Richard Jephcott, Chairman

Richard Jephcott is a highly experienced senior executive with vast experience in mergers and acquisitions and corporate restructuring having spent 6 years (1996 – 2001) negotiating both dispositions and acquisitions, ranging from $10k to $10bn, as the International Mergers & Acquisitions Director for AT&T. Richard is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Certified Accountants and has a first degree in mathematics and computer science from Bristol University. Richard is also Chairman of the Advisory Board of Connect Midlands. He also works in a non-executive capacity with the Environment Agency, assists Warwick University with the formation of WISER, the Warwick Institute for Sustainable Energy and Resources, and, working with HR partners delivers leadership training to several large companies including Foster Wheeler.

Richard has held senior roles with companies including many directorships for AT&T’s subsidiaries throughout Europe. These positions included the Chairmanship of a $50m dealer management software and services company based in Denmark, Chairmanship of a $100m software services company based in Paris, Managing Director of AT&T ISTEL’s Financial Services Division and Director of the Insurance Trading Exchange from inception in 1991 to sale in 1998.

Prior to 1991 he was Senior Strategic Consultant with 3i Plc, the venture capitalists, and before that held various senior finance, planning and marketing roles with the Kalamazoo Group.

James Pratt, Managing Director

Over the last 20 years James Pratt has held a number of key sales and management roles within Verint Sytems, Avaya/Lucent/AT&T. Joining AT&T in 1990 from Plessey Communications James took a lead role in managing the direct sales activity taking what then became Avaya to No.1 in Call Centre sales in the UK. James then progressed into channel development as MD for Service Providers and lead the BT team to position the market leading Definity ACD into BT’s portfolio in competition with Nortel.

In 2002 James joined Verint Systems as Sales Director UK/Ireland to lead the growth in the Quality Monitoring/Business Intelligence market and established Verint as number one Business Intelligence Partner to BT.

James joined Silver Lining Solutions in 2007 as Managing Director to spearhead the company’s growth plans.

Simon Wright, Channel Director

Simon Wright is responsible for managing and supporting Silver Lining’s growing international partner channel.

Before joining the company in 2004 he launched the UK’s first fully hosted IP contact centre and worked for British Telecom Plc, where as part of their Internet Enabled Call Centre Design team he was responsible for launching the first major UK trial of web chat and VoIP for a leading bank.

Over the last 15 years Simon has designed, built and managed contact centre telephony architectures and CRM software systems.

Gerry Cafolla, Technical Director

Gerry Cafolla received a Ph.D. in an Applied Mathematics field from Warwick University in 1997. Following this, Gerry has gained over 10 years experience leading Software Development teams that utilise Microsoft Technologies.

Over the last 7 years Gerry was Head of IT for a UK-based financial organisation which included developing CRM software for its call centre and back-office departments.

He joined Silver Lining Solutions in 2008, where he is responsible for steering the Software Development and Product Roadmaps in line with the company’s business development plans.

Mike Havard, Non-Exec Director

Mike Havard was previously Managing Director at Verint Consulting, the European consulting arm of Verint Systems. In 2006 Verint acquired CM Insight, the successful customer management consulting business that Havard had founded. Commenting on his appointment, Silver Lining Solutions Managing Director James Pratt said "We are delighted to welcome Mike to the board. His experience, insight and undoubted leadership acumen will help us move on to the next level of our growth and development.  Despite the uncertain economic conditions, Silver Lining is experiencing rapid growth and significant demand for our suite of services. This is because our focus has been to drive down the cost and challenges of managing agent skills and development in large, complex operations, helping optimize the investments already made in workforce management and learning systems. This is an area core to Mike's background, and along with his proven ability to manage and grow enterprises in this market, I am sure that his contribution will be crucial.

Originally a cosmetic scientist, Havard has been a major figure in the customer management industry for over 20 years, previously working with BT, The Decisions Group and Sitel. He is widely known and respected for his thought leading provocation of the contact centre industry, having advised many of the world’s champion brands and public sector bodies on their customer strategy and operations, writing books and papers on these topics. He was appointed a life fellow of the IDM in 2008.

On joining Silver Lining, Mike Havard commented 'After leaving CM Insight I had the opportunity to assess many interesting ventures and opportunities in the market and Silver Lining stood out as one of a few that had a superb product, management team and potential to be a significant and innovative player in the contact centre market. I am delighted to be working with the team here and am thrilled by the opportunities this business presents.'