Board of Directors

Stephen Murphy
Chairman

Stephen is Chairman of The Garden Centre Group and leads the Board.

Stephen was Group CEO of The Virgin Group from 2005-2011, having succeeded the Founder, Sir Richard Branson. He oversaw the worldwide interests of Virgin Group and was responsible for global strategy.

Stephen is currently also Non Executive Chairman of Jumeirah Group, the international hospitality company, Chairman of The Learning Clinic, a UK medical technology business, a Non-Executive Director of Ren Ren Inc, China's leading real name social network company and a Non-Executive Director of The Business Growth Fund, a £2.5bn UK investment fund supporting small and medium sized UK enterprises. He is also an Advisory Partner at Ashcombe Advisers LLP, a specialist corporate finance and advisory business.

He has previously worked for Mars, Burton Group, Ford Motors and Unilever plc.

Kevin Bradshaw
Chief Executive Officer

Kevin most recently served as Managing Director of Avis UK and was additionally responsible for technology across Avis Europe Plc. As a member of the Avis Executive Board, he oversaw a significant turnaround of the UK operating business and undertook a transformation of the European technology organisation prior to the sale of Avis Europe in October 2011.

Previously, Kevin served as Managing Director of the Enterprise Information Division at Reuters Plc and grew a number of businesses supplying financial data to the world's leading institutional financial services companies.

Kevin started his career at the Kalchas Group, a firm of strategy consultants founded as a spin off from McKinsey and Bain & Company.

Nils Steinmeyer
Chief Financial Officer

Nils is a Finance Director at Terra Firma Capital Partners. He joined Terra Firma in 2003 as Financial Controller with a remit to align the financial management and reporting standards across the portfolio businesses.

Over the past few years Nils worked closely with several Terra Firma portfolio businesses, including Deutsche Annington, AWAS and Phoenix Natural Gas.

Prior to Terra Firma, Nils spent 11 years with General Electric Co. (USA) in a wide range of finance roles across various divisions of the company, including 5 years in businesses where General Electric was a minority shareholder.

Stephen Pitcher
Purchasing Director

Horticulturally trained, Stephen joined The Garden Centre Group in late 2008. Previously, he worked in the garden centre sector for many years at Country Gardens, and as Head of Buying at Countrywide Country Stores. Currently, Stephen is responsible for the buying team and strategy of all products sold throughout the group.

Lorenzo Levi
Non-Executive Director

Lorenzo is an Operational Managing Director at Terra Firma Capital Partners. Since joining Terra Firma in 2002 he has been involved in a number of the group's investments including Phoenix Group, AWAS, Tank & Rast, RTR and Odeon Cinemas.

Prior to joining the group his career ranged from sales management and corporate development roles for companies such as IBM and Nortel Networks to strategy work for management consultants Bain & Co.

He has a BSc in Electrical Engineering and a BSc in Economics from MIT as well as an MBA from Harvard.

Julie Williamson
Non-Executive Director

Julie is a Financial Managing Director at Terra Firma Capital Partners Limited, adviser to the Terra Firma shareholders and currently focuses on the hospitality and leisure sectors. She led the team advising on Terra Firma's investment in The Garden Centre Group. She also led the team advising on the investment in Tank & Rast, another Terra Firma investment and was responsible for its refinancing in 2006 and the partial exit in 2007. Julie currently also sits on the Board of Odeon & UCI Cinemas Holdings Limited.

Prior to joining Terra Firma in 1998, Julie worked for Nomura International plc where she headed the legal team that provided legal risk analysis and transaction execution support to the group. Prior to that, she was a partner in the Banking department of the law firm Winthrop & Weinstine.