he started his career selling tv advertising space at tyne tees television back in the mid-80’s as one of the key members of the london based sales team. working with many of the uk’s top advertising agencies, he soon gained a reputation for being a good operator with a straight talking attitude which led to him a job on the ‘other side of the fence’ as a tv buyer at young & rubicam (y&r)

he started as a member of the coi centralised airtime buying unit, which he later went on to run. dealing with the major government departments, has stood him in good stead throughout his career. during his eight years at y&r he worked on many of the agencies key accounts including, colgate palmolive, mirror group newspapers, courage, quaker, british gas, united airlines and ericsson mobile phones. in recognition of his work he was promoted to the board of directors

in 1996 he was part of the team that successfully launched one of the first merged media buying operations, mediapolis (later mpg), joining as a director. his responsibilities remained firmly in the broadcast arena, running the tv buying department which included developing and selling through strategic recommendations to clients, including orange, intel, ing direct and esure

as head of client services at mpg he ensured that solutions went beyond the traditional type of advertising, often recommending sponsorship, interactive and branded content in answering the client marketing brief, he has successfully completed a number of branded content projects over the last four years

he contributes to the advertising industry by lecturing at bournemouth university and west herts college and has appeared on bbc news 24, cnbc and bloomberg and is regularly quoted in the national and trade press on key industry issues