Leadership Team
Jambu Palaniappan, Chief Executive Officer
Jambu joined from OMERS Ventures, a Canadian venture capital firm, where he was Managing Partner & Head of Europe. He previously held several executive roles at Uber and Uber Eats, where he was among the first 100 employees globally.
Alongside leading the team at Checkatrade, he’s currently a Non-Executive Director of JustEat Takeaway.
Outside of work, Jambu loves spending quality time with his wife and two young daughters. He enjoys playing golf, hitting the gym, and reading.
Mathieu Proust, Chief Operating Officer
Mathieu started his career with Microsoft before founding two tech companies of his own. He moved to the UK in 2014, joining Uber Eats, where he introduced McDonalds delivery to the UK, before becoming a General Manager. Moved to WeWork in 2018 as General Manager for UK and Ireland, before becoming COO for their international market.
Outside of work, Mathieu is dad to two small girls – admitting the eldest rules his house – and is a keen squash player, and when he’s not in London or Lakeside can be found in Dublin, where his wife is from.
Ira Roxburgh, Chief Product Officer
Ira has previously led world-class product teams and driven innovation for tech businesses such as Expedia, Amazon, Funding Circle and, most recently, worked as Chief Product Officer at Zettle.
Outside of work, Ira likes ballet and the arts. She lives in London with her husband and son. She has lived in multiple countries prior to the UK, often travels to Canada to see family, and is a keen supporter of her son’s rugby team.
John Frith, Chief People Officer
John has over 20 years’ experience in HR at a wide variety of companies. Starting his career at Lloyds TSB, he’s since spent the last 12 years helping to develop businesses in HR Director roles.
Outside of work, John lives an active outdoor life in the beautiful New Forest with his wife and two wonderful kids. John is an avid sports fan, a regular paddle boarder, and a wild swimmer all year round. Recently, he’s been roped into coaching his son’s cricket team, Bashley CC.
David White, Chief of Staff
Before joining Checkatrade, David led on strategy for nearly a decade – starting at consultants Bain & Company, moving to Disney to focus on sports and Disney+, and most recently serving as Group Head of Strategy at HomeServe Plc.
David lives with his wife in South London, and on a weekend you’ll find him in the pub watching football or F1, supporting his local church, or chasing his two young boys around a park.
Sid Baveja, Managing Director – Consumer
Sid has more than a decade of experience in online technology platforms, including working in senior leadership roles at Just Eat and viagogo/Stubhub.
Sid was born in India but grew up in five countries. After earning his degree in Economics at Middlebury College in the US, Sid joined Goldman, Sachs & Co as an investment banking analyst. After serving for two years in the oil & gas M&A team, Sid made the switch to working in the technology sector and hasn’t looked back since.
Outside of work, Sid is a passionate cricketer, an avid reader of non-fiction and enjoys spending time with his wife. Sid is based in London, UK.
Mark Bowden, Chief Financial Officer
Mark spent 25 years in the Telecommunications industry holding senior roles across some of the largest brands including Virgin Mobile, Vodafone and O2. Mark was CFO at Tesco Mobile and giffgaff.
Outside of work, Mark takes any opportunity to go waterskiing and wakeboarding and also enjoys popping back to his family’s arable farm in Shropshire to help out with tractor driving.
Vrash Irde, Chief Technology Officer
Vrash is a technology leader passionate about building inclusive, high-performing engineering and product teams. He has over 17 years of engineering leadership experience, collaborating with, leading, and managing awesome humans to create cutting edge tech products that solve real-world customer problems. His experience spans both scaling startups like carwow and large companies like Amazon, across India, the UK, and the US.
Outside of work, Vrash loves to travel the world with his wife, play and listen to heavy metal music, play tennis and board games – especially chess. He claims to be the best pub foosball player in the world (unsubstantiated) and loves going to many pub quizzes.
Helen Kennedy-Shamir, Group General Counsel
Helen has spent the last 20 years advising on corporate law, working for private equity and venture capital funds and FTSE25O companies. Working in the UK, US and Australia she has experience buying, selling and building business all across the world.
Outside of work Helen can be found open water swimming as well as indulging her passion as a keen (if untrained!) gardener and interior designer.
Tom Pandolfo, Chief Data Officer
Tom has been leading data functions for over 10 years and has been involved in building data teams across multiple industries such as telecoms, insurance and IT. He is passionate about driving commercial value from data and building a data-driven culture in organisations.
Outside of work you will find Tom (in the rough) on the golf course when he is not coaching his sons football team or taking his daughter to gymnastics competitions.
