Meet The Team
Leadership Team
Richard Osborne
Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Hi, I’m Richard ‘Ozzy’ Osborne, Business Data Group’s (BDG) Chief Executive Officer and Founder, overseeing and delivering the strategic and commercial objectives of the business. I’m a big believer in a hands-on, open approach in business, empowering my team to do their job to the best of their ability by offering the support, clarity of information and resources they need. I liken my role to that of an orchestral conductor… keeping the band in sync, and flowing!
Describe a day in your life
My typical days vary depending on where we are in a board meeting cycle, and my day-to-day work often involves laying the groundwork or planning projects which will eventually be picked up by various members of the team who I interact with on a daily basis.
I also spend time reviewing any social or media comments relating to our work supporting small businesses or Companies House alongside running our sister company UK Business Forums (UKBF), the UK’s largest and most active community for start-ups and small business owners. Here, you’ll find me posting on, and interacting with, people (on our UKBF website) and on our social media accounts. One of the biggest passions within my work for UKBF is getting to meet and talk with entrepreneurs from all areas of business, for our DRIVE podcast, our UKBF Talks webinars and our new podcast, GROW.
What's the best project you've worked on and why?
There are two projects which come to mind… First is eFiling, a platform I created when I was just in my early 20s, to enable service providers to offer an online company formation service. And I went ahead with creating it, despite being told, even by the company accountant at the time, that it was a mistake and it wouldn’t work as I wasn’t qualified to create such a service! But I was right to believe in my project, and my vision as now, some twenty years later (and having studied Company Law as a Legal Executive), it’s so fulfilling to see that almost every agent in the UK who offers UK company formation services does so through our eFiling product.
The second is our Advertising Platform which enables service providers to promote their services through our network of clients running eFiling on a revenue share model. At the time, some of our clients said it wouldn’t work, but we launched this product in 2019 unbeknown what 2020 would bring. This project revolutionised the way service providers could reach new start businesses in the UK, and by launching when we did, we were able to support so many of our clients through the pandemic by providing a vitally important new revenue stream.
Describe a day in your life
Each day is varied as my role touches on so many areas of the business, but it often includes connecting and collaborating with our amazing teams to discuss and review new product updates and launches, discussing our next marketing campaigns and coordinating and supporting the boarding of exciting new partners.
I regularly meet and liaise with our portfolio of high-profile partners such as Barclays, NatWest, Tide and many more to provide consultancy on best practices to achieve business goals when using our platform, in addition to sourcing and identifying new strategic partnerships.
What's the best project you've worked on and why?
I am fortunate to have been a part of so many great projects over the years, but I am particularly proud to have been able to onboard the UK’s most established banks as partners over the past few years which has contributed to successful customer acquisition and increased market share. Only this year, I worked closely with NatWest to support them through this process from start to finish and they are now successfully generating new customers and supporting small businesses via multiple divisions of the bank.
Rebecca Hill
Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)
Hi, I’m Rebecca Hill, and as the CCO and Head of New Business, I oversee all areas of sales, marketing and partnerships, product development and customer support with the aim of achieving our business objectives.
A huge part of my role also involves collaborating with our Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and our Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to drive project strategy, and develop and deliver plans and the commercial strategy to scale the business.
Stephen Jones
Chief Technical Officer (CTO)
Hi, I’m Stephen Jones, and as the Chief Technical Officer I oversee Business Data Groups’ technology, processes, and engineering teams. Working closely with the CEO, CCO and with the assistance of cross-functional teams, I plan and deliver a technology strategy to push the business forward while delivering maximum value to customers.
Describe a day in your life
A typical day doesn’t really exist in my role, which is fine by me as there are always so many varied tasks to get stuck into!
Due to my varied work, I make sure that I dedicate time to catchup up with different areas of the business, but my primary focus is the engineering department. Depending on the outcome of these conversations my day could involve meetings, reviewing roadmaps or recruitment strategy, carrying out research and development tasks, writing and reviewing code, mentoring, assisting with support or other business activities.
What's the best project you've worked on and why?
eFiling, our Incorporation platform. This was my first commercial project; the scale and complexity involved was, and still is, incredible! It was a privilege as a then Junior Developer at Business Data Group to work with such a talented group of developers in planning and delivering the project. The ambition for eFiling was to release our last official version and embrace a SaaS based approach, this was back in 2009. Since then, I’ve taken great pleasure in overseeing the evolution of the software and product design.