Profile: Michael Jackson

When Michael Jackson books a flight he has learned the hard way to use his middle name, Edward, or the booking clerk thinks he’s taking the mickey.

Jackson, who grew up in Thorner near Leeds, has led a colourful and well-documented corporate life with stints at Sage and Partygaming, where he was accused of selling his soul to the devil.

But despite this, he still has trouble using his own name because of the connection with the 1980s superstar who died in 2009.

It’s a connection that naturally didn’t occur to his father back in 1950 when Jackson was born.

Jackson comes from a long line of Yorkshire mill owners and his family firm W and E Jackson was well known before it was bought out by Illingworth Morris in the late 1960s.

“I was born in Birmingham – my mother came from the Midlands – but my father wanted to get me back to Yorkshire ASAP.

“He wanted me back within 48 hours to stop me becoming a Brummie! My father was fiercely Yorkshire,” he says.

It’s a link that has followed Jackson. As chairman of software firm Access Intelligence, he opened a state-of-the-art office in York last month, creating nearly 40 jobs.

The new centre will be responsible for the development, testing and delivery of the group’s cloud-based software solutions and follows a £2m investment.

Access Intelligence, which counts The Bank of England, Aviva, Dixons Retail Group and L’Oreal among its customers, said all new projects will be based in York.

“We said: ‘Where is the best place to site our new premises?’ York was an excellent choice as we got a lot of support from the council and the train connection from York to London is really good at just two hours,” says Jackson.

The calibre of employees was also an important consideration.

“York has great technical people coming out of the universities – York University in particular,” he says.

Jackson says Access Intelligence has won prestigious contracts with the likes of Shell, BP and ING because its research and development is more innovative and has a faster time to market than the large software giants.

“We’re using the very best automation tools. We can do 400 man days of testing in one evening and we provide customers with a real audit trail,” he says.

The group plans to be back in profit in 2013 after a year of investment in 2012.

Jackson says his father was a great believer in manufacturing.

“We used to have endless arguments – I said software is manufacturing and I absolutely believe that,” says Jackson.

But his father disagreed, saying that the family business was “proper manufacturing”.

The Jackson family owned the W and E Jackson mill in Morley, which dates back to 1860 and the Industrial Revolution.

“It was one of the first environmentally friendly businesses,” says Jackson. “Rag and bone men would come round to people’s houses and collect all the unwanted woollen jumpers.

“We took the wool and ground it to create fluff and thread. We wove it with cotton and milled it to produce cloth. So it was Victorian recycling.”

As a 15-year old Jackson worked in the mill on the weaving floor and the finishing department where he ground up the rags.

“I wasn’t paid a lot,” he recalls.

Unlike the huge mills that focused on spinning or weaving, W and E Jackson carried out every process, recycling discarded clothing and turning it into new cloth.

The business was set up by Jackson’s great great grandfather.

“He was the archetypal mill owner,” says Jackson. “He owned all the mill workers’ cottages. Unfortunately, the industry declined and we sold to Illingworth Morris. It later became a supermarket in the middle of Morley.”

Like his father, who was an engineer before he took over the running of the mill from his grandfather, Jackson and his twin brother both attended Cambridge University.

He read law before training as an accountant with Coopers and Lybrand (now PwC).

After six years working as an accountant he joined the world of investment banking in 1982 when he joined a small bank called Guidehouse.

During the next eight years he raised finance for a number of companies including FTSE 100 software company Sage, where he invested £10,000 for one per cent of the company. At the time Sage had four employees and a modest turnover of £170,000 a year.

From 1983 to 1990 Sage took off and Jackson was closely involved.

“In 1990 Sage went public and at this stage we really started our acquisition strategy. My investment banking experience was obviously very valuable here as we did the deals predominately ourselves,” he says.

By March 2000 Sage had a market capitalisation of £9bn and was the best performing UK quoted company for 10 years.

He became chairman of Sage in 1996 and held the post until 2006.

“One of the most exciting times of my life was backing Sage,” says Jackson. “It was a phenomenon.”

After being fired by Guidehouse after losing a power battle, Jackson started his own fund management business, Elderstreet, in 1990.

Some 10 years later he sold Elderstreet to Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, but then the bubble burst giving Jackson the chance to buy the business back three years later for £1. The company is back on track and was recently voted VCT Fund Manager of the year at the Growth Company Awards.

Then came the part of his life when he was accused of selling his soul to the devil.

He joined the PartyGaming board in 2005 ahead of the company’s flotation with a market capitalisation of £4bn.

“At this stage I was chairman of two FTSE 100 companies and it was the adverse publicity surrounding the float which led me to leave the Sage board a year later,” says Jackson.

PartyGaming came in for a lot of negative publicity ahead of the float due to concerns over the legal situation in the US, where much internet gambling is illegal.

“The Americans suddenly turned round and said: ‘This is illegal’ and threatened to extradite us to America. It was a pretty scary time,” admits Jackson. “I couldn’t travel to the States for five years. If I had I would have been arrested.”

Jackson left the board in 2008 following a lot of negative publicity suggesting he had sold his soul. After such a colourful career, Jackson is returning to his Yorkshire background as Access Intelligence opens its new premises in York.

“You can’t get away from your roots. I still have Yorkshire pudding before a meal,” he admits. “The idea was to fill everyone up on pudding so they wouldn’t eat the expensive meat.”

Even after earning his millions, Jackson is still true to his roots.

Michael Jackson Factfile

Title: chairman of Access Intelligence

Date of birth: 16-03-50

Place of birth: Birmingham, but back to Yorkshire within 48 hours

Education: Leys School, Cam-bridge; Cambridge University

First job: Accountant, Coopers & Lybrand

Favourite band: Coldplay

Car driven: Mercedes 500SL

Favourite film: Four Weddings and a Funeral

Favourite holiday destination: Majorca

Last book read: Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels

What I am most proud of: “I was able to be in the right place at the right time when early stage technology was becoming acceptable in this country.”