Executive chairman, mydeco
Brent co-founded lastminute.com in April 1998 with Martha Lane Fox and was CEO and took the company to profit and gross bookings of over $2bn.
The company floated in March 2000 when the dot-com bubble was at its peak - the IPO was 40 times oversubscribed and the price increase during the process was a record for a UK company. lastminute.com acquired 14 businesses after the IPO to supplement the annual growth of the core brand which was over 100% from 1998 – 2004.
In 2005 lastminute.com was sold to Sabre for $1.1bn.
Brent has founded another VC-backed internet based startup, mydeco, which is due to launch this Autumn and will be an innovative online service for home design and furniture.
He is a Governor of University of the Arts College, London and a non-executive board director of Guardian Media Group. From January, 2007 he took on the role of Non-Executive Chairman of Wayn.com – a travel and leisure social network with over 8 million members. Brent is also an angel investor in several internet companies including Viagogo and Wayn.com and moveme.com.