Rob Lewis (entrepreneur)
Encyclopedia
Rob Lewis is an English
businessman and serial entrepreneur
. Lewis has established several successful publishing and technology ventures including Business & Technology magazine, Cromwell Media, Silicon Media Group and most recently Omnifone
. Lewis is a 2009 Ernst & Young
Entrepreneur of the Year.
, London
. He gained a MA degree in Economics
from Jesus College, Cambridge
.
, whilst reading Economics at Jesus College Cambridge. He sold the publication to Associate Publishing prior to taking his finals.
Lewis returned to publishing after two years in politics, founding and editing Business & Technology magazine, which he sold to Dennis Publishing
in 1993; the publication survives today as part of Computer Weekly
.
and economic advisor to Huddersfield
Labour
MP
Barry Sheerman
in the run-up to the 1992 general election
.
s from CERN
in 1998 convinced Lewis of the power of IT publishing over the internet. Lewis founded Silicon Media Group with Sant and Knight the same year, launching IT news site Silicon.com in the UK, and sister sites Silicon.fr in Paris
and Munich
-based Silicon.de. In November 1999, Lewis reportedly raised over £11m in investment for Silicon.com from a consortium of venture capital firms headed by Amadeus Capital Partners
, with reports valuing the company at £800m in May 2000.
By the time he was 30, The Guardian
reported Lewis as one of the top six most successful young entrepreneurs in the UK. That same month, May 2000, aided by the ex-CEO of the Hoskyns Group (now Capgemini
) Jim Feeney, Lewis sold Cromwell Media to InterX for £850m. Lewis went on to sell Silicon Media Group to NASDAQ
-listed CNET Networks (part of CBS
) in 2002.
company dedicated to the sensitive development of on-shore wind farm
s, assessing potential sites across Scotland
since 2002. Lewis brokered a majority stake sale to US-based power and utilities company AES Corporation
in 2007, pairing Wind Energy with AES owned SeaWest Wind Power
bringing a host of development skills to Wind Energy and accelerating the development of clean renewable energy for the UK. Wind Energy currently has nine wind farms in development, including North Rhins in Southern Scotland
where permission was granted for 11 Vestas
V80 turbines with a capacity of 22 megawatts of electricity. The wind farm will meet the annual electricity needs of around 15,000 homes, over a fifth of the households in Dumfries & Galloway.
, with Sant and Knight in January 2003 to enable the next generation of digital content services to be delivered globally. The company develops cloud based
interoperable unlimited music services for consumer electronics vendors, mobile carriers and internet service providers across multiple in-home, in-car
, mobile and PC
device platforms
.
Lewis secured the first international licensing for unlimited music services with all four major music labels in June 2007 rolling out the company’s multi-award winning MusicStation
powered unlimited music services to millions of device users across four continents with the likes of Sony
, HP, BSkyB, Sony Ericsson
, Vodafone
, Telenor
, Hutchison Telecom and Vodacom
.
published on the front page of The Times
newspaper in the final week of the 2010 general election campaign and signed by leading UK entrepreneurs.
The letter, also featured in The Daily Telegraph
, warned of the dangers of a Labour/Liberal Democrat
coalition government
, and its potential effects on entrepreneurial business activity in the UK.
The letter was eventually signed by over 110 UK entrepreneurs, including Simon Calver, CEO of LoveFilm
, Ben Goldsmith
partner at WHEB Ventures Limited and Julie Meyer
CEO of Ariadne Capital and online dragon for BBC
Dragons' Den
, and was covered extensively in the media, leading on the front page of The Sunday Times
, and in The Sunday Express, The Sunday Mirror, The Guardian
, the UK Press Association
, Sky News
and ITN four days before the election.
The letter stated that “under Labour the UK is becoming hostile territory for entrepreneurial businesses” and urged the public to vote for the Conservative Party
.
