Who's behind the business
Team
LOVEFiLM is managed by a team with unrivalled expertise in building fast growth global businesses. The team includes:
Charles Gurassa
Non Executive Chairman
Charles Gurassa is Chairman of LOVEFiLM International, Worldwide Excellerated Leasing Ltd (the holding company for National and Alamo Rentacar), National Trust Enterprises and 7days Ltd. He is non-executive director of Whitbread plc, a Trustee of both the children's charity Whizz-Kidz and The National Trust and sits on the Advisory Board of York University. Until June 2003, he was Chairman of TUI Northern Europe and Airline Group and a member of the TUI AG Executive Board. TUI AG is a DAX 30 leading German Company with interests in logistics and is the largest tourism business in the world. Mr. Gurassa was responsible for the retail, distribution and tour operations of the Group in the UK, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, the Group's airlines, Britannia, Hapag-Lloyd, Hapag-Lloyd Express and Corsair, airline investments in White Eagle and Neos and the Group Marketing department. He was appointed Chairman of TUI Northern Europe & Airline Group in January 2002. Mr. Gurassa was previously Group Chief Executive of Thomson Travel Group PLC. In May 2000 he negotiated a competitive bid for the company leading to a unanimous Board recommendation to sell the business. Prior to this he was Director of Passenger and Cargo Business at British Airways.
Simon Calver
Chief Executive Officer
Simon is CEO of LOVEFiLM International, Europe¹s largest online DVD rental service that merged with Video Island in April 2006. Prior to the merger Simon was CEO of Video Island. Before joining Video Island in July 2005, he held senior management positions at Riverdeep, Dell, Pepsi and Unilever, where he gained a wealth of relevant experience. Previously Simon was Worldwide COO and President at Riverdeep, one of the fastest growing interactive digital education and productivity software companies. He was also General Manager and VP of Dell¹s UK and Ireland Home and Small Business operations. Before that he was International VP of Sales Operations for PepsiCola, based in the US for three years and as General Manager and VP of PepsiCola UK where he launched Pepsi Max, Pepsi Blue and development of the Pepsi Music activity.
William Reeve
Chief Operating Officer
William Reeve founded ScreenSelect.co.uk in 2003. Backed by Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, Arts Alliance and Esprit Capital, they merged with LOVEFiLM in late 2006. The combined business now has nearly 500,000 subscribers and manages over 5m transactions per month. Prior to 2003, William was European Group Director for Forrester Research. William joined Forrester when it acquired Fletcher Research, a business William founded in 1997, and which became the UK's leading internet research firm. A former McKinsey consultant, William has a first class Masters degree from Oxford University.
Simon Morris
Chief Marketing Officer
Simon Morris is a Londoner and a graduate of the European Business School in 1987. His career began at Lintas Worldwide advertising Agency, where he worked on various Unilever accounts, as well as Boddingtons, Japan Airlines and Virgin as account director.
He crossed over to a marketing role with SEGA UK at the start of the legendary games wars in the early 90's as UK marketing director. In 1994 he moved to become consumer Marketing Director of BSkyB for 2 years, and stayed in television as Managing Director of Ginger Television Productions. During this time his own consultancy firm helped Lego Media break into international television, and also provided marketing for the launch of Autonomy in 1997. In 1998 he was a co-founder of the dot.com content super brand 365 Corp. He has been involved with LOVEFiLM since its launch in early 2004. He is married with 3 children and lives in West London.
Jim Buckle
Chief Financial Officer
Jim joined LOVEFiLM as CFO in April 2006 shortly after the merger with Video Island. Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG in 1991, Jim has held a range of senior finance and general management roles, primarily in the media and technology sectors, initially with the BBC and Dell Computers and more-recently in venture backed start up and fast growth businesses. Prior to joining LOVEFiLM he was Finance Director and then Managing Director of Propertyfinder.com, until leading a successful sale of the business to News International. Jim has a first class honours degree from the University of Nottingham and is married with two children.
Andrew Ground
UK Director
Andrew Ground joined from rapidly growing subscription business Homeserve where he was Marketing Director and Managing Director. Prior to this he held a number of senior marketing roles in Sainsbury's including Brand Marketing Director, Health and Beauty Director and Customer Marketing Director. His early career was in brand management at Procter Gamble and in strategy consulting at LEK. He was educated at Cambridge where he was President of the Union. He is married with 2 children and lives in Fulham, where he was an elected Councillor for 10 years and a governor of a local school.
Pål Bruu
Managing Director of the Nordic region
Pål Bruu is a Norwegian and graduated from the Norwegian School of Management in Oslo 1994. He started his career at Coca-Cola Norway in 1994, where he worked in various sales & marketing positions until August 1996. He then moved to Stockholm and was a core member of the start up team of the new bottling operation for Coca-Cola in Sweden. Simultaneously he served as Sales Manager and from February 1998 as Sales & Marketing director for 1 (out of 2) divisions. In 2000 joined the Scandinavian Online company which was the leading Nordic online portal. He was the Managing Director for the Swedish business when the company was acquired by Eniro AB in 2002. From the summer of 2002 until Pål joined Lovefilm he was President & COO of the Eastern Europe division inside Eniro which included Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic's. Pål lives in Stockholm and is married with 3 children.
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