Will Sheane

CEO Finisterre

Last Reviewed: September 28, 2026

Executive Summary

Will Sheane is chief executive of Finisterre, the outdoor and surf clothing brand that Tom Kay started in 2003 in a flat above a Cornish surf shop, with a single fleece sold through a three-page website. Sheane did not come up through apparel. He was an investor at Active Partners, a collective of investors and operators that bought and ran businesses, got involved with Finisterre from that side, and put himself forward when the chief executive role opened. He has since run the brand on what he describes as an investor’s attention to fundamentals, connecting its stores and website on a single commerce platform and taking it into North America, while its founder remains on the board.

Career Highlights

• Chief executive of Finisterre, the St Agnes, Cornwall outdoor and surf apparel brand founded in 2003.
• Director of Finisterre UK Limited since 1 February 2021, and of its parent company Fitzroy Apparel Limited since 13 November 2019, according to Companies House.
• Came to Finisterre from Active Partners, where he worked as an investor and first became involved with the brand.
• Led a unified-commerce approach across Finisterre’s channels, including Shopify point-of-sale in all its stores from April 2023.
• Oversaw Finisterre’s expansion into North America, which he names as a standout moment of his time at the company.

Professional Journey

Before Finisterre, Sheane worked in investment at Active Partners, which he has described as having been, in those years, “more of a collective of investors and operators who bought and ran businesses” before it became a formal fund. He spent about ten years living in Sydney and is a lifelong surfer, and he was a Finisterre customer before he became involved with the business through Active Partners. When the chief executive role came up, he said, “I immediately put my name on the list.”

Companies House records him as a director of Fitzroy Apparel Limited, the company that holds a controlling stake in Finisterre UK Limited, from 13 November 2019, and of Finisterre UK Limited itself from 1 February 2021. Tom Kay, who founded the brand, remains a director of the operating company. Sheane has said that one of his first hires was Amelia Hornblow as Chief Product Officer, whom he credits with helping him learn the product side of a business he had come to from finance.

His visible priority has been making the business work as one system. In a January 2025 interview with Drapers he described building “a relatively agile tech stack” so that stores and online share data on stock, customers and sales in real time; Finisterre has run its website on Shopify since 2017 and moved all its stores onto Shopify point-of-sale in April 2023. The same connected setup supports services such as wetsuit rental and in-store product repair. “Online and offline are increasingly merging, so a unified approach is key to strengthen the customer experience,” he said.

He has also taken the brand abroad. In a December 2025 interview he named the launch into North America as a standout moment, built gradually through events, ambassadors and athletes on the ground. He describes his approach as focused on “strategy, team, cash”, and on building a business that is resilient over the long term rather than simply fast-growing.

Education

No education record was established from a primary or dated source for this profile.