IT appears Roger Mitchell has no plans to change from the diverse career path which has wound round accountancy, football journalism, consumer electronics, stickers, academic lecturing, the music business and being the first chief executive of the Scottish Premier League.

Now living in Como, Italy, with his wife and two children and with his office in Lugano, Switzerland, Mr Mitchell, 48, maintains a broad portfolio of interests.

At the moment he is involved in a small vineyard in Chianti, London-based Sports New Media, which manages Twitter and Facebook accounts for a number of sports people, AIM-listed Swiss mobile banking technology business Vipera and Glasgow online marketing agency Alienation Digital.

There is also a €100 million (£80m) football investment fund which he is hosting investor road shows for after a €15m test version proved a hit.

Mr Mitchell said: "Football clubs are asset rich and cash poor so they have a need for working capital and the investment fund is almost a mezzanine finance provider.

"It will provide finance on the future value of a player. You are lending not investing so you don't own any of the player.

"For example, a club can invest a lot of money in youth development but none of those players are on the balance sheet. One of those players is good at 19 and they get offered £2m for that player but they know if they keep him for another year he may be worth £10m as he will have that breakout year.

"They may be forced by the bank to take the £2m but the club may prefer not to. So a lender could loan them the money with some conditionality on what happens to the player.

"That kind of asset backed lending is good for football clubs and probably other sectors as well."

His most recent appointment was as a non-executive director with Alienation, which has ambitious plans for international growth.

Sitting in the boardroom of the agency's Charing Cross headquarters, Mr Mitchell said: "I am always attracted to companies which have a great product, which have a clear vision of what they want to do and where the empathy is right.

"I've always felt Scotland in the SME, digital and technology is quite strong and is an area which should be built on. People are good in Scotland. When I'm around in other places I always get told the Scots are resourceful and I think that is true.

"[Alienation's] strategy is geographic growth and aspiring to bigger projects where they probably start earlier with the client – maybe at board level and certainly at marketing manager level – rather than just fighting over the dregs of the digital marketing budget when someone has done a television campaign.

"So it is getting into the conversation earlier which means you have to have the people to do that credibly and they have that here.

"These guys invest a bit of time in getting to know the people on the other side of the table. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is strategic management consultancy but they are pretty damn good at understanding someone else's business."

It is interesting to hear Mr Mitchell bemoan the lack of finance for SMEs around Europe given the prominence of the issue in Scotland.

For him the key is to get other funders to plug the gaps which means a bigger role for business angels.

He said: "It is a real challenge because companies need capital to grow and expand but the risk appetite [from banks] is absolutely frozen up.

"The stock market has gone backwards. I would argue AIM has little to offer in terms of capital raising as no-one has an appetite for it.

"So angels and high net worth individuals are becoming more important. Maybe that is a function of the fact that I have a network of people who will be interested in backing certain deals.

"There are plenty of people who have a lot of money who are also frustrated at getting 0% at the bank or the stock market not doing it for them. There is a whole growth sector in that second market in matching those people together."

Further to that he believes the challenge of growing a small business is common no matter where a headquarters is based.

He said: "Most people would like to expand but it is a big decision. If you have come from a small market and you have structured your business to be profitable there then investing in a much bigger market almost becomes a do or die decision.

"I'm not saying it is risking the farm but it is hard. The challenge is how best to do that without making it a make or break decision.

"You have to look at partnerships, the right entry point and doing it without spending millions of pounds.

"I've seen company's spending £2m then worrying about the pipeline of business. You don't get medals for that.

"It might look nice on your website for a few months saying come to our new Budapest office but you have to have the clients."

While Mr Mitchell is still very attached to Scotland he is not in favour of independence.

And on his old stomping ground of Scottish football he remains passionate and is adamant clubs outside of Rangers and Celtic will face a difficult future if the Old Firm are ever allowed to compete outwith Scotland's league structure.

He added: "If you have 2000 fans you don't have the same future as someone who has 40,000 season tickets."

ROGER Mitchell began his accountancy training in 1983 with Grant Thornton and then moved to Price Waterhouse where he first worked in Italy.

He moved into investment banking and corporate deals with James Capel, which is now part of HSBC.

From 1990 he was involved as a broadcaster on Italian football which led to further freelance writing assignments.

In 1992 he began working in business development for sticker company Panini and less than two years later he was on the move again to become chief financial officer of Amstrad in Italy.

But later, in 1994, he became the Italian CFO of EMI and he stayed there until returning home to Scotland in 1998 to be the first chief executive of the Scottish Premier League.

During more than four years there Mr Mitchell was involved in negotiating broadcast football deals and also served a spell with European football's governing body UEFA.

Since leaving the SPL in 2002, Mr Mitchell has been chief executive of AIM-listed gaming group Trading Sports and head of special projects at marketing giant WPP.

He has also built up his own consultancy business Albachiara, based in Lugano, Switzerland.

He has a portfolio of non-executive roles, is international partner at corporate finance boutique Green Square Partners and a guest lecturer at Bocconi University in Milan.