Richard Wolfe
Chief Executive Officer

Richard Wolfe co-founded Trace with Colin Clarke in December 1974.

After reading Chemistry at Durham University, Richard joined Unisys as a systems analyst. He worked there for 5 years, specialising in database management systems.

At Trace, Richard was responsible for establishing and developing Trace Isys, of which he remained Managing Director until 1996 when he became Managing Director of Trace Financial. In April 2000 he was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Trace Group and in December 2000 he became Chief Executive Officer. He has operational responsibility for all of the Group’s activities.

Peter Stolerman
Financial Director

Peter Stolerman was appointed as Trace's first Finance Director in November 1988. He played a key role in the floatation of the company in the summer of 1989 and remains responsible for all financial and administrative matters.

Having completed an economics degree at the University of Bath, Peter joined Arthur Andersen & Co.'s London office as a graduate trainee. He qualified in 1980 and became an audit manager in 1983. During the early part of his career, Peter worked closely with manufacturing companies, but then moved into the commercial division, concentrating on retail operations and property. He was seconded for a year to the Department of Transport and spent another year with the management consultancy division, working on joint projects in the financial and public sectors. Towards the end of his time at Arthur Andersen, he joined the reporting accountants group and specialised in mergers and acquisitions, floatations, rights issues and all other aspects of public company reporting.

Colin Clarke
Non Executive Director

Colin Clarke co-founded Trace with Richard Wolfe in 1974. His previous work experience included 10 years with Unisys, latterly as a sales manager. He specialised in financial and property accounting systems and until 1999 was the managing director of Trace Solutions Limited.

Colin retired from full time work in 1999, but continues to serve Trace as a non-executive Director.

Mick Flynn
Executive Director

Mick Flynn joined Trace in May 1976 as a programmer and was immediately involved in the development of a property management system. Previously, Mick had been at Mercedes Benz, where he progressed through their IT training programme. In 1980, Mick was appointed as a director following the successful implementation of a retail sales and stock system that he had project managed. In 1992, Mick became a senior director with Trace Solutions. Through the late 1990s, Mick led the development team which designed and produced the current TRAMPS product, Trace Solutions’ flagship software solution for managing agents.

Mick was appointed as Managing Director of Trace Solutions in 1999 and has overseen the continued growth of the customer base as well as expansion into new sectors for investors and occupiers and latterly into the international market.

John Murphy
Executive Director

After reading Mathematics at Sussex University, John Murphy taught Mathematics and Computing in Sussex and London. John joined Image software in 1981 and worked as an analyst programmer and project manager, becoming a director of the company in 1984. Trace acquired Image Software in 1986 and combined Image Software with other Trace companies focused on finance. The new entity was named Trace Financial and John was appointed to the board of Trace Financial with responsibility for all projects and operations in 1990. He became Managing Director of Trace Financial in 2000, and was appointed to the board of Trace in October 2007.

Andrew Bell
Executive Director

Andrew joined the Trace Group in 2003 as Managing Director of Trace Payroll Services. Andrew has been in the payroll business for most of his working life, starting out with Centrefile (now Ceridian) in 1974. Over the next 23 years he progressed through the business, gaining experience in customer services, sales, implementation, product development and marketing. As the company grew in the late 1980s, he became the Sales Director, leading a sales force of over 40. He followed this with the role of Customer Services Director, with responsibility for all aspects of UK service delivery.

In 1997 Andrew moved to ITnet, a business process outsourcing company that is now part of Serco, and took on responsibility for the payroll and pensions outsourced contracts for a number of local and county councils based in Hertford. This was followed by a series of short term consultancy assignments before he was lured back into the world of managed payrolls at Trace. In his 4 years with the Company, the business has grown considerably and is now a real alternative to the 'big 3' payroll providers, demonstrating that bigger is not always better and that the personal touch of a smaller organisation is often preferred.

Julian Mancell Smith
Executive Director

Julian graduated from Oxford Brookes University in 1981 with a BA (Hons) in Computing and History. He joined Trace in 1985 as a business analyst and account manager in the Trace insurance team, based onsite at their largest client.  Subsequently, Julian joined the main insurance team located at their London offices.

With the restructure of the Trace Group, in 1992 Julian became a Director of Trace Isys,­ the group company specialising in software services for the Insurance and Reinsurance market,­ and managed the redevelopment of the next generation of the TWINS product suite.  As Director, Julian’s primary responsibility was for new product development, but additionally with direct involvement in account management and sales and marketing.

Julian was appointed Managing Director of Trace Isys in March 2008 and an Executive Director of the Trace Group in June 2008.