Next steps

Brent co-founded lastminute.com in April 1998 with Martha Lane Fox in the living room of his London flat, three years after having drafted the initial idea while working as a strategy consultant. Brent was 29 and Martha was just 25. lastminute.com was the UK’s highest profile site and ten years on it remains Europe’s number one travel website. Brent remained as CEO of lastminute.com Ltd. through 2005, when the company was sold to Sabre for £577m, until April 2006 when he handed over the CEO position to Ian McCaig and took on the role of Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer. From January 2007 Brent changed his role to that of a part-time consultant.

Brent founded, and is Executive Chairman, of mydeco.com – a venture-backed internet start up in 2007. mydeco has raised over £12 and attracted partners such as Philippe Starck and Sir Terence Conran.

Brent, now 40, was born in South Africa, educated at Eton and holds an MA in French and German literature from Oxford. His previous roles include business development at Line0ne, five years consulting at Mars & Co and Spectrum Strategy Consultants where he specialized in media and telecoms. Brent was also Head of Business Development and founder member of QXL.

Brent is an angel investor in several internet companies. These include Viagogo, themovingservice.com and wayn.com. He is also a board member of Univillage.com and the University of the Arts London. From January 2007 he took on the role of non-executive Chairman of wayn.com – a profitable travel and leisure social network with over 14 million members.