Martyn Dawes is a non-executive director, adviser, mentor and award winning entrepreneur, in fact one of the most successful consumer business entrepreneurs of the last decade in the UK. Martyn is the Founder and former CEO of Coffee Nation, that created the new market category of ‘’self serve gourmet coffee’ that went on to sell over 100 million cups of coffee  from over 600 locations across the UK,  becoming the UK’s leading brand of takeaway coffee selling. The business sold for £23 million and has since been sold again for even more.

Martyn grew up in the Midlands and aspired to be an airline pilot but with a colour vision deficiency this career was out of reach so he dropped out of A levels and joined an aerospace components foundry before moving to London and starting his first business aged 23, a management consulting firm. Successful but frustrated, he risked all to start a business with a “real product” founding Coffee Nation in 1997. The company was twice ranked within the top 100 fastest growing UK companies in 2005 and 2006 and Martyn has been awarded by Ernst & Young UK and Virgin Atlantic/Sunday Times Innovation Award in 2006.

As well as being a board member of the Young Presidents Organisation (YPO) Martyn’s book ‘Wake Up and Sell the Coffee’ was published in January 2014 and has been ranked as one of the top 6 most notable titles on entrepreneurship of 2013 by The Centre for Entrepreneurs.

Martyn has been a longstanding member of Home House as well as a founding member of Home Grown and has made an appearance as a speaker on our Rockstar Series. He is a keen runner and, now also holds a pilot’s license.