Michael Lord

Mike Lord was born in 1966 in Leyland, Lancashire. He studied at the University of Central Lancashire, starting in electronic engineering before switching to business after his first year. He was a competitive canoe slalom athlete in his youth, selected for the GB Youth Team, and today holds a private pilot's licence.

He built his career in the mobility sector, joining Sunrise Medical in 1993 with responsibility spanning sales, product development, IT and customer services. In 2000 he led a management buyout of Minivator (a stairlift manufacturer), completed a further staged buyout in 2004 to become CEO, and grew the business from roughly $6M to $60M in turnover before selling it to Handicare, where he served briefly as UK Chairman. Through the 2000s he assembled a personal investment portfolio focused on business start-ups and turnarounds — a period he has described as "the risk end of investment."

That angel/portfolio activity led him to the fledgling Stiltz Homelifts in 2011, when he met co-founder Lachlan Faulkner at the Ideal Home Show. Stiltz (a maker of compact, shaftless "through-floor" domestic lifts) had been founded around 2010 by Cameron Gillespie and Lachlan Faulkner. Lord invested in 2014, becoming Chairman, and in a 2017 management buyout bought out three of the four original founders and became full-time CEO as well as Chairman.

Under his leadership Stiltz grew turnover from roughly $500K to around $100M, targeting $160M by 2030, and expanded internationally including into the US and China. In 2026 he was named Company Leader of the Year (101+ employees) at the West Midlands Leadership Awards.

• Backs disruptive, product-led companies where a single strong product can be scaled globally — he "immediately saw the potential for this unique and highly disruptive product" in Stiltz.
• Comfortable at the risk end of investment: start-ups, early-stage businesses and turnarounds, historically self-funded from his own portfolio rather than a formal fund.
• Prefers an operator-investor / hands-on model — rather than passive angel cheques, he tends to take board control and run the business (Chairman in 2014, CEO via MBO in 2017).
• Deep domain conviction in mobility and assisted-living, having spent most of his career (Sunrise Medical, Minivator/Handicare, Stiltz) making home-mobility products mainstream for "inclusive, independent living."
• Values customer impact and satisfaction as core metrics: "A lot of it revolves around knowing customers are satisfied" (Stiltz cites a Net Promoter Score of ~75 and 4.5-star Trustpilot rating).