So who am I?
The early days…
Well I was born in 1975 in Blackheath, south east London, before crossing the River Thames to grow up on the east London/Essex borders.
I attended Davenant Foundation School in Loughton, Essex before moving on to an NVQ & BTEC in Business & Finance at Epping Forest College.
Then, influenced by the Bartle Boggle Hegarty Levi & Audi campaigns, I decided that I wanted to work in Advertising whilst also knowing that I always wanted to be my own boss.
So, during my final two years at College I also studied for the professional Communications, Advertising & Marketing qualifications run by the CAM foundation so three nights a week after college I got the train to the London Guildhall University for the 6-9 classes. I was, at the time, the youngest person to receive a CAM Dip.
First steps in business…
After falling at the first hurdle to make it in the world of advertising as i didn’t get past the first round of the interview process with Saatchi & Saatchi my career began as a Media consultant for the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), the government body created in 1981 to oversee the regeneration of the then deserted London Docks which had started to close a decade or so earlier.
One of my areas of responsibility was the regional newspaper Docklands News that it produced to keep residents informed on news of the largest single regeneration project since WWII. As a finite life-span organisation, when the body completed its remit in March 1998 I oversaw the sale of Docklands News to the Brighton based Key Media & Radio to ensure the continued production, of what was then, the largest free regional newspaper in the UK.
As the LDDC started to wind down I had already joined the founder of new tech start-up JNCP.com (Jobs Now For Computer Professionals) to be responsible for marketing. Through marketing and positioning JNCP quickly became the leading place for IT professionals to find both permanent & contract roles in this very competitive sector. Fairly quickly the company received a bid approach from Associated New Media (a division of Daily Mail General Trust Group) which following further acquisitions and changes is now known as Monster.com.
I had also joined Key Media & Radio as a board director to advise and manage the running of their newly acquired asset Docklands News and the new London office that the purchase had created.
A few years into their ownership, Key Media had a change of strategic and the entrepreneur inside led me to draw up a business plan and approach RBS to assist in the funding to buy out all of their interests in London. Luckily they liked the plan and at 25 I became the owner of the newspaper with responsibility for the 12 staff that it employed. After running the business for a few years and growing it to have a turnover in excess of a million pounds with four separate newspapers titles a rival national publisher had decided to move into this second tier in London and wanted to do this via the highly established title Docklands News, so it was sold.
Working with SME’s in the UK…
After a break I decided to return to consultancy work advising Small & Medium sized businesses on marketing and also mentoring business owners on growth strategy. Plus I took an equity investment in a London based leisure business, but it wasn’t long before I became involved in a series of lifestyle and property publications for Essex & Cambridge, which were sold in March 2007 to one of the UK’s largest owner of regional newspapers and magazines.
Current day…
Currently I own a private equity company and am the managing director of the Capital Business Media group which in 2006 purchased the US focused Fund Manager Today title, the magazine for the global investment community and followed this with the purchase of Business Matters magazine from EMAP, then a 18,000 distribution business magazine, and is now the largest monthly business subscription magazine with a monthly readership in excess of 148,000 and rolling content website and daily and weekly email newsletter updates for those 60,000 small and medium business owners who have signed up to receive them.
Capital Business Media, with partners who included the Daily Telegraph Business Club, formed Trends Research, an online based business research and surveying company specialising in data and knowledge of SME businesses in the UK. Trends Research is now a wholly owned Capital Business Media group company.
Capital Business Media is now made up of a number of SME focussed business media, online, research and events companies with offices in New York, London & Manchester.
I was lucky enough to be named by The Observer newspaper & The Courvoisier Future 500 as ‘someone to watch’ in their top 100 business people list and I also hold other non-executive directorships and angel investments in a small portfolio of mainly new-start and early stage businesses.
I was very honoured to have been given Freedom of the City of London in May 2011 and a Fellowship to the RSA in July 2011.
Speaking & Consultancy roles
Given my specialism of Small and Medium businesses, I have asked to commentate on the sector and aspects related to growing business on various business programmes and news media in print, online as well as TV and radio. I also act as a judge of a number of business awards to highlight the excellence of UK business. I have also been a host and speaker at events in the UK, europe and the US.
When not in the office:
I am currently the Vice Chairman of Chigwell Parish Council, the area in Essex where I live, and am also Chairman of the areas Planning Committee and also the Parish Plan Committee, which is looking at the rolling five year plan for the area.
I have a keen interest in education, and following a period as Chair of the Davenant Business Partnership, a body I helped create to forge greater links between my old school and local businesses and employers and am currently a governor of West Hatch High School and a past Chair of Governors of Chigwell Row Infants School