Lewis also authored an open letter which was sent to every Conservative and Liberal Democrat MP on 21 June 2010 warning of the economic dangers of significantly increasing Capital Gains Tax in the UK, stating that “any blanket increase in CGT could have a significant long-term detrimental effect on entrepreneurial activity in the UK.” The letter was signed by over 110 leading UK entrepreneurs and was covered across a broad range of national UK media in the run up to the June 2010 United Kingdom Budget
including the front page of The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Express, BBC News, and The Scotsman. Following the publication of the letter the Chancellor announced that the standard rate of CGT would increase much less than expected, to 28% with the additional benefit of a substantially increased £5m entrepreneur relief.
building.
• PwC UK Technology, Innovation & Growth Awards Entrepreneur of the Year 2008
• Mobile Entertainment magazine Top 50 2008
• Mobile magazine Power 50 2008
• Billboard Top 10 Mobile Music Executive 2007: Special feature: 2007 Top mobile executives, Oct 27, 2007
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
businessman and serial entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
. Lewis has established several successful publishing and technology ventures including Business & Technology magazine, Cromwell Media, Silicon Media Group and most recently Omnifone
Omnifone
Omnifone is an independent provider of cloud based unlimited music services to consumer electronics vendors, mobile carriers and internet service providers including RIM,Sony,HP, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, Telenor, Hutchison Telecom and Vodacom....
. Lewis is a 2009 Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
Entrepreneur of the Year.
Biography
Lewis was educated at The Latymer SchoolThe Latymer School
The Latymer School is a selective, mixed grammar school in Edmonton, north London, England.- Examination procedures :Approximately 180 pupils are admitted to Year 7 annually. Places are awarded on the basis of competitive examination, though 20 are reserved for students with exceptional musical...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He gained a MA degree in Economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
from Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
.
Journalism and publishing
Lewis established his first venture, the Cambridge Weekly Review, as a rival publication to VarsityVarsity (Cambridge)
Varsity is the oldest of Cambridge University's main student newspapers. It has been published continuously since 1947, and is one of only three fully independent student newspapers in the UK. It appears every Friday around Cambridge...
, whilst reading Economics at Jesus College Cambridge. He sold the publication to Associate Publishing prior to taking his finals.
Lewis returned to publishing after two years in politics, founding and editing Business & Technology magazine, which he sold to Dennis Publishing
Dennis Publishing
Dennis Publishing Ltd. is an independent publisher. It was founded in 1974.As of April 2010 the company publishes 31 magazine or online titles, predominately in the UK....
in 1993; the publication survives today as part of Computer Weekly
Computer Weekly
ComputerWeekly was a weekly magazine for IT professionals which was published by Reed Business Information for over 40 years. The magazine was available free to IT professionals who met the circulation requirements...
.
Politics
Lewis spent two years after Cambridge as a researcherResearcher
A researcher is somebody who performs research, the search for knowledge or in general any systematic investigation to establish facts. Researchers can work in academic, industrial, government, or private institutions.-Examples of research institutions:...
and economic advisor to Huddersfield
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....
Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Barry Sheerman
Barry Sheerman
Barry John Sheerman is a British Labour Co-operative politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Huddersfield since the 1979 general election.-Early life:...
in the run-up to the 1992 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1992
The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...
.
Internet ventures
In 1994, Lewis co-founded internet software company Cromwell Media with Phil Sant and Mark Knight, providing scalable enterprise level technology solutions that power insurance sites including MORE TH>N. While developing Cromwell Media in the years that followed, a chance meeting at a London party with a team of scientistScientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
s from CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
in 1998 convinced Lewis of the power of IT publishing over the internet. Lewis founded Silicon Media Group with Sant and Knight the same year, launching IT news site Silicon.com in the UK, and sister sites Silicon.fr in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
-based Silicon.de. In November 1999, Lewis reportedly raised over £11m in investment for Silicon.com from a consortium of venture capital firms headed by Amadeus Capital Partners
Anne Glover
Anne Glover is CEO and co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in European high-technology companies. Prior to founding Amadeus in 1997, she was with Apax Partners & Company Ventures, where she was a member of the investment team. She also has experience as a...
, with reports valuing the company at £800m in May 2000.
