Martin Port

Martin Harry Port (born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, 29 July 1962) is an entrepreneur based in Yorkshire, England, specialising in technological innovation. Port founded Masternaut in 2002, one of the first UK companies to offer software-as-a-service, with web-based vehicle-tracking.

Early life

Port attended Allerton Grange High School. At the age of 15 he started a small printing business with a friend, producing business cards for local companies. In 1986 Port moved to New York, USA to help a friend who had founded a German bakery business, and returned to the UK three years later.

Ventures

Kroustie Speciality Bread On his return from New York in 1989, Port founded Kroustie, a speciality bread retail and wholesale business, supported by a government enterprise allowance. Customers included Archie Norman, former Chief Executive of Asda, Andy Bond, former Asda CEO and Marco Pierre White.

Masternaut Martin founded Masternaut in 2002, offering a GPRS-based vehicle tracking system. The company initially had three employees and occupied a serviced office on a science park in Leeds. By 2003 Masternaut had 1000 subscribers. In 2004 Masternaut moved to a converted historic Almshouses building in Aberford, Leeds. By 2005 there were more than 10,000 subscribers.

In 2006 Port acquired Three X, a mobile workforce software business, from GE. The company won a significant £2.5m contract to supply a tracking solution to automotive parts company Unipart.

In 2007 Masternaut was placed first in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100, a league table of the UK's fastest-growing technology businesses. Also in 2007, Martin Port opened Masternaut's first office in Sydney, Australia with Australian entrepreneur Ian Maloney.

Masternaut was listed in Tech Track 100 again in 2008 and 2009. Port acquired Fibre City, an internet service provider with state-of-the-art hosting facilities and ICM Business Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Partner specialising in Microsoft Dynamics CRM software, in 2008.

Port won the Ernst & Young 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year Award for technology and communications.

In 2009 Port was approached by Dell to appear in an advertising campaign. In 2010, Port was asked to front the launch of Take Your Own Path in Australia.

Port sold Masternaut UK to Hub Telecom, a subsidiary of Aeroports de Paris in 2009, remaining at Masternaut as Managing Director. The Institute of Directors awarded Port with its Entrepreneur of the Year prize in 2010.

Community and charitable involvement

Martin Port is an active member of the Leeds Jewish community and has been involved in supporting various events, fund-raising campaigns and activities.

Cash for Quitters In 2008, Martin's company Masternaut UK offered all its employees a £2,500 bonus for quitting smoking, to be split between themselves and Cancer Research UK. The launch of Cash for Quitters generated significant media interest and was shown on BBC, ITV and Channel 5 news and national newspapers. £11,250 was raised for Cancer Research UK.

Drive for Life Martin was the driving force behind the launch of Drive for Life, a national UK safe driving competition. Using data on driver behaviour from its subscribers, Masternaut created a safe driving league table listing over 60,000 drivers. The competition was run in conjunction with the UK's road safety charity BRAKE. Winning drivers received a cash bonus with prizes matched by an equal donation to BRAKE.

External links

• website

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Name	Port, Martin
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Date of birth	29 July 1962
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