Piers Linney
| Piers Linney | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Jonathan Piers Daniel Linney 15 February 1971 Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England |
| Residence | London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | The University of Manchester |
| Occupation | Businessman television personality |
| Known for |
Dragons' Den The Secret Millionaire |
| Spouse(s) | Tara Linney |
| Children | Tiger and Electra |
| Website | pierslinney |
Jonathan Piers Daniel Linney (born 15 February 1971 in Stoke-on-Trent) is an English businessman, who was the co-CEO of cloud-based IT business Outsourcery. He is best known for being a "dragon" on the BBC Two business series Dragons' Den from 2013 to 2015.
Linney also appeared on the Channel 4 series The Secret Millionaire in 2011, where he worked in Wolverhampton at a Young Offenders' institution.
With both Bajan (Barbados) and English heritage, Linney, the son of Derek and Norma Linney, grew up in Stoke-on-Trent before moving at the age of nine with his family to the small mill town Bacup in Lancashire, where he attended the local comprehensive school after failing his eleven-plus exam. At the age of 13, Linney cut out his local newsagent by going direct to the wholesaler to start his own Sunday newspaper round.
Although Linney is usually described as an entrepreneur, he has a professional background in the City. After studying Accounting and Law at The University of Manchester, he qualified as a solicitor in the City with SJ Berwin. He left law to join the UK investment banking team at Barclays de Zoete Wedd, where he met Simon Newton in 1997, followed by time spent working at Credit Suisse, where he specialised in mergers and acquisitions and leveraged buyouts. Linney left banking in 2000 to start an internet business and has since been involved in a number of technology, media and telecommunications businesses as a founder, director, investor and adviser. After becoming the CEO of a corporate finance boutique, Linney became a partner in an alternative investment fund providing structured debt and equity financing to small cap public companies.
In 2007, Linney led, in alliance with his friend and business partner, Simon Newton, the buyout of Genesis Communications, a mobile voice and data reseller company. In 2009 Genesis acquired Thus Mobile from Cable&Wireless and rebranded as Outsourcery to focus on the cloud IT and communications opportunity. In 2012 the company was valued at £43 million and the mobile business was sold to create a pure-play cloud business, which was funded by the founders and private investors.
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