Townley to leave Downtown for Online Ventures

Alan Townley, who led the launch of business networking group Downtown Manchester in Business, will join Paul Yates' Online Ventures next month.

Yates, who founded online marketing firm Just Search in 2004 and sold it three years later for £14m, set up Online Ventures as a digital venture capital group last year.

Townley led business development for Downtown and will have a similar role at Online when he joins at the start of February.

He said: "I launched the Manchester office of Downtown and it's going great with around 200 members in two years.

"But the opportunity which I've been offered with Online Ventures is unique and too good to turn down."

He added: "Downtown has been a great employer - there's not been a day in the last two years when I've thought, 'I don't want to go to work'. I've loved every day."

Before joining Downtown, Townley spent 12 years at Excel Publishing in Manchester with the last six working on sales for its EN business magazine.

The aim of Online Ventures is to invest “capital, creativity and digital experience” into online businesses and ultimately float on the stock market.

So far the group is made up of four creative agencies: SEO firm, Search Innovation; PR and branding agency, Rococo in Manchester; web and social specialist, Mobedia in Heaton Moor; and Social Innovations.

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