Mark Mills: Cardpoint

Mark Mills
Age: 33
Company: Cardpoint

By the time you read this it will almost certainly be out of date. Mills moves at a frightening pace. This time last year his company, ATM machine operator Cardpoint, had just listed on AIM and had 300 machines. Since then it has bought two competitors, one a subsidiary of Securicor, for £9.2m, taking Cardpoints ATM estate to 2,068. The share prices continues to buck the trend and turnover is likely to almost quadruple to £25m by September 2004.

2016 update:

Mills left Cardpoint in 2006 having overseen the company’s growth to £98.2m in turnover and £19.8m in profit. At this point it was valued at £170m. After holding board positions in a Tactical Solutions and Garside and Laycock for the next few years, the entrepreneur was inspired to found Violet Recruitment in 2011: a company focused on placing women in directing positions within “progressive thinking companies”. In 2013, drawing on his entrepreneurial success, Mills launched the titular mark.co.uk, which helps business owners to grow revenues, drive efficiencies, exit, float or recapitalise their business. Mills implemented his system to oversee the growth and sale of Tactical Solutions and Garside and Laycock and currently acts as non-executive chairman of push camera manufacturer Mini Cam.

2017 update:

After joining Burnley-based Velocity Composites – a developer of composite products for the aerospace industry – in 2015, Mills was named non-executive chairman last year. In May 2017, the Young Gun announced his intention to take the company public on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) with a market capitalisation upon admission of £30.4m.