MEET THE TEAM

Richard Clancy

Portfolio Manager

Richard’s vertical market software career began over 20 years ago during which he has progressed to Portfolio Manager within Jonas Software, where he spends his time managing and building multiple brands within the Jonas Software UK Group. He currently oversees the Education and Retail brands within the UK, however, Richard is also responsible for acquisition activity into new and existing sectors. His extensive knowledge of vertical market software solutions through his various positions within Jonas, give him a meticulous knowledge on the industry, the group and the services they provide.

Richard joined Jonas via the Gladstone MRM acquisition where he was the Professional Services Manager, working within their leisure management software. Since then, his experience has allowed him to gain knowledge within many different brands and sectors within Jonas.

Before joining Jonas, Richard worked in sales and marketing within the leisure, attractions and telecommunications sectors. Richard’s philosophy lies in developing his employees, providing them with new opportunities, thus giving them room to grow and flourish. His attitude to his colleagues and team spirit has led to the incredible growth within many of the Jonas UK businesses.

In his spare time, Richard enjoys spending time with his young family and playing the occasional round of golf.

Deanna Surman

Head of Human Resources

A highly self-motivated, enthusiastic HR professional with extensive Human Resources operational and strategic experience across multi-site locations.

Commercially focused and perceptive to the organisational climate; analysing requirements to identify, develop and implement business requirements in an ever changing and fast paced environment.

A supportive, influential and trusted team contributor and team leader with excellent interpersonal skills to provide coaching, mentoring and guidance at all levels and in all areas of people management, performance and culture.

A Fellow Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development.

Tom Baptie

Head of Finance

A friendly, organised and hardworking individual who can work to strict deadlines and pays great attention to detail. Possess excellent customer service, numerical and PC skills as well as being able to interact with people at all levels.

Fully Qualified (ACCA), highly driven Accounts Professional to whom career progression and success are vital. Tom is always learning new skills, techniques and furthering his knowledge base and never shys away from new challenges, priding himself on time management, communication and presentation.

Matthew Jones

M&A Associate

Matthew joined Jonas in 2014 as part of the acquisition of CRB Cunninghams, where Matthew had a successful career with the company since 2004. Matthew’s early career had a strong focus on technology within the education sector, initially as a Network Technician at a UK secondary school with academy status, followed by joining the leading UK market provider of cashless catering software for schools. Matthew’s previous roles have included Bespoke Project Development, Professional Services Manager and Customer Experience Manager, which allowed him to learn key components to make a successful business.

With a strong commitment, potential and work ethic, Matthew was selected for Jonas UK’s inaugural Leadership Programme, an intense 18 month course designed to provide the necessary skills to allow senior employees operate businesses in the future. Matthew is an advocate of the Jonas philosophy, “Our People Are Our Greatest Asset”, having experienced first-hand the commitment to coaching and development within Jonas. Matthew joined the UK M&A team in June 2018, working as part of Richard Clancy’s team to assist with the acquisition of new, great businesses and to use his experience within Jonas to facilitate the onboarding of any new acquisitions.

Ken Barragan

Head of M&A

Ken joined Vesta in 2021 to lead and implement the group’s global acquisitive growth strategy. He leads Vesta’s M&A activities throughout the globe and guides the deal origination team’s activities in Northern and Eastern Europe, Latin America and other geographies. Ken has extensive experience in leading international deals in the US, Europe and several Emerging Markets, from both a buy and sell side perspective as a direct investor, advisor and through other senior and partner level roles in Private Equity, Corporate Finance and Corporate Development. Throughout his 20+ year career, Ken has also led operational, business development and integration teams and activities in several industries, including Telecommunications, Pharmaceuticals, financial services and SME banking.

Ken has lived in three continents and multiple countries and enjoys getting to know and understand business owners’ aspirations and motivations to design mutually beneficial deal structures that close transactions. When not busy enjoying the British countryside with his young family, Ken can be found reading in his native Spanish, playing the classical guitar or trying to escape to the water for a spot of angling.

Gabriel Cocean

M&A Associate S&E Europe

Gabriel is a multifaceted professional that has spent the last decade in the fast moving world of IT Sales & Business Development, covering mainly the CEE and EMEA regions He has amassed a breadth of experience gained from his 25 year career working in several industries such as automotive, printing, IPTV, IT Sales Management, broadcasting, FinTech, confectionary and simulation training solutions for the military.

He has helped grow small start-ups and has also led teams in larger corporate environments, such as Espial, Levira, Oracle, Saxo Bank and Bohemia Interactive Simulations. Gabriel is a self-starter team player and a networking enthusiast. His motto is "It does not matter how many times you fall down, what is important is that you stand up again every time".

Gabriel speaks several Eastern European languages and currently resides in the beautiful city of Prague with his partner, where they overlook the historic city’s forested hills from their balcony.

Jerónimo Alvarez

M&A Associate LATAM

Jeronimo joined Vesta in 2018 as part of the Greycon acquisition, where he enjoyed a successful career since joining in 2005 after obtaining his degree in Software Engineering. As part of the Professional Services team at Greycon, he travelled the world implementing Greycon products throughout 20 countries in 4 different continents. After his success as Latin America Professional Services Manager, he moved into business development where he effectively led the expansion of Greycon’s presence throughout the Latin American region.

In 2021, he joined the Vesta M&A team to lead our Business Development efforts throughout Latin America as part of our global acquisitive growth strategy.

Jeronimo is a native of Uruguay and resides in Montevideo. In addition to Spanish, he is fluent in English and Portuguese. He enjoys playing sports and keeping up to date with worldwide sports news, especially football.

OwenJones

Chief Technical Officer

Owen joined Jonas UK in October 2011, initially as the Technical Director for Gladstone Ltd where he was responsible for the company’s software product portfolio, managing the Product Design, Development and Testing teams. Owen has also held other posts within Jonas including the General manager for SDA and as Technical Director for Tucasi. Since January 2020 Owen has held the post of Group CTO for Vesta Software Group, an operating group of Jonas UK.

Owen has more than 30 years’ experience in software development and is passionate about developing high-quality software systems using agile practices. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science from De Montfort University

Scott Saklad

CEO, UK & Europe

Scott’s career in the software industry began over 20 years ago at Computrition, which became Jonas’ first Foodservice brand in 2007. Since then, he has been responsible for acquiring, building and managing several businesses within the Jonas operating group. After helping to add and oversee brands in the US, Scott moved to the UK to manage and integrate the acquisition of Gladstone plc, and has since worked on adding a number of brands in new and existing verticals.

As Group CEO, Scott spends a portion of his time working to coach and develop his team, assisting them in whatever it takes to deliver the highest quality products & services to their clients. The rest of his time is spent finding vertical market software companies that add value and market share to the Jonas portfolio. As part of the Jonas “buy and hold forever” strategy, Scott believes that building great companies for the long term is the ultimate goal, and that creating a platform for success comes from continual investment in your customers and employees.