Scott Fletcher, 34

Chief executive

ANS Group

Greatest professional achievement: Growing turnover at technology group ANS from £6m to £10m in the year ended March 2007 and also raising £750,000 through the flotation of software development group Smart Identity.

Current goal: To grow turnover to £30m at a rate of 50 per cent a year for the next three years whilst keeping net profit margins at 10 per cent.

Despite his age, Scott Fletcher has a lengthy history in the IT industry. He started out aged 17 working as a programmer at TSL before progressing into junior management when TSL was acquired by DCM. Following the demise of DCM, in 1996 he founded ANS, which specialises in the provision of IT and telecoms services.
Over the past 12 years Droylsden-born Fletcher has grown ANS steadily from its base at Manchester Science Park into a company that has more than 400 clients, as well as partnerships with technology makers including Cisco, Hitachi Data Systems and Microsoft. It currently employs more than 80 people, including five at a second office at the Daresbury Innovation Centre. Fletcher said he hopes to increase the headcount by between 10 and 15 people this year. ANS, which listed on the Plus market in 2000, has said it expects fiscal 2008 sales to jump by 59 per cent to £10m and pre-tax profits to rise by 58 per cent to around £1m when it reports results next month. Fletcher said he is currently happy with the Plus listing, but refused to rule out a progression to AIM in the future.

Fletcher also recently floated Smart Identity on Plus and has been appointed chairman of another Plus company Ashpool Telecom.

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