Mike Harris (serial entrepreneur)
| Mike Harris | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1949 |
| Residence | London |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | University of London |
| Occupation | Business mentor, public speaker |
| Known for | First telephone bank, first Internet bank, creating three, billion-pound businesses |
| Website | www |
Mike Harris (born 1949) is a business mentor, successful serial entrepreneur, author and public speaker. Harris is known for founding CEO of Firstdirect, CEO Mercury Communications 1991–94 and founding CEO of Egg Banking plc.
He was the co-founder of semantic web company Garlik with ex-egg CIO Tom Ilube. Garlik was the only company in the world to have the inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee on its advisory board.
Harris spent the first 15 years of his career in IT at Midland bank in the UK (now HSBC). Having left Midland in 1986 to join technology company Space-Time Systems he returned in 1988 and led the development and launch of Firstdirect – a Midland Subsidiary which was the world's first major telephone bank. It was launched in 1989 with Harris as CEO.
In September 1991 he became Chief Executive of Mercury Communications (the first competitor to British Telecom in the UK) and Chairman of the mobile operator Mercury One 2 One, (now operating as T-Mobile). Mercury Communications was possibly the first Telco in the world to provide integrated competition (local and long distance) to an established former monopoly. During Harris's tenure, Mercury's turnover grew from £1 bn pa to more than £1.6 bn and he established a consumer brand with over 4 million customers. The Mercury consumer business was placed in a 51:49 joint venture with MediaOne in 1997 and was sold to NTL for $10 bn in 2000.
In 1995 Harris moved to Prudential plc to help found its banking division. He was founding CEO of Prudential Banking plc and then the CEO of its successor, Egg – the first major player in internet banking in the UK and for several years the largest internet bank in the world. Egg went from a banking division to a large public company when 21% of the company was floated on the in July 2000 at a value of £1.3bn. Shares were subsequently bought back in 2006 by Prudential plc, with the business then valued at $973 m. He retired as CEO of Egg in January 2001 but continued to serve on the Board as vice-chairman until 2005. Egg Banking plc was sold to Citi Group in 2007 for $575 m in cash.
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