musicMagpie CEO prepares to fly the nest

After 19 successful years at the helm of what has become the world’s largest reseller of tech, CEO and MD Steve Oliver is preparing to stand down to spend time with his family and in his own words “to chase more thrills.”

In 2007 Steve, a circular economy pioneer, founded the globally renowned musicMagpie. The new business venture was born out his garage in Hazel Grove Stockport, a business that has become synonymous as a leader in the re-commerce of consumer technology with sustainability running through the very heart of its operations.

But success doesn’t come overnight and is never without risk as Steve explains:

“Building a business always comes with risk; but, with determination and the backing of my wife Cath, I invested half of our family home into starting musicMagpie.

Despite the risk and the company’s humble beginnings, musicMagpie had sales of over £145m in 2021 when it floated on the London Stock Exchange at a value of £208million.

After a few turbulent years on the public market, in November 2024, The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) granted regulatory approval for the Stockport-headquartered recommerce business to be acquired by Bolton-founded online electricals retailer, AO World, in a nearly £10 million deal.

An awards steal by the magpies!  

With so many accolades and awards in the cabinet, one of the most impressive was eBay UK’s first ever lifetime achievement award.The musicMagpie team was presented with the award at the ninth annual eBay Top Seller Awards and remains the most successful eBay seller in UK history.

You don’t have to spend long in Steve’s company to realise that, whilst he is an incredibly successful businessperson, he is first and foremost a family man (and a dedicated Manchester City fan) who is looking forward to dedicating more time to his family as well as supporting and guiding fledgling businesses to success:

Steve said:

“I owe it to myself and to my wife Cath to spend more time with her, without whom I couldn’t have done any of this; to travel a bit and to spend quality time with her, my Dad, my girls, my beautiful grandchildren, Joshy and Ivy, and my wider family and close friends, which I simply cannot wait to do as I love them all more than the world.

“I will also be able to spend more time with my other ‘part-time’ business interests that I have been building quietly in the background for a little while now, including the exciting ‘Doorly’ which is going from strength to strength and an amazing business called Bioloon that has developed the world’s first ever biodegradable balloon…more news on both of those to follow! I also look forward to spending some more time with EGG, the homelessness charity that I helped found three years ago, which is achieving some fantastic results to get people experiencing homelessness into full time homes and employment. We have now helped about 350 people into permanent housing and 250 into permanent employment in total at EGG.

“My greatest single pride at Magpie has always been the people …. more so than our cumulative £2bn of gross income in our history so far, more so than the little business that started in my garage in Hazel Grove becoming the biggest seller in the world in the history of eBay and Amazon and more so than paying out well over £1/2 billion pounds in tax-free cash to our customers, it is absolutely our people that I am most proud of.

“Thank you again to my dear Magpie colleagues and friends, and a huge thank you to the many business partners and friends who I have had the pleasure of working with at Magpie over the last 20 years. You know who you are, but I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Steve will officially step down from his role on 30^th September; Jon Miller, current Group Chief Commercial Officer, will be taking over as Managing Director of musicMagpie and joining the AO Senior Leadership Team.

Read Steve’s LinkedIn post here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7478772415167348736/