Keith Young RIP

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our Chairman, Keith Young. 

Well known for his flair and passion for innovation, Keith has been a part of the ClerksWell family since the very beginning. His deep knowledge of media and technology was forged first in print, including ownership of the illustrious parliamentary 'The House' magazine, then his prescient backing of the UK's first internet provider, EasyNet - in the primordial mists of the web in the mid-1990s. 

Decades later, Keith's entrepreneurial success spanned startups in digital across the UK and Europe, including hosting, microfinance, and transformative healthcare solutions. 

Keith always had fantastic stories to tell. The people and places often hurried by like tiny figures in a flick book, the tales tumbling out – shapes clear one minute and indistinct the next. What was that? Lord who? At Chequers?! And the stories – told sotto voce or sometimes sung, or even more often voiced by a sudden ensemble of character actors with regional accents – revealed a man who had seen and done so very much.  

Keith’s life reflected everything that the last century has represented. A child evacuee from London during WWII with impoverished beginnings, Keith’s journey was through and in spite of the waning class system to become a risk-taker and successful businessman and entrepreneur – his interest perpetually piqued by newfangleness across the commercial world. Keith worked in print when ink and blocks were still used, recruited women in non-traditional industries when it was opposed because of a ‘lack of bathrooms’ and followed the evolution of media through television, the web and into apps and latterly into the world of digital sustainability.  

A student of Economics at LSE and later duly recognised as a Member of the British Empire (MBE), there was barely anything that Keith didn’t have an interest in, from local television to discovering the final resting place of Genghis Khan. 

We are so proud to have had Keith as a friend and mentor to the business, who remained a reliable supporter of cScape/ClerksWell over our entire history. 

We saw him last at our Christmas party, where he joined in the singing in his own inimitable fashion. He was one in a million, and we will miss him very much.