Lee Strafford is an English businessman, the former

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

Sheffield Wednesday F.C. Sheffield Wednesday Football Club is a professional association football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The team competes in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Formed in 1867 as an offshoot of ...

, the

Football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club based in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. In N ...

. Strafford is also co-founder of NetStart. He was also co-founder and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of the UK ISP

PlusNet Plusnet plc is a British triple play internet service provider (ISP); providing broadband, landline and mobile services. The company was founded in 1997 in Sheffield, England, and became a public limited company (plc) in July 2004 when it was f ...

. Strafford became chairman of Sheffield Wednesday in 2009 and quickly made significant changes to the club including signing a charitable sponsorship deal with

Sheffield Children's Hospital The Sheffield Children's Hospital is a healthcare facility for children in Broomhill, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It is managed by the Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust. History The hospital first opened on 15 November 1876 ...

. However, it was announced in May 2010 that Strafford had resigned, having failed to ensure that the club stayed in the

Football League Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the En ...

caused by apparent major disruption within the

boardroom A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

. Following his resignation Strafford engaged in a corporate

whistle-blowing A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

process, exposing various issues which directly contributed to the club's plight, a plight which almost resulted in the club being placed into administration. The club was bought by

Milan Mandaric Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city has ...

on 14 December 2010. Mandaric's bid was supported by the club's bankers and major creditor, the

Co-Operative Bank Cooperative banking is retail and commercial banking organized on a cooperative basis. Cooperative banking institutions take deposits and lend money in most parts of the world. Cooperative banking, as discussed here, includes retail banking carr ...

, in favour of an alternative bid by members of the incumbent board. Strafford made his name with Sheffield-based Internet provider

. He took PlusNet from 7 to 200+ employees and from £0 to £100 million market cap, with the company eventually being sold to

British Telecom BT Group plc (trade name, trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is th ...

for £67 million. During his time as CEO, the business went through three sale processes, 6 years as a reporting segment of Insight Enterprises Inc, a (

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

listed Fortune 500 business), one AIM

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

, two and a half years as a plc and was eventually sold to

BT Group BT Group plc (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broa ...

in January 2007. Two months after acquiring Plusnet, BT sacked Strafford. Strafford has spent much of the time since the sale of PlusNet working with

Sheffield City Council Sheffield City Council is the city council for the metropolitan borough of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It consists of 84 councillors, elected to represent 28 wards, each with three councillors. It is currently under No Overall Contr ...

and the two Sheffield Universities with a view to helping to create more technology start-ups in the region and establishing better support for existing technology businesses. In December 2010 Strafford became a founding private sector board member of the

Sheffield City Region The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority is the combined authority for South Yorkshire in England, with powers over transport (public transport and major trunk roads only), economic development and regeneration. It covers a total area of 3 ...

Local Enterprise Partnership (http://www.sheffieldcityregion.org.uk/), working with a specific focus on the Creative and Digital industries agenda for the city region, while also working with the rest of the board on driving economic growth as a whole in the city region. In June 2012 Strafford co-founded Dotforge, a pre-Seed Tech accelerator. Dotforge supports digital start-ups drawn from around the world and supports them through its programmes which are run primarily in Sheffield. In November 2016 Strafford launched Accelerated Digital (ADV) Ventures http://accelerated.ventures . ADV is a venture investment company investing in and supporting startups & scaleups in the Tech (Digital) sector. Its initial geographic focus is on UK based companies. Strafford was a co-founder and the CEO.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strafford, Lee 20th-century births Living people Sheffield Wednesday F.C. directors and chairmen Year of birth missing (living people)