Nigel Wray:
An entrepreneurial investor in many public and private companies. A former director and large shareholder in Carlton Communications, Singer & Friedlander and currently a substantial shareholder and director at Domino’s Pizza UK & IRL Plc, Prestbury Investment Holdings Ltd, Chapel Down (English Wines) Group plc. and many other companies. He is also the chairman and original investor in Saracens Rugby Club. Saracens training facilities are of course based at the University of Hertfordshire and the Saracens Foundation, its charitable arm, touches the lives of some 40,000 kids each year fundamentally throughout Hertfordshire.
He is and always has been a big sports fan and after 25 years of collecting has probably one of the most important collections of sporting art and memorabilia in the country. He is working to have this on permanent public display.
He is also a firm believer in the role of team sport in society. Via a team, young boys also learn discipline, behavior, working with others and the ability to handle success and failure. These are all central prerequisites for life, for work in companies, which if they are to be successful have themselves to be a team, and for a successful society, which itself should also be a team.
Stephen Hemsley:
Stephen is Chairman of Franchise Brands Worldwide Ltd and along with Nigel Wray holds a controlling stake in the Company.
He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1982, and in 1984 joined the venture capital company 3i, rising to the position of Investment Director. In 1994, after a brief return to the profession, Stephen was appointed Group Finance Director of Meltek Group plc, an international computer services company, which he led through one of the first flotation’s on the newly formed Alternative Investment Market in 1995.
He put this experience to good use after joining Domino’s Pizza Group as Chief Financial Officer in 1998. A year later the group became the first home delivery food company to float on AIM. Stephen was promoted to Chief Executive in January 2001, appointed Executive Chairman at the beginning of 2008 and became Non-Executive Chairman in 2010. Today Domino's is a fully listed company in the FTSE250 and is capitalised at around 700m.
