We are Thomas

Most recently Sabby Gill led Sage (FTSE100) as their UK&I Managing Director in its home market of the UK and in Ireland.  

He brings more than 30+ years’ experience in the technology sector, spanning sales, operations, and customer service.  Sabby has spent his career supporting businesses of all sizes with technology that looks to unlock their potential—both at home and in international markets. Sabby joins us from Sage having previously been at Epicor Software, where he was Executive Vice President of International.  

Other past roles also included Senior Vice President of International Sales for IGT, a gaming technology company, and executive management roles at HP, CA Technologies, Oracle, PeopleSoft (acquired by Oracle), and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).  
Sabby was also most recently the Vice Chair of the CBI North East Council, a TechUK Board Member and also a member of the UK’s Digital Economy Council with Secretary of State. He plays an active role supporting various charities and foundations and is a mentor in the Peter Jones Tycoon Program and the Veteran Tycoon Enterprise Programme.  Sabby was also included in 2019’s Most Powerful People in the North East.

Sabby is a local boy, having been born and bred in Reading.  He is married to Diane and has a 14 year-old daughter Jaia and a 12 year-old son Hari. He has made many attempts to reduce his golf handicap, but has struggled and enjoys skiing and foreign travel. 

Fergus Brownlee was appointed Chairman of Thomas International in 2018, following the significant investment from Palamon, a pan-European growth investor.

As Chairman, Fergus will help drive the strategic direction for the business and work closely with the senior leadership team to implement ambitious plans for growth and build on the success of the last 10 years.

Fergus brings a wealth of business experience in FMCG, Financial Services and Education across international businesses and across most functions from Finance, HR, Product Supply, Marketing and General Management. As a person who thrives in high growth environments, Fergus is excited to contribute his knowledge and expertise at Thomas. 

Along with the Thomas International Chairmanship, Fergus is the Chairman of Bayswater Education and Vice Chairman of United World Schools, a charity which builds schools in Cambodia, Myanmar and Nepal.

Fergus is married with three grown up children and is expecting to shortly be a grandfather for the first time. He is a member of three golf clubs (two in Scotland) and three real tennis clubs (the original tennis game). Fergus and his wife live in Berkshire and have two horses, three dogs and three cats.
 

A qualified accountant with over 25 years of finance experience, Tim Newbegin joined Thomas in 2018 as Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Tim brings with him an unrivalled level of knowledge that covers mergers and acquisitions, the global implementation of financial systems across multi-sites, and commercial experience of service, media and technology driven markets. He has also successfully led numerous international teams through significant change, including private equity ownership, setting up new territories, managing operational consolidation and cost reduction.

At Thomas, Tim will be spearheading the finance, HR and operations departments, helping drive the organisation towards its 2021 goal.

Residing in West London, Tim is married with two children. His interests have generally revolved around sports (Rugby/Golf/Scuba Diving) and travel, where he regular visits Spain and France, has recently driven the California Route 1 and visited  Japan. 

As Chief Operating Officer, Guy is responsible for helping both shape the strategy at Thomas and ensure it's executed successfully.

Guy brings with him extensive experience of helping international businesses grow both organically and through acquisition. He has worked with businesses in multiple sectors, including technology, media, telecoms, business services and education. He enjoys working with businesses going through periods of extensive change, particularly where a technology transformation is required.

Guy was previously a Director in corporate finance at DC Advisory, a Partner at advisory business RSM and most recently Managing Director of the Arts Division and Group Head of Corporate Development at the private equity backed Cambridge Education Group.

Guy lives in London, enjoying eating out regularly with his restaurant critic wife and trying to keep up with his two young children.

Having joined Thomas International in 2018 as Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Chris Jackson is responsible for driving Thomas’ technology, implementing a technical vision that will deliver the next generation of user-friendly, scalable and innovative digital talent solutions.

Chris is a commercial and technical leader, who was previously at Pearson, one of the world’s leading educational and publishing conglomerates, where he spearheaded its drive to become a cloud-based digital company. During this time, he successfully deployed new digital native platforms to support wholesale consolidation and modernisation of the product portfolio.

Outside of Thomas, Chris lives in Berkshire with his wife and two sons.  Not surprisingly as a father to young children, he doesn’t have time for many hobbies!  But you will find him following any sport involving four-wheels and he attends the Le Mans 24 hour motor race every year; as a spectator not a driver! 

With over 20 years of demonstrable experience managing sales operations, business development and customer service teams, Joe Sanchez joined Thomas in 2019 as International Sales Director.

Joe is a data-driven leader, who proactively uses this to better understand markets and anticipate customer and competitor movements. He has in-depth knowledge of channel sales strategy and brings a wealth of experience building a professional and motivated network of channel partners.

Having managed global, cross-cultural sales and operational teams throughout his career, Joe prefers a participative leadership style. He looks to hire smart, ambitious people and encourages his teams to challenge and contribute, giving them the freedom to grow.

Originally from Ohio, Joe graduated from Georgetown University, Washington in Foreign Service & International Business. He currently resides in Berkshire with this wife and 3 children and describes himself as an aging triathlete.
 

John Webster joined Thomas International in 2019 as Chief Marketing Officer and is responsible for growth marketing strategies across the customer lifecycle, PR and brand awareness programs globally.

With over 20 years’ experience in marketing, consulting & sales leadership positions within the technology sector, John brings to Thomas a proven ability to define and execute go-to-market strategies to deliver accelerated growth. John's competencies for building marketing organisation capability from scratch to transform business performance have been tested across both established market-leaders as well as pre-IPO challenger brands.

Prior to joining Thomas, John held Marketing leadership roles at Bizagi, Basware and Opower Oracle, as well as consulting positions at Accenture. With a master’s degree in mechanical & manufacturing engineering from Newcastle University, John lives in London with his wife and two children.

Magda joins Thomas International (July 2021) to set up a Customer Success function within the company to drive growth through customer focused approach.

With 15 years’ experience in account management and customer success, Magda brings to Thomas a proven ability to transform exciting customer facing department into truly SaaS focused Customer Success team, which will hold customers at its heart. Magda has an experience in building CS teams from scratch and in change management with extremely high employee retention rate and client satisfaction. 

Magda joins Thomas from Diligent Corporation, a leading Board Management SaaS company where she was a Vice President of Customer Success for the EMEA region. Previously to that she held account management and new business acquisition roles at various small private direct marketing companies. In 2019 Magda became a recipient of Silver Stevie Business Award for an Employee of the Year in a global Women in Business category.   

Magda is married and recently welcomed a baby girl with her husband. They love leading an active life and travelling. While at home they enjoy cooking and hosting friends for BBQs. Magda and the family live in Hampton and will soon be looking to adopt a dog.    

Gillian joined Thomas in May 2020, as their Head of People, and is responsible for reinforcing Thomas’ strong company culture and delivering the people strategy to enable Thomas’ growth plans and vision of being a top 5 SME company.

Gillian, and her team, are responsible for the full employee life cycle globally and is a proud advocate of Thomas assessments and embedding them through all stages of recruit, retain and develop.  
 
With more than 30 years People related experience, Gillian has worked across a range of sectors and industries, both private and public, and from early on in her career, focussed on innovative employee engagement strategies and helping organisations create a culture of trust, transparency and autonomy.      
 
Gillian is a Fellow of the CIPD and lives in Finchampstead, Berkshire.