Aryza Group
Board Members

Andrew Blazye

Chairman

Andrew has spent nearly 20 years developing and leading B2B businesses which focus on proprietary technology solutions to facilitate payments, manage customer relationships and enable improved operations for financial credit providers.

Andrew was appointed Executive Chairman of Aryza Group in December 2019. His prior board experience included Universe Group plc and Edensure Ltd, both as Chairman. As an executive, he most recently worked for Shell International Ltd in various global leadership roles, and FleetCor Technologies LLC, where he was President of Corporate Development.

Andrew has lived and worked in Europe, Asia and North America during his career

Colin Brown

Chief Executive Officer

CEO of The Aryza Group, Colin Brown is a leading figure in the lending, insolvency, credit, and debt recovery space.

Since taking on the role of CEO in 2017, Colin has played an integral role in bringing innovative software solutions to the market, designed to help improve the financial health and well-being of businesses and people all over the world

As CEO, Colin has guided the company through continued year on year growth, overseeing operations in Dublin, UK, Canada, Australasia, BENELUX and DACH regions, alongside the group’s overall operation and strategy.

Michiel de Jong

Head of International Business Integration

Michiel is an international finance professional and has over 30 years of experience in Client, product and strategic positions. He has worked in Singapore, Turkey, Hong Kong, Germany, Netherlands and the UK and held regional responsibility for EMEA and Asia. Across these markets, the focus has been on Wholesale( Investment) Banking, Commercial Banking, Retail Banking and Private Banking.

Robert Doherty

Global Head of Legal & Insolvency

Rob leads our Legal & Insolvency Division globally, working with our UK, European, North American and APAC teams to set and achieve strategic, growth, revenue, and EBITDA targets. Rob’s background in software development and product management ensures that he is laser focused on ensuring our products service all stakeholders in the receivables, amicable & legal collections, debt advice and insolvency sectors so that they all achieve the best and most equitable solution from what can be very stressful situations. Rob firmly believes in building strong relationships with clients to ensure that Aryza continuously

Chris Carter

Chief Financial Officer

Chris is the CFO at Aryza Group a market leading software provider to the debt sector.

Prior to this role Chris worked at Deloitte for 15 years. The last ten of which were spent in Corporate Finance in Dublin within the Transaction Advisory team providing lead advisory services on acquisitions and disposals. While in Deloitte Chris developed experience in M&A, due diligence, restructuring, insolvency and audit.

Michael England

Director

Michael is a partner of Pollen Street and part of the founding team. He leads the private equity investment team and serves on the firm’s investment committee. Michael has been operating in the financial services sector for 20 years, with investments spanning each of Pollen Street’s core subsectors of insurance, lending, technology, payments and wealth. Michael sits on a number of portfolio company boards including Markerstudy, Aryza, Pair Finance and Lumon.  Prior to founding Pollen Street, Michael held roles at RBS and OC&C strategy consultants. He has First-Class undergraduate and a masters’ degree in Chemistry from Oxford University.

Anastasia Kovaleva

Director

Anastasia is an Investment Director of Pollen Street Capital and joined the team in 2016 with considerable experience in consulting and investment banking. She has been active across a number of sectors with a focus on technology, financial services, and business services. Anastasia currently has responsibility for Aryza and Shawbrook.  Prior to joining Pollen Street, Anastasia spent two years at Bain & Company, focusing on strategy and private equity projects across a range of industries. She qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst and as a Chartered Accountant with PwC in their Corporate Finance department. Anastasia holds a BA in Business from Simon Fraser University in Canada, and an MBA with Honours from IMD in Switzerland.

Hugo Strachan

Director

Hugo joined Macquarie in 2022 and is a Director in the European Private Equity team. He is responsible for sourcing and executing deals across the services, technology and healthcare sectors and sits on the boards of Wavenet, Zenzero and Aryza. Prior to joining Macquarie Hugo was an investor at Duke Street, a mid-market European private equity firm. He started his career at PwC where he qualified as a chartered accountant.

 

 

Tamara McMillen

Non Executive Director

Tamara is a well respected commercial leader with extensive experience driving growth in companies ranging from start ups and scale ups to FTSE 250. Her roles have included Chief Revenue Officer for OpenCorporates, Operating Partner for Hg Capital, Executive Director Virgin Media Business, Managing Director for Verizon Digital Media. Tamara’s leadership across sales, marketing, customer success and operational teams has delivered exponential growth for organizations of varying sizes and stages of development.

Michael McAteer

Non Executive Director

Michael has broad experience from Grant Thornton and as a leading restructuring advisory in Ireland, advising on both domestic Irish Companies and complex cross boarder restructurings.    He has developed in-depth technical and practical experience in the retail, leisure, construction, and IT sectors. He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland (CAI), and a Member of the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies – Ireland.  Since stepping down as Managing Partner at GT , Michael has board positions at Nostra Technologies, one of Irelands leading IT managed Services providers and Easygo , Irelands largest privately owned EV charging Infrastructure company’s.