Full career history

Roles

1. Dec 2021 – present

   Pre-Sales Consultant

   oomi

   RFP documents and requirements lists, software demos and sales presentations, and webinars and in-person events for new business. The relationships with those clients carried on afterwards.

2. Oct 2021 – Dec 2021

   Sales and Training Manager

   TOR Systems, Trentham

   A sales strategy and a pipeline, a CRM, and a training syllabus written for each client. Training materials were reviewed and some were turned into short videos. I also contributed to product development and to reviews with existing clients.

3. Jun 2018 – Oct 2021

   Senior Client Relationship Manager

   DigiTickets

   Key accounts in live events and ticketing, from small events to the National Trust. Enquiries answered with proposals and demonstrations, tenders written, and existing clients helped to grow by auditing what they offered and showing them features they were not using. I contributed to product development, testing and documentation, and trained people at every level, in person and remotely. When something went wrong I handled the escalation and kept the service running. The supplier work after the Arboretum also meant seeing how the stronger attractions run, including many BIAZA members.

4. Jan 2018 – Jun 2018

   Technology Champion

   SFB Group

   Moved the practice onto platforms that supported Making Tax Digital. Custom reports, trackers and summaries for the directors, and the lead on GDPR compliance and the data inventory.

5. Apr 2017 – Dec 2017

   Self-employed

   Landmark Expertise

   IT and financial support for small businesses, helping them raise revenue, choose software, and write their processes down. Websites, the research and the traffic, plus product recommendation, remarketing, and mail software installed and configured.

6. Nov 2016 – Apr 2017

   Project implementations

   SLK Retail and Consultancy

   Linnworks, so one stock record could serve several selling channels. I researched it, recommended it, moved products, customers and orders across without duplicating them, and trained the owner and the staff. Third-party links were configured and tested, and the reports and dashboards were set to what the business needed.

7. Feb 2016 – Oct 2016

   Retail Manager

   National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas

   The shop fit, the rebrand and the merchandise plan for the gift shop in the new visitor centre. A temporary shop was used to grow sales and clear obsolete lines to a budget. Staff and volunteers were trained to give proper service and to sell the right product to more visitors.

8. Apr 2015 – Feb 2016

   Implementation Consultant, Attractions

   The Access Group, Lockington

   New clients taken through implementation, staff training and go-live. New features tested, release notes written, and help given with pre-sales demonstrations. SQL and custom reports for the decisions that followed.

9. 2014 – Apr 2015

   Interim Retail Manager

   National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas

   A team of staff and volunteers, pulled onto the same aim. The shop target was put in plain terms: each time the till opened, £8 or more should go in. Record trading. From October to December 2014 retail sales were up 84% and visitors up 24%, with stock holding and the wage bill both down. New ranges, some of them bespoke and in keeping with the site and the visitors, and processes so the money was taken securely. How I measure a gift shop.

10. 2012 – Apr 2015

    Development and Visitor Manager

    Leicestershire Heritage

    Online tickets and retail, with the greeting and the handover of the product sorted before people arrived. Work to bring more visitors through the door, and visitor figures drawn together from several sources and set out so managers could use them.

11. 2000 – 2012

    Commercial Manager

    Snibston Discovery Museum

    A multi-million pound budget, and a team across five sites covering bookings, enquiries, administration, catering and retail. Buying followed the season and the audience: volume where it paid, stock kept down, and the shop laid out for how people actually browsed, with care for the buildings and the collections. Retail profit rose 32% in four years. A pricing review, a discount policy and new income streams almost doubled revenue in three years. On the site management team for year-on-year growth in visitors and revenue, and for new facilities. After a turbulent spell I kept the operation steady, and brought the team into both the visitor experience and the commercial result. A new shop was designed and fitted. Franchised catering was brought in-house, turning a £30k loss into a small profit in the first year and lifting customer satisfaction. Warning signs in a cafe. The people who handled every enquiry before a visit became one team, with training aimed at selling, and the revenue and back office ran seven days a week. I connected a 100-acre site to the internet, including listed buildings and a scheduled ancient monument, replacing analogue phones, on time and on budget. Wedding packages were introduced at three sites. Admissions, events and retail moved online and business rose by 12%. Projects delivered on time and on budget included a multi-site EPoS and ticketing system across six museums, with documented procedures and staff training, and the sites kept open, a VOIP system with an auto-attendant, Oracle Purchasing, a procurement platform, and salary evaluation.

12. 2000 – 2003

    Lecturer

    Stephenson College

    Taught NVQ levels 1 to 4, and wrote the learning plans for the classes.

13. 1999 – 2000

    Internal Auditor

    North West Leicestershire District Council

    Checked that services followed their own rules, rewrote procedures where they did not, and reported to managers at every level.

14. 1995 – 1999

    Finance Assistant

    Leicestershire County Council

    Monthly budget reports, credit control and debt recovery across a mix of services, and my own workload in more than one department.

Website hosting

I ran my own hosting business: more than 300 customers, and several hundred sites on Linux. The work was the servers, spam filtering, a control panel people could actually use, and the SEO and marketing that kept the sites found.

Education

• PRINCE2 FoundationJuly 2019
• AAT Technician, NVQ Level 4Fellow of the AAT since June 2007, with continuing study aimed at the charity sector, and AATQB. Member of the Institute of Leadership and Management.
• BTEC National Certificate in Business and Finance
• A levels in Economics and General Studies
• Six GCSEs at A–C, including Maths (B) and English (C)
• First Aid at Work, RoSPA Basic Health and Safety, Level 2 Food Safety, Action Centred LeadershipAssociation of Cultural Enterprises study seminars
• Microsoft 365 and project reportingThe briefings and trackers that go to directors, partners and funders.