Michael has spent more than 40 years building planning and modelling tools. A mathematician by training with a degree and MSc in Computation from Oxford University, he began his career with IBM mainframes before co-creating an early planning system that became Adaytum, later acquired for $157 million.
A career dedicated to building planning software
The entrepreneur behind Anaplan
In 2006 Michael set out to solve the limitations of traditional spreadsheets and rigid software by founding Anaplan from a barn in North Yorkshire. What began as a prototype in rural England grew into a category-defining company serving some of the world’s largest brands, including HP, Vodafone, and Adobe.
When Anaplan went public on the New York Stock Exchange, it became one of the North’s first tech unicorns — and a landmark British SaaS success story.
Why start again?
Even after Anaplan’s success, Michael saw that many businesses — especially growing ones — still struggled to model their business with rigid tools or fragile spreadsheets. He believed planning software should adapt to the business, not the other way around.
Building Kaleidoscope
That belief led to Kaleidoscope — a new planning platform designed to be flexible, intuitive, and aligned with real-world business models. With decades of experience, Michael’s mission is to give fast-growing access to powerful planning software that was once only reserved for the giants.
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