step in as interim CEO.

Firestartr.co

Richard Muirhead is Co-Founding Managing Partner of Firestartr, a Europe-focused seed acceleration platform with over 40 portfolio companies including Adbrain, ClusterHQ, Rightster and YoYo. www.firestartr.co

Automic Software

Richard Muirhead was Main Board Director, Chairman of Compensation Committee and Interim CEO of Automic, a world leader in business automation. Automic helps enterprises drive competitive advantage by automating their IT factory - from on-premise to the Cloud, Big Data and the Internet of Things. With offices across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, Automic powers over 2,600 customers including Bosch, eBay, Emirates Airlines, FedEx, Fidelity, Orange, PSA and Warner Bros. The company is privately held by EQT.

Additional information

In 2009, The World Economic Forum selected 15 information technology companies as WEF Technology Pioneers. Tideway Systems was one of them, and its founder and chief executive, Richard Muirhead, 37, is a recognised green authority who sits on the board of the Good Earth Trust. He has worked to promote the adoption of high-quality, low-cost, environmentally sound technologies in construction, energy, water treatment and sanitation. Muirhead will participate in panels on promoting stability in the financial system and reviving global economic growth.

Awards and Nominations

Finalist BCS Intel IT Leader of the Year 2008

Technology Pioneer at World Economic Forum 2009

Charities

Trustee . Good Earth Technology Trust

Trustee . We Are Family Foundation

References

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