Board of Directors

Aged 49

Will Whitehorn joined Virgin Group as Group Public Relations Manager in 1987. Over the following years he was responsible for presenting Virgin’s joint venture strategy and spent several months working in Japan and began to move into a more general management role. Will worked on the strategy to expand the brand into new areas such as financial services and telecoms. From 1995 onwards, Will became part of a team developing the Virgin-branded venture capital model for global expansion. In 1997 he became a Director of Virgin Rail Group and in 2000 he was appointed Brand Development and Corporate Affairs Director for Virgin. In 2004 he became President of Virgin Galactic. In 2007 he took on that role in an executive capacity and became a special adviser to Sir Richard Branson. He is also a trustee of the Virgin Unite social entrepreneurship and environmental not-for-profit foundation.

Will is a member of the Development Board of the University of Aberdeen. In 2007 he was also invited to join the advisory board of the British National Space Centre. He is also a member of the First Minister of Scotland’s ‘GlobalScot’ business mentoring network. Will was appointed as non-executive Chairman of Next Fifteen Communications Group plc in 2004 and is Chairman of the Nomination Committee.

Aged 48

Tim Dyson joined the Group in 1984 straight from Loughborough University and became its CEO in 1992. As one of the early pioneers of tech PR, he has worked on major corporate and product campaigns with such companies as Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, Sun and Intel. Tim oversaw the flotation of the Company on the London Stock Exchange and has managed a string of successful acquisitions by the Group in recent years, including Applied Communications, OutCast Communications and M Booth in the US and Lexis in the UK.

Tim moved from London to set up the Group’s first US business in 1995 in Seattle, and is now based in Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley. Outside Next Fifteen, Tim is on the advisory boards of several emerging technology companies. Tim also writes a blog at http://timdyson.wordpress.com/ where he comments on news and topical issues affecting the public relations industry.

Aged 46

David Dewhurst graduated from the University of Birmingham in 1984 with a B.Com degree. He then joined KPMG Peat Marwick as a trainee accountant, qualifying in 1987. David worked as a corporate accountant and business analyst for Hillsdown Holdings plc between 1988 and 1990, and was then Group Accountant for Premier Brands Limited, one of Hillsdown’s subsidiaries. In 1992 David became Group Finance Director for Strong & Fisher Holdings plc before being appointed, in 1997, to the same post at The Media Business Group plc. He joined the Board of Next Fifteen Communications Group plc as Finance Director in 1999 to take the Company through its flotation in December 1999.

Aged 64

Ian Taylor graduated from Keele University with a degree in Economics, Politics and Modern History. He spent 18 years in investment banking and development capital in London and Paris before being elected as Member of Parliament for Esher in 1987 (now Esher and Walton).

He was Minister for Science and Technology at the Department of Trade and Industry from 1994-1997, during the last Conservative administration. He is now on various all-party parliamentary technology committees, including those on science, information technology and space. Since 1997, Ian has been a non-executive Director of, or adviser to, a number of companies, including some in the technology, security and financial sectors.

He joined the Board in 1999 and is Chairman of the Remuneration and Audit Committees.