Col Needham

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. In 1999, he collected two Webby Awards for IMDb. 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".

IMDb was started in 1990 while Needham was working as an engineer in Bristol at Hewlett-Packard (HP). 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.

Needham married Karen in 1989. They have twin daughters and live in Filton, Gloucestershire. He is a fan of early 20th-century classical Russian composers, particularly Dmitri Shostakovich.

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

Colin Needham (born 26 January 1967) is an English entrepreneur who is best known as the founder and CEO of IMDb. He has been general manager of IMDb since its acquisition by Amazon in 1998.