J2 designs touch-screen computers which are in bars, shops, cinema and information kiosks.

It employs 14 people at its Warrington headquarters and another 12 at its US base in California. It has a design and engineering office in Singapore and its products are built to its specifications by various suppliers in the Far East.

Customers include Threshers, Floors2Go and Harvey Nichols, but its products have recently proved particularly popular in bakeries as many of them do not have internal fans, meaning they will not suck in dust and flour.

Boyd, who hails from Edinburgh and is still a season ticket holder at Hibernian FC, graduated from Glasgow’s Springburn College in 1983 and then headed to Australia for a year-long “working holiday”.

In the end, his stay in Australia lasted eight years as he began working in the growing cash register and electronic point of sale systems (EPoS) sector.

In 1991, he returned to the UK to join Bolton group Riva, firstly working in technical support before moving into the sales and marketing arm of its electronics division.

In 1998, US group Javelin Systems approached him to found a European subsidiary. Javelin Systems Europe was founded in Warrington, and Boyd also looked after Javelin’s work in Australasia and Asia.

Javelin changed its name to Aspeon and had by 2001 started creating software to go with its hardware. The group, said Boyd, had a market capitalisation of $400m and turnover of $85m – but trouble was on the way.

He said: “The market was really excited about the new application services, which were created around the time of the dotcom boom. The share price rose significantly.

“Then the bubble burst. Aspeon had massive overheads.”

Boyd and fellow Javelin managers Tony Sampson, Mark Brackley and Alex Nelson had spotted the potential in Javelin’s European, Australian and Asian operations, and felt it would thrive as a standalone business away from the problems at its American parent. They secured a seven-figure funding package and set out to buy the business.

The management team chose the name J2 – referencing both Javelin and Jade – and set to work growing the companies.

Boyd, who lives with his wife and two children, said his European business had always been run at arm’s length from its American parent and so was quickly able to stand on its own two feet.