By the time he was 30, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
reported Lewis as one of the top six most successful young entrepreneurs in the UK. That same month, May 2000, aided by the ex-CEO of the Hoskyns Group (now Capgemini
Capgemini
Capgemini is a French global IT services company, one of the world's largest management consulting, outsourcing and professional services companies with a staff of 114,274 operating in 40 countries. It is headquartered in Paris and was founded in 1967 by Serge Kampf, the current chairman, in...
) Jim Feeney, Lewis sold Cromwell Media to InterX for £850m. Lewis went on to sell Silicon Media Group to NASDAQ
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...
-listed CNET Networks (part of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
) in 2002.
Renewable energy
Lewis is an investor in Wind Energy, a renewable energyRenewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
company dedicated to the sensitive development of on-shore wind farm
Wind farm
A wind farm is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electric power. A large wind farm may consist of several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other...
s, assessing potential sites across Scotland
Wind power in Scotland
Wind power in Scotland is the country's fastest growing renewable energy technology, with 2574 MW of installed capacity as of April 2011. The Robin Rigg Wind Farm is a 180 MW development completed in April 2010, which is Scotland's first offshore wind farm, sited on a sandbank in the Solway...
since 2002. Lewis brokered a majority stake sale to US-based power and utilities company AES Corporation
AES Corporation
AES Corporation is a Fortune 500 company that generates and distributes electrical power. The company was founded on January 28, 1981, as Applied Energy Services by Roger Sant from the US Federal Energy Administration and Dennis Bakke from the Office of Management and Budget. AES Corporation is...
in 2007, pairing Wind Energy with AES owned SeaWest Wind Power
Buffalo Gap Wind Farm
The Buffalo Gap Wind Farm is located in Nolan and Taylor Counties, about south west of Abilene, Texas. It was constructed in three phases and has a total wind generation capacity of 524 megawatts ....
bringing a host of development skills to Wind Energy and accelerating the development of clean renewable energy for the UK. Wind Energy currently has nine wind farms in development, including North Rhins in Southern Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
where permission was granted for 11 Vestas
Vestas
Vestas Wind Systems A/S is a Danish manufacturer, seller, installer, and servicer of wind turbines. It is the largest in the world, but due to very rapid growth of its competitors, its market share decreased from 28% in 2007 to 12.5% in 2009...
V80 turbines with a capacity of 22 megawatts of electricity. The wind farm will meet the annual electricity needs of around 15,000 homes, over a fifth of the households in Dumfries & Galloway.
Omnifone
Lewis founded his current venture, OmnifoneOmnifone
Omnifone is an independent provider of cloud based unlimited music services to consumer electronics vendors, mobile carriers and internet service providers including RIM,Sony,HP, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, Telenor, Hutchison Telecom and Vodacom....
, with Sant and Knight in January 2003 to enable the next generation of digital content services to be delivered globally. The company develops cloud based
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
interoperable unlimited music services for consumer electronics vendors, mobile carriers and internet service providers across multiple in-home, in-car
Car audio
Car audio/video , auto radio, mobile audio, 12-volt and other terms are used to describe the sound or video system fitted in an automobile. While 12-volt audio and video systems are also used, marketed, or manufactured for marine, aviation, and buses, this article focuses on cars as the most common...
, mobile and PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
device platforms
Platform (computing)
A computing platform includes some sort of hardware architecture and a software framework , where the combination allows software, particularly application software, to run...
.
Lewis secured the first international licensing for unlimited music services with all four major music labels in June 2007 rolling out the company’s multi-award winning MusicStation
MusicStation
MusicStation is a music service platform developed by Omnifone. The cloud based platform works across a number of different digital device platforms and is tailored specifically for various partners including RIM, Sony, Sony Ericsson, HP, BSkyB, Vodafone, Telenor, Hutchison Telecom and...
powered unlimited music services to millions of device users across four continents with the likes of Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
, HP, BSkyB, Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB is a joint venture established on October 1, 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to manufacture mobile phones....
