WHO WE ARE
SIMON PAVITT - FOUNDER
Armed with a mission to help others achieve great impact and fulfilment from their passion projects, Simon Pavitt founded Capstones Co in early 2017. Capstones Co is the first alternative advisory boutique solely focused on actioning the personal visions of remarkable people through their ‘Capstone’ projects.
Simon’s psychology background equips him with the ability to listen and understand people who demand the best from themselves. He is entrusted by elite sportsmen and women, UHNWIs, business disruptors, household name CEOs and high-profile families. Simon has gained a reputation to successfully program and deploy fast-paced pioneering projects in dynamic environments, thrusting him into amazing opportunities from building a Formula One team to launching philanthropic foundations.
Prior to Capstones Co, Simon spent over fifteen years in Formula One, initially with global brand SAP with McLaren Mercedes, then managing Vodafone’s global partnerships, and finally as Commercial Director of OVO Energy Stephen Fitzpatrick’s Capstone: the F1 team Manor Racing.
Previously, as part of the core management team, Simon established sports & entertainment agency Fuse for the leading media group Omnicom. The award-winning agency scaled to 46 markets. Here he negotiated a deal flow of global partnerships within the fields of sports, arts, music and fashion worth of over $2bn. His clients included 11 of the top 30 global brands. Simon sits on advisory boards of technology, lifestyle, wealth management and philanthropic companies. Via Omnicom University, Simon is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and has lectured at London Business School on the topic of sports marketing and technology.
As Chief Operating Officer of Venture Capstone: The London Technology Club, Simon has become an accomplished presenter and compere, having hosted over 130 events around the world with the likes of former prime ministers, billionaires and tech unicorn founders. He has authored four series of reports on the future of technology in F1, Art, Fine Wine, Longevity, Philanthropy, Property, Nutrition, Space, Preventative Health, ESG, Climate Change, Finance, Media and Sailing/Superyachts. He is a regular writer for the Mayfair Times, Monaco Life, Club Oenologique and JaneAnson.com. His work has also been featured in the likes of Jack’s Journal, the Stanford Center for Longevity and the MRSC Group (Mortality Research Steering Committee).
Outside of Capstones, Simon looks to enjoy life to the fullest from ... Elite fitness; a member of ‘Team GB’, placed 26th at Duathlon World Championships Canada (2017). Fine wine; growing the reputation of emerging Super Tuscan houses to Family; proud father to two young children. He holds a BSc Hons Degree in Psychology from the University of Nottingham.
Simon’s ambition is to define and refine an industry around ‘alternative alternative’ investments… He has recently finished the book ‘CAPSTONES’, due to be published later this year and is passionate about the ‘Art of Wingmanning’ i.e. helping others with their Capstones.
charly massey - DATA SCIENCE
Charly Massey has a background in Molecular Biology alongside two decades working in marketing & communications, including running and selling a successful international business. Subsequently Charly returned to university to study in the field of data science and business analytics.
Charly Massey prevails at the intersection of technology, business and creativity; where arts and culture meet data and science. Discovering new and exciting solutions to clients’ communications problems.
Starting her career in the City (UBS & Enron), Charly found herself naturally migrating to marketing functions. She swiftly advanced to become Head of Innovation at leading ad agency CHI&Partners (now The&Partnership). Commanding a strong working knowledge of all aspects of modern marcomms, Charly has lead senior, global and board level strategy and campaign execution for some world’s biggest and most exciting brands; including Luxottica, Coca-Cola, Converse, Best Buy & ASOS.
EY Partners, Contagious Magazine, Music Tech Europe, Mobile World Conference, NHS Major Trauma Hospitals and Imperial College London have all hosted Charly Massey as a well-received keynote speaker & panellist.
Charly brings her logical approach to the creative arts, fashion and cultural passion projects. Projects have included adtech, medtech and biotech. Charly recently published the whitepaper; “The greatest enemy of innovation is tedium; achieving the ambitions of Universal Health Care via technical implementation.”
An ardent advocate of improving access to opportunities for all, Charly mentors young Protégés including a renowned Parisian Couturier, SXSW innovation winners and Forbes 30 under 30 alumni. In 2016, Charly Massey helped launch #FutureGirlCorp, a business bootcamp community for fledgling female CEOs.
Charly is a founding friend of Courier Magazine and has had work featured in D&AD annual, the V&A, Music Week, Ars Technica, Forbes and most major British News publications. A supporter of the Arts, Charly has led a variety of passion projects from Jeremy Deller at 1 London House to David Guetta at Dalt Villa Ibiza.
