Tom thank you so much for joining me on this interview and taking some time out of your busy schedule. I’m very excited to have some time with you and take the journey through your career.
I’m excited! We’ve been due a catchup for a while so it’s good to check in and catch up!
Absolutely. So Tom we're going to walk through the journey of your career, beginning when you were in college to where you are today.
You started college at Queen Mary's College majoring in Law, Psychology and Politics. Then moved to University of Brighton graduating with a BA in Retail Marketing. Those are very different degree programs I’m interested for you to share with us some insights on how you chose those programs, and why the switch from law to marketing?
It's quite a curve ball, right? As a kid I read a ton of John Grisham novels; I loved the law – the litigation, the drama of court cases, the technicalities etc. I wanted to be a lawyer over an athlete or the more traditional career dreams kids my age had!
That was my thinking behind studying it, as well as it being a new subject not previously available to me in my education. Psychology was down to natural curiosity really. I was always, still am, fascinated in people’s mindset; why they act and do the things they do – especially from a criminal and sporting perspective.
Politics was the wildcard really; I was at that age where I was just old enough to vote and wanted to make a difference, so wanted to be better educated to my options. I struggled the most with it, but actually found it the most rewarding subject.
All three dovetailed quite nicely with my original ambition to go into Law, so when I had the opportunity to pick up some work experience in a small family law firm before university I jumped at the chance.
Unfortunately I realized quite quickly that the dream and the reality were miles apart. Family law was brutal; very eye opening. It’s a difficult sector to really kind of get to grips with. You see a lot of family trauma, personal issues and broken families; it’s tough for a young kid to see that on a day to day basis.
That sowed a little seed of doubt; my intention was still to go into law but most likely in another capacity, criminal ideally. In hindsight I’m not sure that would have been any better though!
On a trip to visit my university of choice I actually stumbled into a retail marketing class and ended up staying for the entire lecture.
The discussion was around the psychology of marketing, how people behave in retail outlets and why they buy certain products, what made for compelling advertising. I loved it.
So, in a pretty impulsive moment I decided to switch lanes and study marketing; it had a psychological element, a political element and a legal element, so seemed to tick all those boxes. That’s how I ended up studying marketing and it’s been intrinsic to what I’ve been doing the last 10 years!
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Head of Strategic Development, Gfinity