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Terry Matthews is a serial and successful high tech entrepreneur, originally from Wales. He has founded several dozen companies in the high tech communications field. His most notable sucesses were with Newbridge Networks (data communications especially ATM devices and routers.It was acquired for seven billion dollars by Alcatel) and Mitel (voice systems and semiconductors).
Mitel was his first enterprise in Canada. It started out in collaboration with fellow British émigré Michael Cowpland as a way to raise seed money for the future enterprises they were dreaming of. The name was a contraction of "Michael and Terry's Lawnmowers" . Stories differ about the lawnmowers but one is that they planned to import and sell in Canada small electric lawnmowers built in the United Kingdom. This first endeavour was a fiasco since most Canadian lawns have a thick grass which is unsuitable for the kind of lawnmowers made in the United Kingdom. Another version is that a shipment of Russian lawnmowers failed to arrive. In any event, the two persisted and obtained funding elsewhere in order to make Mitel Networks one of the more successful manufacturers of small PBX systems in the world.
A native of Wales, Matthews emigrated to Canada as a young man, but still takes an interest in his home country. One of his most recent ventures is the Celtic Manor Resort, a leisure complex near Newport, Monmouthshire. The original Celtic Manor Hotel at its heart was formerly a maternity home and was Matthews' birthplace. As a billionaire, he is considered to be one of the richest people in both the UK and Canada. He was awarded the OBE.
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