Our Leadership

John has held the position of Chairman of Virgin Wines since October 2018. He is also Chief Executive of Hillarys Group, the UK’s largest window furnishing company.

John has 30 years’ experience within the retail sector. Prior to joining Hillarys Group in 2005, John was COO at Thresher Group and held various roles at Dixons Retail, where he was latterly a Managing Director. He started his business career as a strategy consultant with LEK Partnership.

Jay Wright is CEO of Virgin Wines, having held the role since 2008 when he successfully merged the Warehouse Wines and Virgin Wines businesses. In 2013, Jay led a private equity-backed management buyout of the Virgin Wines business and following substantial growth took the business public in March 2021.

Prior to joining Virgin Wines, Jay held Managing Director roles at Warehouse Wines, the business he founded in 2000, and World Wines Direct, a subsidiary of the Greenalls Group.

A Chartered Accountant, Graeme has been CFO at Virgin Wines since 2008 and in 2013 led a private equity-backed management buyout of the business alongside CEO Jay Wright. Prior to becoming CFO, Graeme held the role of Finance Director at Warehouse Wines.

Sophie is a Non-Executive Director with extensive public markets experience gained through nearly two decades as a London-based stockbroker. She has been involved with a huge range of public markets transactions and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Sophie currently sits on the Board of several AIM-listed companies, and a sizeable private company. She is a Non-Executive Director and Audit Committee Chair of Hotel Chocolat Group plc, System1 Group plc and The Snowfox Group, and a member of all three Remuneration Committees.

Helen joins Virgin Wines UK plc as a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee. She has more than 35 years’ experience in the food and beverage sector, both in the UK and internationally. Helen was Group Executive Director at Caffe Nero and Managing Director at Zizzi. She also spent nine years at Unilever, where she launched the Ben & Jerry’s brand in the UK and Europe.

Helen is currently Senior Independent Director at the Halfords Group plc, Remuneration Chair at Fuller, Smith & Turner plc and at Premier Foods plc. She also serves on the Boards of Whittard Tea and Toast Ale

Ed is a Portfolio Partner at Gresham House Ventures, previously Mobeus Equity Partners LLP. He brings more than 20 years’ experience of supporting companies to create and realise shareholder value. Prior to joining Gresham House, Ed was Chief Investment Officer at Catapult Ventures. Ed has held a number of senior finance roles, including at ATX Software and The Carbon Neutral Company, having qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers.