jmetcalf

James Metcalf was educated in mathematics and law. He entered the IT industry with ICL in the 1970s and was initially employed in technical support. He was the youngest Technical Support Manager at ICL and had a team of 12 working in the government research sector. He moved to a sales role in early 1980s and became the number one sales representative worldwide before moving into sales management.

James joined Tandem Computers in Cupertino, California and managed its commercial sector based in the UK. The sector posted the greatest cumulative growth for the company worldwide over a three-year period.

Stepping out of IT, James managed and owned several companies and early-stage businesses. He returned to IT with Oracle in the 1990s and over a six-year period he managed several UK vertical markets, culminating in revenue that was 50% of the UK. He introduced a license rental model in the UK that was rolled out across Europe and achieved compound growth in excess of twice the company norm.

James left Oracle in 2000 and became CEO of a pre-IPO company. He grew revenues from £1.0M to £20.0M in 10 months, but he missed the IPO opportunity in early 2001.

In 2002, James started a business with Michael Sharples to acquire companies in security, data visualization and managed services. The company was taken public in 2005 and exited following a funding round in July 2006.

In 2007 he founded Crosslane with his business partner. Crosslane was established to be a follow on investment vehicle targeting sectors which would be resilient in a then predicted downturn market.

Today Crosslane operates in property (development, operation and fund management of private student halls), estate agency, credit card terminal marketing/ support and IT.