Career summary

British Internet entrepreneur with extensive experience in creating and operating within large scale publishing networks, vertical social networks and developing new media strategy. Proven strengths in:

• Developing, communicating and executing online strategies
• All types of digital monetization strategies
• Community management
• Managing online products that leverage social media, word of mouth and traditional distribution models
• Researching demographics

My Perspective:

Marketing models are evolving into an open conversation where the traditional interruption methods are being complemented and enhanced by more subtle and contextual methods that are authentic, engaging, and that add value to consumer experiences. A new economy is emerging. With my passion for the digital economy, the unrealised potential of the Internet and my drive for success, I aim to play a key role in this rapidly evolving and growing environment. 

Education:

Brunel University, London, UK (1996 – 2000)                Economics & Business Finance, BSc (Bachelors Degree)

Dulwich College, London, UK (1986 – 1995)

Employment History:

May 2000 – Oct 2008  Founder & CEO, Oncampusuk Ltd, London, UK 

Oncampus is the leading supplier of free new media solutions to higher education organizations in the UK. Oncampus was the first corporation to provide free publishing tools to universities and students in the UK, and allowing advertisers to target this highly sought after demographic. Trade sale of business in mid 2007, followed by 18 month earn out period.

Key Responsibilities

• Developed and implemented Company’s vision and strategy  
• Led all fund raising efforts 
• Led product research and specification development. Products’ scope covered Content Management Systems, Customer Relationship Management processes and Niche Social Media environments
• Led product development team of 9 from concept to launch
• Managed key stakeholder (partners, users, advertisers and shareholders)
• Led all product strategy 
• Led and oversaw all community management
• Coordinated operations and distribution of product with training materials
• Implementation and tracking of revenue model 
• Managed disaster recovery procedures and uptime optimisation of all sites

Achievements

• Identified a key market need in the UK Higher Education market
• Founded and capitalised company with angel and corporate funding
• Achieved profitability within first 24 months of launch
• Project managed the construction and launch of 80 websites, including annual redesigns and web 2.0 enhancements
• Managed a network of sites that contained over 100,000 pages of user generated content, attracting 3 million unique users (per annum), 60 million page impressions (per annum) and registered deep data profiles on 300,000 validated students
• Designed and implemented a group subscription process for 2 universities which collected over £100,000 from 9,000 users in the first 2 weeks of the 2008 academic year
• Successfully designed, specified and built a range of web products over a period of 8 years to meet the needs of target market
• Built operations team and developed and successfully implemented organisational structure
• Successfully coordinated marketing efforts across traditional and new media
• Successfully developed and implemented revenue stream and model
• Successfully developed sponsorship with key national corporations (including Yahoo, Barclays, RBS, Endsleigh Insurance, Moneysupermarket.com and Kelkoo)
• Developed, implemented and sold SEO products realising significant SERP’s improvements across a wide variety of highly sought after keywords 
• Successfully led and funded company through the dot com crash (2001) and achieved profitability shortly afterwards

June 1997 – Feb 1998 & Feb – Sep 1999 Floor Broker, Rand Financial Inc, Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago, IL, USA

Key Responsibilities

• Execution of futures and options trades in the Bond Floor

Achievements

• Successfully established a high volume link between London dealing room of Bank Austria and CBOT floor
• Rewarded for quickly adapting to local exchange hand signals and floor processes

June 1995 – Feb 1996 (Internship) Desk broker (dealing room), Bank Austria AG (Futures Group), London, UK

Key Responsibilities

• Order Execution of trades (institutional and retail)  on IPE, LIFFE, NYMEX, CBOT, CME and SIMEX
• Assisting with new sales efforts
• Maintaining key customer relationships 

Achievements

•  SFA Futures and Options Representative qualification. Youngest qualified derivatives broker in UK at aged 17
•  LIFFE open outcry course

Jun 1994 – Aug 1994 Guest Services and Safari Assistant, Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe 

Jun 1993 – Jun 1995 ( Part-Time Internship) Desk broker and runner, Tullet & Tokyo Forex International, London, UK 

Core Competencies

• Focused 
• Proven leadership skills
• Strong team player
• Entrepreneurial
• Conceptual thinker
• Strong report writing, analytics, negotiation and presentation skills 
• Self starter and motivated to succeed
• Agent of change
• Ability to empathise with stakeholders
• Ability to capture structured feedback
• Ability to track a large number of companies/product features and evaluate competitive landscape