Colin Needham (born 26 January 1967)[1] is a British computer engineer who is known as the founder and CEO of IMDb.[2] He has been general manager of IMDb since its acquisition by Amazon in 1998.[3][4]

Early life

Needham was born in Denton, Lancashire,[1] and grew up on Stockport Road. He attended Audenshaw School and Clarendon Sixth Form College in Hyde. He graduated from the University of Leeds with a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science in 1988.[5]

Career

IMDb was started in 1990 while Needham was working as an engineer in Bristol at Hewlett-Packard (HP).[1] The site evolved from what was initially his personal movie database, which became an internet bulletin board made from simple records, kept on a succession of early computers and contributed to by several persons, all of whom Needham outlasted.

By the summer of 1996, thanks to IMDb's first film-related advertising campaign (for Independence Day), Needham had quit HP to work on IMDb full-time as a paid employee.[6][7] In 1999, he collected two Webby Awards for IMDb.[8] In February 2017, Needham decided to remove the message boards from IMDb, stating that the message boards "are no longer providing a positive, useful experience for the vast majority of our more than 250 million monthly users worldwide".[9]

Personal life

Needham married Karen Gaskin in 1989 and they live in Filton, Gloucestershire with their twin daughters. He is a fan of early 20th-century classical Russian composers, particularly Dmitri Shostakovich.[1][10]

References

External links