Charly travels widely, in pursuit of her greatest loves; surfing, cycling, sailing and socialising.
RACHAEL WITHE - CONSUMER
Rachael has a stellar CV of nearly 20 years working within FMCG marketing heavyweights, the likes of PepsiCo, Kimberly Clark and Unilever. Rachael knows how to drive storytelling for major UK and global brands. Keen however to not be trapped her entire career within the classical grounds of FMCG marketing, Rachael has also worked with entrepreneurs and start ups - including Dragon's Den-backed YUU (the company received offers from all five dragons, agreeing in the end to investment from two). Rachael holds a first-class degree in Law and Business Studies from University of Warwick.
Rachael is a planning and amplification guru. She builds project plans like no one else we’ve ever known.
SALLY DARVILL-CROXFORD - PEOPLE
After 20 years of working in Senior HR & People Leadership positions within the Tech Industry (the last role being the Head of People for Adobe EMEA), Sally decided to move out of a Corporate position to accelerate talent within a variety of organisations to help them grow their people.
Sally works with HNW individuals who want to fast track the key rising stars that they want to nurture and grow to be Board-level leaders. Her specialty is working on up and coming leaders passion projects. She is an expert in developing next-gen from within wealthy families in order for them to be ready for high profile leadership positions
Sally is accredited by the ICF, a results-focused coaching approach based on the principles of Neuroscience which can be complemented with several cutting-edge diagnostics that provide powerful and rich insights to support growth & development whether on an individual, family or company level.
Having been a Female Senior Leader & Founder, Sally is especially passionate about supporting diversity and other women to thrive and flourish in their field.
Sally is a founder member of The All Bright a Private Members Club, where the focus is to facilitate, networks, investments, an academy for learning with an inclusive approach to help women in business thrive and flourish.
If you want to ensure you are creating the right passion projects for rising stars to be ready for Board-level leadership, Sally is your Wingwoman.
JASON WALKINGSHAW - CULTURE
Passionate about culture and brand in team projects. Jason has over 19 years experience working in businesses where building your people was the main focus. He built a 125-person direct sales business where the mantra was ‘we build people and they build the business’. This resulted in developing a process to recruit, develop and retain the best talent possible and won numerous international awards along the way.
Jason joined UK business success story OVO Energy, the energy disruptor, when there was only a handful of employees. OVO was all about building a great internal employee culture and as Head of Employee Engagement Jason was in charge of designing and implementing the people plan. That resulted in OVO being ranked the 20th Best Place to Work in 2017 in the Sunday Times list. In that time OVO grew from 40 employees to over 1400 and culture was at the centre of that growth. Jason’s areas of expertise are brand identity, using your values to leverage culture as an asset and employee engagement. Jason was regularly leader of passion projects for the company founder and Senior Leadership team.
Jason has an MA in International Management from Heriot-Watt University as well as studying business at Université Paris Dauphine. In his spare time Jason is a keen golfer, an avid follower of the Scottish Rugby team and hangs out with his wife and young daughter in London. Simon and Jason’s paths crossed in the F1 Paddock where they found both were fervent believers in the power of internal culture on driving business results.
If you believe that great team member experiences leads to create project results and want your passion project culture to deliver maximum results, Jason is your Wingman.
JACK BURKE - CREATIVE
Jack is a writer, actor, presenter, voice-over artist and, when he has the time, chef. Jack was a Wingman to John Vincent, CEO of Leon, helping him research and write his book Winning Not Fighting. During this time he continued to occasionally cook in Italy and France. Jack was then commissioned to co-author Leon cookbooks for example Happy Fast Food, released in May 2020. Whilst with Leon he devised, wrote and presented a series of films called London Jack as well as a project about Romanian food and culture with Vice. Jack
Jack has provided voiceovers for a number of high-profile TV and radio campaigns, as well as promos for Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Channel 4. He have also voiced characters in several video games, and recently co-starred in Cracking Up, an eight-part comedy series on Radio 4. His first feature film, Lair, is due to be released in 2021.
At the bottom of Jack’s CV is an enviable ‘perfect score’ in academic achievement: A First Class Honours Degree in Classics from UCL, 4 A*s at A-level and 11 A*s at GCSE….
Jack is a great Wingman to others, applying bags of creativity and a fresh challenger mindset to Capstone Projects.
MAXINE HOLDEN - EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT
Maxine is the assistant to Capstones Founder Simon Pavitt. If Maxine isn’t tearing her hair out about organising Simon’s diary and general red tape, she can be found drinking vast amounts of prosecco.
If you have any specific requests, Maxine is your Wingwoman.