Hello. I’m one of the partners at Essential. This is how I ended up here:
After graduating in 1996 I started out as a trainee at Millward Brown. I thought it was virtually an ad agency so had quite a rude awakening when I realised that I was going to be writing Link Test questionnaires and that most ad agencies hated us. After a couple of years I moved to Test Research for what can best be described as the ‘lost months’.
I then joined the BBC World Service as a market analyst for the former Soviet Union – an experience that provided some fabulous anecdotes. In 2000 I was asked to set up a new audience insight team for the nascent BBC New Media division, which proved to be a case of being in the right place at the right time as the team and budget mushroomed.
As I approached 30 (and early burn-out) I took a sabbatical and travelled round the world for half a year before returning as Head of Pan-BBC research, recruiting a team of 16 people and working on all sorts of big strategic challenges. I also sat on the BBC’s marketing ‘steering group’, which ran a monthly Pop Idol-style pitch session in which the BBC’s marketers bid for airtime for their campaigns.
In 2006 I made the curious decision to leave behind the comfort and stability of client-side life and joined Alex and Luca as a partner in Essential. The projects I’ve led have included commercial development, channel identity, new platform work and big strategic stuff, with clients including the BBC, Ofcom, Microsoft Advertising, Channel 4 and Freeview.
But above all, being at Essential means having a company iPhone. Its importance to me was recently highlighted when my wife ‘accidentally’ disabled it during a family holiday in France.
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