, Vodafone
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
, Telenor
Telenor
Telenor Group is the incumbent telecommunications company in Norway, with headquarters located at Fornebu, close to Oslo. Today, Telenor Group is mostly an international wireless carrier with operations in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Asia, working predominantly under the Telenor brand...
, Hutchison Telecom and Vodacom
Vodacom
Vodacom is a pan-African mobile telecommunications company, and was the 1st cellular network in South Africa. It provides GSM service to more than 35 million customers in South Africa, Tanzania, Lesotho, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Revenue for the year ended 31 March 2008...
.
Political campaigning
Lewis was the original author of the Entrepreneurs' letter, an open letterOpen letter
An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally....
published on the front page of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper in the final week of the 2010 general election campaign and signed by leading UK entrepreneurs.
The letter, also featured in The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, warned of the dangers of a Labour/Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
coalition government
Coalition government
A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several political parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament...
, and its potential effects on entrepreneurial business activity in the UK.
The letter was eventually signed by over 110 UK entrepreneurs, including Simon Calver, CEO of LoveFilm
LoveFilm
LoveFilm is a UK-based provider of home video and video game rental through DVD-by-mail and streaming video on demand in the UK, Germany and Scandinavia...
, Ben Goldsmith
Ben Goldsmith
Benjamin James Goldsmith is an English financier and environmentalist.- Career :Goldsmith is a founding partner of a venture capital fund that invests in clean technologies, and of its sister company...
partner at WHEB Ventures Limited and Julie Meyer
Julie Meyer
Julie Meyer is an American-born entrepreneur, investor, business adviser, networking expert, broadcaster and business commentator. She is the founder and Chief Executive of Ariadne Capital and the Managing Partner of Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund ....
CEO of Ariadne Capital and online dragon for BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Dragons' Den
Dragons' Den
Dragons' Den is a series of reality television programmes featuring entrepreneurs pitching their business ideas in order to secure investment finance from a panel of venture capitalists. The show originated in Japan as "Manē no Tora"...
, and was covered extensively in the media, leading on the front page of The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, and in The Sunday Express, The Sunday Mirror, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, the UK Press Association
Press Association
The Press Association is the national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland, supplying multimedia news content to almost all national and regional newspapers, television and radio news, as well as many websites with text, pictures, video and data content globally...
, Sky News
Sky News
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
and ITN four days before the election.
The letter stated that “under Labour the UK is becoming hostile territory for entrepreneurial businesses” and urged the public to vote for the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
.
Lewis also authored an open letter which was sent to every Conservative and Liberal Democrat MP on 21 June 2010 warning of the economic dangers of significantly increasing Capital Gains Tax in the UK, stating that “any blanket increase in CGT could have a significant long-term detrimental effect on entrepreneurial activity in the UK.” The letter was signed by over 110 leading UK entrepreneurs and was covered across a broad range of national UK media in the run up to the June 2010 United Kingdom Budget
June 2010 United Kingdom Budget
The June 2010 United Kingdom Budget, officially known as 2010 Budget - Responsibility, freedom, fairness: a five year plan to re-build the economy, was delivered by George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons in his budget speech that commenced at about 12.30 p.m on Tuesday...
including the front page of The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Express, BBC News, and The Scotsman. Following the publication of the letter the Chancellor announced that the standard rate of CGT would increase much less than expected, to 28% with the additional benefit of a substantially increased £5m entrepreneur relief.
Members clubs
Lewis is also a director and investor in Century Club, one of the many private members clubs in London, and Paramount, the highest restaurant in Soho, perched at the summit of the Centre PointCentre Point
Centre Point is a substantial concrete and glass office building in central London, England, occupying 101-103 New Oxford Street, WC1, close to St Giles Circus and almost directly above Tottenham Court Road tube station. The site was once occupied by a gallows...
building.
Awards & honours
• Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year London & South Award 2009• PwC UK Technology, Innovation & Growth Awards Entrepreneur of the Year 2008
• Mobile Entertainment magazine Top 50 2008
• Mobile magazine Power 50 2008
• Billboard Top 10 Mobile Music Executive 2007: Special feature: 2007 Top mobile executives, Oct 27, 2007