Linlithgow’s Calnex beefs up board with two hires

Calnex CEO Tommy Cook

Linlithgow-based telecoms testing and measurement firm Calnex Solutions plc on Tuesday announced the appointments of corporate veterans Margaret Rice-Jones and Stephen Davidson as non-executive directors of the company.

Calnex went public at 48p per share in October 2020 and rose as high as £1.48 in November 2021. On Tuesday, Calnex shares were trading around £1.15 to give the firm a current stock market value of roughly £100 million.

Customers of Calnex include BT, China Mobile, NTT, Ericsson, Nokia, Intel, Qualcomm, IBM and Facebook.

Calnex published first-half results on November 23 “materially ahead of the board’s expectations” and declared its first ever interim dividend.

Calnex is headquartered in Linlithgow and has additional locations in Northern Ireland and California, supported by sales teams in China and India.

Calnex said Rice-Jones has over 20 years of experience at board level in public and private software and technology companies.

“Margaret’s current roles include acting as senior independent director at main market-listed De La Rue plc, chair at Origami Energy Limited, a VC-backed energy-focused technology business, and non-executive director at Holiday Extras Investments Limited,” said the Linlithgow firm.

“Previously, Margaret was senior independent director of Xaar plc and chaired private companies Skyscanner Limited and Penguin Portals Limited until they were sold for £1.4bn and £509m, respectively.

“Having spent her executive career in mobile telecommunications, Margaret has a background in engineering and a track record of delivering strong leadership and value to high growth and innovative organisations.”

Calnex said Davidson has more than 20 years’ PLC-board experience.

“He is currently a non-executive director at main market-listed Informa plc and non-executive chair at AIM-traded analytics company Actual Experience plc, JSE-listed Datatec plc and MCB Group Limited,” said Calnex.

“Stephen was previously chair at AIM companies Rosenblatt Group plc, Restore plc and Jaywing plc, and main market companies Inmarsat plc and MECOM plc. 

“In his earlier career Stephen was chief financial officer and then chief executive officer of Telewest Communications plc and vice chairman of investment banking at WestLB Panmure.”

Calnex chairman George Elliott said: “I am very pleased to welcome Margaret and Stephen to the board of the company.

“They join us at what is an exciting time for Calnex, as we seek to capitalise on the telecoms industry’s ongoing transition to 5G alongside the growth of cloud computing.

“We look forward to benefitting from their extensive experience and knowledge.”