Michael Tobin, OBE
Founder and Executive Chairman, Crystal Peak AcquisitionMichael is a highly successful serial technology entrepreneur & pioneer with over 30 years’ experience in the telecoms & technology sector.
As Chief Executive, Michael Tobin OBE led TelecityGroup plc, a leading FTSE250 Technology company from 2002 to 2014.
He joined Redbus in 2002 delisting it from the main market to AIM, & then took it private, winning the London Business Awards “Business Turnaround of the Year” award in 2005. After engineering the merger with Telecity, & the acquisition of Globix he successfully re-listed TelecityGroup in October 2007 winning the accolade of UK Innovation Awards IPO of the year 2008 & the techMARK Personality of the year in the same year.
Subsequently he grew the business organically & acquired businesses in Manchester, Helsinki, Dublin, Sofia, Istanbul & Warsaw transforming the company from £6m market cap in 2002 to being a top performer in the FTSE250 worth over £2.5Bn, being recognized as Britain’s Most admired Tech Company in 2012.
Prior to joining TelecityGroup, Tobin headed-up Fujitsu’s e-Commerce operations in Frankfurt, Germany. Before that, he ran ICL’s Danish outsourcing subsidiary out of Copenhagen Denmark. He also held several senior positions based in Paris for over 11 years including Business Development Director at International Computer Group coordinating global distribution of IT infrastructure.
As a Non Exec Director, Tobin was instrumental in transforming PACNET in Hong Kong from a Sub Sea Cable operator to a successful Datacenter operator culminating in its sale in 2015 to Telstra for $800m. In 2017 he was the key driver of the sale of Itconic in Spain to Equinix generating over 7x money for Carlyle in just 19 months, and as a NED oversaw the sale of Datapipe in New York to Rackspace and Basefarm in Norway to Orange on behalf of Abry Partners.
Tobin has been involved in multiple PE backed Datacentre transactions around the world including Teraco in South Africa, ITConic in Spain, Basefarm in Norway and Datapipe in the USA. He currently holds numerous Technology Non-Exec Directorships around the world & is the Chair of AIM listed Audioboom plc and BigBlu Broadband plc.
Mr Tobin is Chairman of the Friends of The Loomba Trust supporting widows in India, a Patron and Founders Circle Member of The British Asian Trust, Founder of the CEO Sleepout event for Action for Children & has sat on fundraising boards of the Princes Trust, Cooperation Ireland & the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Mr Tobin’s charitable focus is primarily the education, welfare & empowerment of young people & children around the world.
In 2016 Mr Tobin slept in the streets to raise money and awareness for Action for Children, completed his Duke of Edinburgh Diamond Award, and raised over £100k running 40 Marathons in 40 consecutive days for the 40th anniversary of the Princes Trust. In 2020 Tobin trekked to the South Pole raising over £500k for the Brain Tumour Charity
Michael’s business & thought leadership have been widely recognized. He was named ‘UK IT Services Entrepreneur of the Year’ by Ernst & Young in 2009, 2010 & 2011; PWC Tech CEO of the Year 2007; London Chamber of Commerce 'Business Person of the Year’ for 2009 & 2010; In 2009 was named techMARK ‘Personality of the Year’; In 2007 & 2009 he was the winner of the DCE Outstanding Leader of the Year, & in 2008 won ‘Data Centre Business Person of the Year’ at the Data Centre Leaders awards. He was awarded ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Data Centre Industry’ at the Data Centre Europe awards & in 2011 received a Lifetime Achievement Award for services to the industry.
In 2005 he was named number 31 of Britain’s Top 50 Entrepreneurs & in 2014 he was honoured in the Queens New Years Honours List with the Order of the British Empire (OBE) medal for Services to the Digital Economy.
In 2016 he received business awards for Outstanding Non Executive Director of the year in the Best Business Awards 2016 and the Global Business Excellence Awards 2016, and Chairman of the Year at the Stevie Awards in the USA. In 2017 he was recognized as Datacentre and Cloud Influencer of the Decade in Monaco at the Broadgroup Industry Awards and named in Smith and Williamson’s Top 25 Power Individuals of Industry.
Michael has many motivational & Inspirational speaking engagements & in 2014 he launched his first book, “Forget Strategy, Get Results” to great acclaim, and his second book, ”Live, Love, Work, Prosper” was released in 2018. His third book, “Lifting the Floor” was released in 2020.
Michael is married with 3 children and lives in Rotherhithe in London.