Who are we?
John Vincent - Director
John is a former Merchant Navy Navigating Officer. Upon leaving the
service he took up livestock farming for a period of about 6 years
before moving into commerce as Agricultural Underwriter for a Cotswold
finance and insurance company. He quickly rose through the organisation,
first becoming General Manager and then later Operations Director during
which time the company grew from one office operation to a multi-tasked
organisation with offices in a number of towns and cities. The
independent organisation was then merged into Guardian Royal Exchange
PLC and John left to become Managing Director of Cross Channel
Management Ltd. a pan-European data agency. During this period he was
involved with the then DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) in
drafting elements of the Data Protection Act.
In response to the downturn of international trade at the outbreak of
the Gulf War John returned to agriculture and pursued a career in
private large estate management. He returned to university in Cambridge
in 1995 to read Computer Science and Geology and during this time took
up a part time IT consultancy contract with Exel Logistics, part of the
National Freight Corporation. The consultancy grew to become a full time
executive position for Exel's client, Somerfield Stores Ltd. Over the
next decade he served Somerfield Stores as Distribution IT Executive and
was responsible for the design, installation and management of the
transport management computer systems. This included 23 depots, over
1,000 vehicles servicing some 1,400 retail outlets. Part of this work,
the use of RFID on vehicles, received the Phillips Industries Frontline
Solutions award in 2001.
As none of this work had much to do with the Internet, John decided to
keep abreast of this emerging technology by creating the British Towns
and Villages Network and a couple of local town websites. By 2006 it was
apparent that these could form the basis of a commercial operation and
in 2008 he formed Jevstar Dot Com and was joined by a former business
colleague, Mr Michael Lynch (who retired this year (March 2015).