I grew up on the streets of London and went to a pretty rough, all boys school in Tottenham. A school which dated back to the 15th century.
In 1631, a legacy was left by Sarah, Lady Duchess of Somerset to extend the existing school house, and provide free education for children from less affluent families. Sadly, the school closed down in 1988. I’d already left in 1986, with only two O’ Levels, one of them in English.
Like most at the age of 16, I was still unclear about what I wanted to do for a career but knew that the two O’ Levels weren’t going to cut it if I wanted to have any chance of landing a position at a top company.
So I enrolled at another school, where many of my classmates had famous parents. My best friend at the time, was Mick Jagger’s nephew. Being a rebellious 16 year old I once turned down an opportunity to have dinner and an audience with Jack Nicholson.
But that’s another story…
What mattered was I was able to improve my grades by orders of magnitude, and eventually get into University.
After graduating with Honours in Business, while searching for that perfect career role in marketing, I’d take up temporary roles. One such role was at Cornhill Publications in central London, cold calling prospective customers to sell advertising for an annual oil and gas industry periodical.
My manager had instructed me in no uncertain terms that I should only speak to CEO’s and Managing Directors. So, I decided I’d try and sell advertising to Siemens PLC, the global powerhouse.
Using some self-taught techniques, I managed to get through to the Chairman and CEO, a Mr Jurgen Gehrels, and successfully pitch him for advertising using the carefully scripted sales sheet I was given.
But that’s another story…
What mattered was I seemed to have a knack for sales. So sales roles continued to follow; in retail, fashion, travel, SaaS, and technology.
Selling always came naturally because I didn’t try to “sell”, I communicated (value). And ultimately design is communication.
Working in product development and the software industry and being able to understand the customer, allowed me to encroach and collaborate with some great teams and have influence over the user experience and design aspects of SaaS projects.
My creative urges came more and more to the fore, and I began learning to use solutions like Inkscape, Gimp, Adobe XD, Figma, and web development platforms like Squarespace, WordPress. Then I discovered Webflow, which has become my tool of choice for developing websites.
I’ve sat on many sides of the table; as a customer, as a solution expert, as an entrepreneur…
Woody Harrelson once declined to invest in my start-up.
But that’s another story…
What matters is he said no. And being able to “think creative”, as well as “commercial” and “strategy” has led to what I love doing today; collaborating with leading organisations to help bring their projects to life.
I've lived in Hong Kong, New Jersey, Moscow... I've probably been to more states in the US than I'd guess most Americans. But I've never been to Italy...
I've been fortunate enough to travel most of the world and connect and work with people from many different backgrounds.
So, if you’d like to discuss how we can work together, I’d be delighted to hear from you.
