Martin Balaam

The Big Cheese
Jigsaw24

Martin is currently The Big Cheese at Jigsaw24, the most magical IT business providing an Insanely Great! experience for enlightened businesses. Jigsaw24 is UK's largest Apple and Adobe Systems Integrator and provider of IT Solutions to the Creative Industries, Education and Retail Sectors. He is also a Non Executive Director of CableSense Ltd, a company established to develop a technology for non-invasive interrogation of the physical layer of networked infrastructure.

In 2009 Martin was appointed as MD of BT Engage IT, a UK based IT Solutions business focused on delivering IT infrastructure, managed services, hosting and cloud computing to commercial and public sector organisations.

In 2005, Martin became CEO of Redstone after completing a reverse takeover of Redstone plc, a loss making small cap Telco, by his venture capital backed ICT company, Xpert Group Ltd. Following the takeover, Martin restructured the business transforming it into profit within 3 months. He grew the company from declining annual revenues to one of the sector's most aggressively growing consolidators with revenues of circa £180m within 18 months.

Prior to Redstone, Martin was CEO of Xpert Group Ltd, a role he held from February 2004 after joining the Xpert Group Board in April 2002 as Group Finance Director. Martin was brought into the Xpert Group by its major shareholders, Lloyds Development Capital Ltd and was pivotal in turning around the group that had previously been loss-making.

Before joining Xpert, Martin worked for Hays plc for five years where he held several senior financial and commercial roles within the group, and finished as President of Hays IMS Inc based in Houston and Dallas, Texas. Martin qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte & Touche, where he worked for 5 years, including a secondment to Johannesburg, South Africa.

He gained a BSc Honours degree in Physics from Imperial College and is married with three children. Martin is also a Member of the Criticaleye Advisory Board.