Meet the Board
Swansea Bay Business Club is run on a voluntary basis by Board members from a range of industries, all of whom are committed to the development of the Swansea Bay region.
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Michael Morgan, President
Michael is co-founder and Managing Director of Morgan & Morgan, one of West Wales Leading Office Solutions Companies established over 26 years ago. Michael also has overall responsibility as Chairman of the Board at Nemo Group. With many years in the Office and IT Solutions Industry he comes with a wealth of business experience, not only from within his own business but in his other roles which include chairing Nemo Group and as one of the UK Directors for Business Products Group International as well as Governing Body experience in local schools.
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Alan Brayley, Past President
Alan is the founder and Chairman of AB Glass Ltd, the multi award winning manufacturers and Installers, Alan has a number of other business ventures and is a well-known and active member of the local business community. Alan is also a retired Army reservist with over 20 years’ service. Alan says “starting a business from scratch can be a lonely place at times, it is stressful and all-consuming but the rewards can be mind-blowing”. Alan brings a wealth of personal and business experience to the board of the Swansea Bay Business Club.
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Amy Seppman, Deputy President
Amy is the Marketing Director at JCP Solicitors. In April 2013 she was appointed as one of the youngest non-lawyer salaried law firm partners in Wales at the time. In July 2020 Amy became one of the business owners at JCP, and continues to provide strategic planning and development for its growing portfolio of offices throughout the Swansea Bay region. Noted as a rising star in Wales, she has been listed in the Western Mail’s ‘35 under 35 to watch’ and was highly commended in the Rising Star Category of the South Wales Evening Post’s Women in Business Awards. Amy has been an Executive Board Member since 2013.
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Alison Vickers, Treasurer
Alison is a partner at regional chartered accountants, tax and financial planners, Bevan & Buckland. She is a fully qualified chartered accountant and provides financial, accounting and tax advice and support to a range of owner-managed businesses throughout South-west Wales. She specialises in the not-for-profit sector and regularly runs training courses for charities.
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Bruce Roberts, Club Ambassador
Bruce joined Swansea Bay Business club in 1992. As well as playing a key role as Club Secretary since 2006, he also served as President between 2013 and 2015, during which time the Club celebrated its 65th birthday. Bruce’s past business roles include Regional Director of Konica Minolta, associate director of Antur Insurance, Director of IT firm BSS (Now SA1) and Chairman of Gwalia Housing Trust. Bruce is a full member of MCC and a life member of Gowerton Cricket Club. He is currently the Administrator/Treasurer of the Mumbles Festival of Music & the Arts.
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Natasha Fulford, Board Member
Natasha is the Managing Director of multi award-winning PR and communications agency reThink PR & Marketing. A former broadcast and national newspaper journalist, Natasha started working in PR in 1999 for one of the UK’s largest agencies. Since returning to Swansea in 2003 she has helped position reThink PR & Marketing as one of Wales’ most respected communications agencies, which has sat on the highly coveted Welsh Government approved supplier framework for almost ten years. She has won numerous industry awards for her PR work and is one of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ most awarded PR professionals in Wales.
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Andrew Downie, Board Member
Andrew is the founding Director of NetBop Web Development, and boasts 15 years experience in web design and development including several years at one of the UK’s largest website hosting companies. Since launching NetBop, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has listed him one of the UK’s top six most talented young entrepreneurs. In addition to sitting on the board of Swansea Bay Business Club, Andrew is a Director with Swansea Business Improvement District where he chairs a working group for Parking & Transportation for the City.
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Jonathan Richards, Board Member
Jonathan is a Relationship Director with Lloyds Bank covering the Swansea and West Wales market, supporting SME clients with turnovers between £1m – £25m. He has over 18 years experience as a Commercial Manager, where his role involves the management of a diverse portfolio of clients who operate in a number of different industry sectors.
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Mandi Gwynne, Board Member
Mandi is the Multi Sales Manager of Swansea and Cardiff Marriott hotels. She has been with the Marriott group for more than 25 years and she has been a dynamic voice for the company in Swansea, both in driving revenue growth and profitability, and in boosting its profile within the local community. During her time with the Marriott, Mandi has received its coveted Golden Circle award, seeing her attend a celebration event in Cancun for consistently over-achieving on all of her sales targets. Having worked for Marriott Hotels since she was 18, beginning her career as a receptionist, she sees her role very much as a vocation and a labour of love. In fact, to many in Swansea she is simply known as ‘Mandi Marriott.’
Mandi has helped to amplify Swansea Marriott’s profile at regional awards and other high-profile events, such as the Swansea Lifestyle Awards and the Swansea Bay City Region Women in Business Awards, for which she was a finalist in the Ambassador category in 2018.
Alongside her day job, Mandi is a trustee of Harry’s Fund, which she helps run, in honour of her nephew, Harry Patterson, to help bereaved families access support. Harry’s Fund has created a lasting and fitting tribute to young Harry, by building a well-loved park bearing his name, in Altwen.
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Mark Sullivan, Board Member
Mark is the managing director of Thomas Carroll Brokers Swansea Ltd. With more than 30 years of commercial insurance experience, Mark has a wealth of knowledge across a variety of business sizes and sectors, ranging from property and construction to life sciences and manufacturing risks. Mark serves on the Swansea and West Wales Chartered Insurance Institute council and is to become the local president for the second time in 2020.
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Ryan David Miles, Board Member
Ryan is the Co director of Miles Hire Limited, a plant , tool and powered access company with depots in Swansea, Bridgend and Cardiff. Originally starting in 2003 with his brother Darren and father David, the family company has grown with several depots, winning “Hire company of the Year” in the UK in both 2017 and 2020, the only Welsh company ever to do so. Ryan is passionate about promoting the construction industry and is co director of the Welsh Construction show, the largest construction specific event in Wales.
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Gareth Thomas, Board Member
Gareth heads up the Marketing function at Gavin Griffiths of Companies, with a focus on sales and revenue.
With over 20 year experience operating as a strong commercial, digital, communications and strategic marketeer within national roles at both bmibaby and McArthurglen.Outside work Gareth has won some prestigious awards for his volunteering and fundraising efforts. He has performed and written stand up comedy alongside broadcasting a celebrity sporting podcast. -
Louisa Huxtable-Thomas, Board Member
Louisa is an Associate Professor in the School of Management and leads on engagement and impact, as well as coordinating our Executive Education provision. Combining theories and empirical knowledge gleaned from the fields of business, social science, education and psychology, Louisa’s research interests relate to how people’s behaviours, either as leaders, entrepreneurs or policy makers have an influence on societal and economic welfare.
Louisa had a varied early career encompassing work in environmental consultancy, policy making at Regional and Local Government level as well as business support and incubation. Louisa’s doctoral research brought all of this prior knowledge together and identified the ways in which businesses can successfully participate in environmental policy making. After completing her PhD in 2009, Louisa’s research interest increasingly moved towards business and management, rather than environmental policy, but always in parallel to practical projects that worked directly to assist the economy of Wales. Louisa has played a key role supporting businesses through projects such as incubation, innovation and commercialisation as well as early stage R&D. Not limiting herself to the field of entrepreneurship, Louisa has also worked with academics in fields as diverse as healthcare, e-marketing, education, low carbon energy, information systems, manufacturing and tourism. Most recently she has been working with renowned colleague Professor Paul Hannon to deliver a programme of entrepreneurial leadership development to senior managers of Malaysian Universities.
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Want to join our board? Although we do not have any specific vacancies at present, we are happy to accept speculative applications throughout the year. Please email [email protected]
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