Construction technology provider Causeway Technologies has appointed Richard Longdon as non-executive chairman.

One of Britain’s most respected ‘Silicon Fen’ entrepreneurs, Richard Longdon was the chief executive and subsequently president of AVEVA plc for 17 years before stepping down at the end of 2017. Under his leadership, AVEVA grew into a FTSE 250 technology company with a market capitalisation of £1.4bn at the time of his retirement from the board of AVEVA.

Richard’s prior positions include chairman at Ideagen plc and senior independent non-executive board positions at Alfa Financial plc and Fidessa plc before it was taken private in 2018.

He has also worked successfully with private equity-backed businesses, serving as a non-executive chairman at Process Systems Enterprise Ltd and non-executive director at Prometheus Inc.

Richard’s appointment at Causeway follows the recent announcement of a £120m investment in Causeway by Five Arrows Principal Investments, the European corporate private equity arm of Rothschild & Co, to fund strategic acquisitions and accelerate the company’s organic growth strategy to provide a seamless digital connection across the entire construction supply chain.

Phil Brown, chief executive of Causeway, said:

“Richard’s addition to our board brings complimentary expertise in software business management and financial performance. This appointment is also indicative of the level of excitement about our market opportunity, and the strength of our ambitions as a business. Our core purpose at Causeway is to enable the digitisation of the construction industry to best-in-class standards, and Richard’s arrival will help us scale our capability so that we can enable our customers to best leverage technology to be distinctly impactful in their respective markets.”

Richard Longdon added:

“This is a very important time for Causeway. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to work with Phil and his team as well as Five Arrows — together we will accelerate the extension of Causeway’s cloud platform across multiple sub-segments of the construction supply chain. It is clear that the construction industry urgently needs and wants good technology solutions. With its recent acquisitions and the investment from Five Arrows, I see Causeway as exceptionally well placed to play a leading role in this market, especially given Causeway’s fantastic product set and deep customer relationships.”

Causeway Technologies was established in 1999. Headquartered in Buckinghamshire in the United Kingdom, it serves over 2,500 customers and has over 350 employees. Causeway provides enterprise and cloud software solutions to the construction and infrastructure maintenance industries and spans the full value and supply chain.