Originally from Merseyside but now based in North America, Daniel says: “I love being at the epicenter of anything that can change the world for the good!”
At the age of 41, Daniel has an impressive list of achievements. In 2014, he moved to the United States to start a business, sold that business to a Public Limited Company (PLC), and ran all their North American operations.
Daniel was a co-founder in the world’s first stylish automated door handle disinfector. He is also the President & Founder of Lauraniel, a service that helps clients accelerate their hiring goals.
He explained: “Our core business focuses on delivering best-in-class specialist groups, teams, and business units, accelerating time-to-market and reducing the cost, risk, and burden associated with mergers and acquisitions. Our team of deeply experienced consultants enables clients to adapt quickly to market changes and address start-up, scale-up, and team refresh projects with confidence and agility. Our clientele largely consists of top-tier consulting firms, and we help them focus on major growth agendas.”
His major focus currently is Acharta, a business he is extremely passionate about. He spends much of his time building this company. Daniel explained: “Acharta was born out of the desire to eliminate paper receipts, and we have ended up pivoting in to being a technology platform which happens often in start-ups. We aim to be the first real-time dashboard to enable single pane data-access across industries to enable management to have a very easy to view current state of all parts of their business.”
The Sunderland graduate is the founder of this Fintech firm, alongside a number of industry experts. They are focused on launching this year in North America, focusing on Private Equity as the first market they try to conquer.
He describes his biggest challenge as overcoming being fired from his previous company after nine years of service, during which he was the highest-performing team member.
When asked about what attracted him to the University of Sunderland, Daniel said: “I liked the area and the people. I think the people I met and lived with are fantastic. I am still good friends with four people from my floor at Wearmouth Hall. All are very successful human beings and have gone on to have great careers.”
Daniel also fondly remembers two of his lecturers, William Ang'awa and Paul Alan-Armstrong.
Daniel’s advice for recent graduates entering the job market is to be creative, work hard, and surround yourself with people you want to be like.
“Never underestimate the power of a good network and mentor. You don’t necessarily need a job either; you can create your own income stream,” he added.
Daniel’s plans include building more businesses that have a positive impact on the world.
He said: “TheCleani was an interesting journey. It didn’t exactly go how we had planned, but I learned so much from being in that business.”