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Our team

The Immerse team brings a diverse range of expertise, skills and perspective to every client and project, with an impressive array of commercial, corporate and technology experience.

Management team

Tom Symonds

Tom Symonds

CEO

Justin Parry

Justin Parry

COO

Lee Kelly

Lee Kelly

CFO

Lucas San Pedro

Lucas San Pedro

CTO

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Tom Symonds

CEO

Tom has gained a reputation for innovation and the creation of disruptive business models following 8 years at GE Capital and 12 years at leading internet businesses. He led Sky through the dotcom fall out, establishing it as one of the major internet players in the UK.

Tom has since worked with start-up businesses within the field of e-Learning, using his extensive expertise to leverage technology in order to address key business needs.

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Justin Parry

COO

Justin has 20 years of experience creating and growing B2C and B2B products for start-ups and global organisations. He has developed and launched online platforms, websites and mobile products across the world and joined Immerse from his role as Global Director of Internet Yellow Pages for Yell Group.

Justin is Chief Operating Officer and leads the Product strategy for Immerse. As a founder, he designed and led product development of the Immerse platform from scratch. He now oversees the delivery of all technology and VR content across the organisation.

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Lee Kelly

CFO

Lee is a chartered accountant with over 20 years experience in the technology sector She has held various senior roles in Finance functions, leading complex due diligence and integration processes for several mergers and acquisitions across Europe.

She has managed and built finance teams as well as implementing internal systems to deliver finance and accounting support.

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Lucas San Pietro

CTO

Lucas has almost 20 years of experience as a software engineer across different industries, technologies and countries. He’s been involved in designing, architecting, and developing complex software solutions in fields ranging from the automotive industry in Spain and Italy, to fintech in London, taking a technical leadership role in teams both big and small from early on in his career.

Lucas joined Immerse in February 2015, designing and developing the core set of technologies that power the Immerse Platform.

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Che Osborne

CSO

Che joins Immerse as an EdTech Global Business Development Professional with 19 years of experience engaging clients, team members and strategic channel/reseller partners around the world to solve customer problems.

Our Main Board

Trevor Fenwick

Trevor Fenwick

Charles McIntyre

Charles McIntyre

Mark Irwin

Mark Irwin

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Trevor Fenwick

Trevor has been a lead investor in Immerse since 2013. He supports and is an active early stage investor in over 20 companies in the InfoTech, data publishing and EdTech sectors in Europe and the USA.

He is Executive Chairman and co-founder of Euromonitor International, the leading provider of online international market data and analytics. The company won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2014 for International Trade and the Private Business of the Year 2013 Award (PwC/HSBC).

He is a Board member of the PPA, and past Chair of the UK and European Data Publishers Associations. He has been actively involved with the UK and European government in advising on issues surrounding intellectual property. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, holds postgraduate qualifications in international marketing and is an Honorary Fellow at Ravensbourne University.

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Charles McIntyre

Charles’ experience has been in building businesses in a number of industry sectors including financial services, media, media tech and most recently edtech. He co-founded IBIS Capital in 2003 in order to create a flexible, boutique investment bank that could both invest in and advise companies and their shareholders. 12 years on and IBIS Capital has evolved into a leading specialist asset manager and investment banking operation with over 60 successfully completed transactions.

Charles also sits on the boards of a range of entrepreneurial companies in the media and education sectors. In 2013, Charles started focusing on the e-Learning and edtech markets and was responsible for a number of key industry initiatives including co-founding EdTech Europe, an annual summit for strategic players and investors interested in the online education market.

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Mark Irwin

Mark Irwin is a UK qualified chartered accountant who joined Trafigura as a financial controller in 1994. In 2004 he was appointed as a director to provide support for Trafigura’s corporate and IT infrastructure. Mark holds a degree in Computer Science and Accounting from the University of Manchester.

Advisory board

Donald H Taylor

Donald H Taylor

Paul Groves

Paul Groves

Sir Tom Beckett

Sir Tom Beckett

David C Thomlinson

David C Thomlinson

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Donald H Taylor

Donald Taylor is a veteran of the learning, skills and human capital industries, with experience at every level from delivery to chairman of the board.

A recognised commentator and organiser in the fields of workplace learning and learning technologies, Donald is passionately committed to helping develop the learning and development profession.

Chairman of the Learning and Performance Institute since 2010, his background ranges from training delivery to managing director and vice-president positions in software companies.

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Paul Groves

Paul Groves has over 30 years’ experience in the Energy & Resources markets. As Managing Director of Petrofac, Paul ran a global business focused on the Oil & Gas services market. Prior to Petrofac, Paul held a number of roles within Shell, his last being Commercial Director for Shell’s Gas-to-Liquids $20bn venture in Qatar.

Previously, Paul spent time running a number of businesses within British Gas/BG Group and established several new businesses for Alcan Aluminium. Paul is a physicist/materials professional, with several degrees from the University of Oxford where he also held an academic post.

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Sir Tom Beckett

Tom’s most recent HM Government appointment was as the Defence Senior Advisor to the Middle East and North Africa. He was also the Prime Minister’s Security Envoy to Iraq, including the Kurdistan Region.

Other notable appointments include Deputy Director of the UK’s Higher Command and Staff Course, a senior intelligence appointment in the Headquarters Multinational Forces – Iraq, Director Commitments of UK Land Forces and Chief of Staff of the ISAF Joint Command.

Tom was awarded The Legion of Merit in 2007 and received the British honours of CBE in 2010 and KCB in 2018.

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David C Thomlinson

David spent 28 years with the Global Management Consulting firm Accenture which included 11 years as a member of the Global Management Board. His responsibilities included Group Chief Executive of the Resources ( Energy, Utilities, Chemicals and Natural Resources ) Operating Group, Head of the UK and Ireland business and the Chief Geographic Strategy and Operations Officer.

He retired from Accenture in 2014 and has developed a portfolio of new roles. These include: International Chairman of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Chairman of Moixa Energy – a smart battery company, Strategic Advisor and member of the Digital Council at Arup.