My Background
I’ve listed my previous experience below so you can find out a bit more about me and background. I’ve enjoyed working with large and small firms across a diverse range of industries as well as running my own small businesses.
Street Food Trailers
Story: I founded SFT in 2017, born out of my passion for street food and a strong purpose to help others be self-employed in this exciting industry. We helped many small businesses start, some of which have grown beyond the truck. We also worked with larger clients such as the BBC and Clarence Court.
Skills: I created a manufacturing team & developed a facility from scratch and used my knowledge of street food to design high-end food trucks for the booming industry.
I built a strong online presence through social media and SEO and created a brand which built custom high quality food trucks which had a genuine passion for helping others. I built value add services and employed an office team to deliver - design, branding, signage, training & website design to help create a profitable and fast growing startup.
Community Oven
Story: I founded Community Oven in 2015 - a food business with a social mission, to create community through Street Food. We collaborated with partners inc. Sussex University and The Real Junk Food Project as well as running a profitable catering company with a fleet of trucks. CO was a personal passion of mine and a project I am immensely proud of, I sold to a management buy-out in 2019.
Skills: I built a strong customer base through social media and a popular catering business which grew rapidly to cater upto 100 weddings each summer with a fleet of orange horse boxes.
I formed a Community Interest Company which worked with charities, universities and local communities to create opportunities where people could cook and eat together to reduce social isolation and loneliness.
Graffiti Design
Story: Graffiti is a family run firm of signmakers which has been going for nearly 50 years. I worked closely with them on all aspects of their business over a number of years to help modernise the operation whilst maintaining the craft they have mastered for three generations. The business grew from local to national in its operations and became one of the largest signage manufacturers in the UK.
Skills: I created centralised systems and processes which allowed the business to work more efficiently saving time and money. This increased employee productivity and decreased waste in production.
I developed a strategy for the business to target the Retail sector through direct marketing and sales. We built a large customer base of High Street names with long term contracts ensuring consistent sales.
Knight Frank
Story: I worked with Knight Frank Australia & NZ at their ANZ head regional office in Sydney. I was their marketing manager and project managed a number of digital change projects. I worked directly with the CEO and Chairman and enjoyed managing the project to make strategic changes. I managed internal as well as external stakeholders and delivered project goals.
Skills: I managed developers and the external Marketing Agency for a large project which automated the process of publishing property listings to multiple internal and external platforms. I also had to create six microsites which worked as regional landing pages for different markets.
The job included mapping the existing infrastructure and working with the developers to integrate the changes so that customers had a seamless experience. I worked closely with stakeholders such as the IT dept who were challenging and required careful management as well as the different sales teams across 20 regional offices who needed to be consulted and trained.
BT
Story: I worked at Head Office for BT Business, firstly as an Account Manager in Corporate Sales and then as a Marketing Manager in BT Business. I learnt a lot about how big business works here and was fortunate enough to be involved with senior management planning at business unit & corporation level.
Skills: I learnt how to manage a Sales team with a strong desk and field based teams across the UK and managed client accounts worth over £14m.
I learnt how to develop new products for market and worked with stakeholders for launch such as external ad agencies and sales teams. It involved developing business cases which I took to the board for approval.
Intel
Story: My first job was a placement year during my Marketing Degree. I was lucky enough to work for Intel as a Business Analyst at their Swindon office. Here I learnt about the importance of a good business culture and the effects it can have on employee satisfaction.
Skills: My role was mainly project-based, I mapped and changed complex HR process flows across EMEA and used Business Re-engineering to create more efficient processes saving time and money. I worked across Europe and my team was global.
