BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Royston Hoggarth
Non-Executive Chairman

Royston Hoggarth is currently ​Chair of Cirrus Response Limited, Stellar Omada Limited and Cellhire Limited. He is an advisor to the NEC Corporation and NEC Software Services Limited. He is also Chair of the Board overseeing the delivery of the 2026 European Athletics Championships in Birmingham.

He has held a range of Executive and Board Director roles with Private Equity backed, bank backed and Publicly listed companies including IBM, Logica PLC, Cable & Wireless PLC, BT PLC, Hays PLC, Bluefin Solutions Limited, Northgate PS Limited, Xchanging Limited, Arkessa Limited and Innovation Group Limited. He was also a Venture Partner at Wellington Partners.

He was appointed a Non-Executive Director of Intercede on 5 August 2002  

Klaas van der Leest
Chief Executive Officer

Klaas van der Leest is an experienced executive with extensive sales, marketing, business development and general management experience in IT and IT services. He has significant international knowledge and experience as a result of various roles with remits across EMEA, Asia-Pac and North America.

Klaas has worked for a number of large and small, quoted and privately-owned organisations in market leading and turnaround situations including CA Technologies, Intelecom UK, Amulet Hotkey, Global Crossing, Attenda and Logica. He has proven expertise in the development and execution of national and international sales growth, ‘go to market’ initiatives and customer focused expansion strategies.

Klaas has a master’s degree from the Cranfield School of Management. He also is a Chartered Marketer as well as a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He was appointed Chief Executive of Intercede on 10 April 2018.

Nitil Patel
Chief Financial Officer

Nitil has been a CFO and a plc board member since 2001. Recently he was the interim CFO at D4t4 Solutions plc (2021), which helps global enterprises derive value via Celebrus, the company's flagship first party product suite. From 2016 to 2020, he was the CFO at Dods Group plc (now renamed Merit Group plc), a leading technology company specialising in data, business intelligence and media delivering content to more than fifty countries across six continents. 

Before Merit, Nitil was CFO of multi-media content creator Ten Alps plc (rebranded Zinc Media plc) from 2001 to 2016. During this time, Nitil managed three divisions of the group, driving growth both organically and through strategic acquisitions. He was a key member of the team from the very start of Ten Alps in 1999 as Finance Director and was responsible for its listing on AIM in 2001.     

Nitil is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.  

John Linwood
Non-Executive Director

With 40 years’ experience as a senior leader in technology and 11 years as a Non-Executive Director, John brings a wealth of experience in both Executive and Board roles.  John has successfully delivered large scale technology at a global level, led major digital transformation programs, innovation, technology and data services for some of the biggest names in the technology sector including Microsoft, Yahoo, BBC and UK Ministry of Defence.  John is also an experienced Non-Executive Director with FTSE and AIM listed companies and a UK Government Agency as well as a founder of 3 successful technology start-ups. John’s experience brings a high degree of technology, commercial and leadership ability operating at a global scale that has proven itself repeatedly throughout his career.    

At Microsoft for 11 years, John led a large software and service engineering organisation responsible for developing and running Microsoft’s online MSN platform around the world.

As Senior Vice President at Yahoo for 5 years, John led a very large, global software and service engineering organisation based in 22 countries including Yahoo’s software engineering centre in Bengaluru, India.    

John was CTO at the BBC for 4½ years responsible for all IT, production and broadcast technology delivering game changing outcomes for the broadcaster.    

John also has extensive experience in delivering Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence technology to drive advanced data analytics as CTO at Wood Mackenzie, a leading data analytics firm in the Energy and Mining sector and Earth-I an earth observation satellite data analytics company.    

John is on the Board of National Grid ESO, the UKs electricity system operator and Brooks Macdonald Group plc. a UK Wealth Management company with £17bn of assets under management.  

Jacques Tredoux
Non-Executive Director

Jacques Tredoux is the Chief Executive of Tredoux Capital Limited, a company authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority to provide corporate finance advisory services. Prior to establishing Tredoux Capital Limited, he was the Chief Executive Officer of the Credo Group (UK) Limited, a group of companies in London that provides wealth management services. Members of the Credo Group have provided corporate finance and fundraising assistance to the company since before its admission to AIM. Jacques qualified as a lawyer in 1988 in South Africa, and practiced at Edward Nathan & Friedland Inc and Clifford Chance. 

He was appointed a Non-Executive Director of Intercede on 31 March 2006.

Dan O'Brien
Non-Executive Director

Dan O’Brien has over 30 years’ experience in financial roles across successful listed, PE backed and privately owned international organisations. Most recently Dan was CFO, and then COO, at the media and events company Tarsus Group, and was a lead executive overseeing the take private acquisition by Charterhouse and the subsequent sale of the business to Informa plc for approximately $1bn.   

He has held senior finance roles in a range of multinational companies including COLT Telecoms, Eidos Plc, Huveaux Plc as Group Finance Director and Shine Group as Chief Financial Officer.   

Dan currently sits on the advisory board of several organisations including Cuil Bay Capital, Pendragon International Media and is a trustee of the charity School-Home Support.   

Dan qualified as a chartered accountant at Deloitte in 1991 is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. He was appointed a Non-Executive Director of Intercede on 20 October 2023.  

Latest News

Investor News, News, RNS
RNS - Exercise of Options & Total Voting Rights
Investor News, News, RNS
RNS - Exercise of Options, & Total Voting Rights
Investor News, RNS
RNS - TR-1: Standard form for notification of major holdings

Trusted by Governments and Enterprises Worldwide

Where protecting systems and information really matters, you will find Intercede.  Whether its citizen data, aerospace and defence systems, high-value financial transactions, intellectual property or air traffic control, we are proud that many leading organisations around the world choose Intercede solutions to protect themselves against data breach, comply with regulations and ensure business continuity.