Talk us through an average day in your role.
I tend to be in the office most days. I’m not a work-from-home kind of person; I’d miss the buzz of being around colleagues. Every day is different, but typically I’ll be checking emails first thing – we have customers and partners across the globe, so there’s always a good few emails to review from the night before. One day a week we’ll have most of our internal meetings, and that means a mix of several quick-fire product status updates from the R&D teams, along with longer project management and support tickets to review. On the other days, I like to have fewer scheduled meetings, and use the time to engage with customers, prepare proposals with the sales team and generally keep on top of the finance and business strategy plans.
I love the MD role, because I’m literally involved in everything. Working with my exceptional colleagues, I am across everything from facility management through product development, sales, support, to the company accounts, tax and legal compliance. It never ends. The variety is incredible, and I love (mostly) all of it.
How did you get started in the media industry?
By accident. I am an engineer by training and started my career in a very different industry (light bulb manufacturing plants, and steel manufacturing process controllers). After two years in that role, I landed a test engineer position at EPO, the company that later became Radamec. The role started slowly enough as a unit test engineer, but after a short time I was asked to accompany a senior engineer to the ITN News studios in central London. My life changed in an instant – somehow just being in the control room during a live national TV news broadcast got me hooked. I’ve never left the industry since (some 37 years ago).
What training did you have before entering the industry?
Nothing specifically related to media or broadcast technology, just an electronics and microprocessor engineering qualification awarded by one of those long-lost and much-lamented (by me) polytechnics that did such a great job training young people for engineering, and countless other vocational jobs. I learned solid hardware and software engineering principles there, but I learned how to run a team, then a company, from many excellent mentors and colleagues at EPO, Radamec, DiviCom, and now Shotoku.
Why do you enjoy working in the industry?
I love the broadcast technology industry. Its advanced technologies push it forward to bring viewers better and better content, quality and variety. Our little corner of the industry is quite niche, but I feel just as much a part of the content creation segment as any of the ‘big’ guys. I love being able to watch TV and see examples of great technology being put to innovative use, and given half a chance, boring my friends and family talking about it.
What piece of advice would you offer someone looking to explore a role similar to yours?
Just do it! Engineering is a fantastic entry to almost any industry, but once you’re in don’t be surprised by the wide variety of challenges, many of which you would never have dreamed you would find yourself doing, let alone enjoying.
Don’t ever turn an opportunity down because “I don’t know how to do that” – start doing it and you may surprise yourself, and others.
