Our Story
Lisa Robinson
Founder & CEO
companiions was founded by Lisa Robinson, an ex amazon executive. As well as being an entrepreneur, Lisa is a mother of two young children, one of whom was diagnosed with asthma aged just 10 months. Working full-time whilst caring for a child who was in-and-out of hospital, as well as her ageing parents proved challenging. Lisa looked at all kinds of support options but found they were either expensive, inconvenient or troublesome to arrange.
Lisa became obsessed with making companionship easier, safer and more human using technology to modernise the experience. She wanted to create a care solution for her friends, family and everyone so she gathered a group of clever, kind, ambitious people and created companiions - an app that brings people together by making it quick, easy and safe to arrange companionship.
Lisa has 25 years experience leading highly successful advertising teams whilst at amazon, sky and other globally successful businesses
Simon Peace
Chief Finance Officer
Simon is a strategic finance professional with a 25-year track record of growing businesses organically and through acquisitions, equity investments and joint ventures, with cross-sector experience including biotech, hi-tech, healthcare, pharma, telecoms, green-tech and financial services.
Simon spent 8 years with GE Healthcare developing extensive international experience across the USA, Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. In recent years Simon has been adding value to early stage growth businesses, particularly around Cambridge where he raised £12m at GeoSpock and £31.5m at Inivata.
Simon loves helping people, and in addition to being an enthusiastic companion for the company, also helps out with the Scouts and other local community activities.
Rob Reng
Technology Advisor
Rob is a seasoned technology leader, tech/product strategist and evangelist of innovation.
Earlier in his career, he helped global media organisations such as the Financial Times and Fairfax Media deliver large scale digital change programmes. Following this, he spent 5 years leading technology and innovation at digital agencies, directing award winning products and experiences for the likes of Apple, Sony, Coca-Cola, Nike & Nissan.
More recently within start-ups in the music, AI and IoT sectors, he has been aligning product & technology strategy with core business objectives, helping those young companies scale up and bring pioneering innovations to market.
Jon Mawer
Chief Marketing Officer
Jon has always wanted to help others. As a regular volunteer to his local “meals on wheels” programme, his experience gave him crucial insight into the struggles of lonely and isolated people.
Lisa and Jon worked on the same team for five years at Amazon. So when Lisa decided to start companiions, Jon jumped at the opportunity. He wanted a challenge that also allowed him to directly help real people.
Jon combines his vast professional experience in the media and advertising sectors with a true passion, to contribute to companiions’ mission.
Adam Spooner
Product Manager
Adam saw from an early age how genuine human connection could change a life. Going with his mum (a doctor) on visits to patients at home or in care, he became motivated to deeply understand and help others’ with their challenges. Volunteering for Mind and in communities, he learned more about supporting mental health and inclusion.
Working with IBM, Apple, the UK Government and start ups, Adam gained deep experience in innovatively designing and building products to solve people's real world problems.
In companiions, Adam saw an opportunity to combine his skills in bringing together people, process and technology with a cause that strongly aligned with his values.
Tom Braybrooke
UX/UI Designer
Tom has seen how important technology can be in positively impacting people's lives; both individually and across wider groups. While volunteering in Mexico, he began to understand the vital role that local communities play in coming together to support some of the most vulnerable members of society.
Before companiions, he spent 3 years at a digital agency designing intuitive mobile apps and web systems across multiple industries including Healthcare, Utilities and Fintech - transforming complex problems into innovative and functional design solutions.
Tom chose companiions for the unique opportunity to use his skills to create a product that tackles a real and growing problem, and make a genuine difference to the lives of the people using it.
