Si is another member of our newly appointed senior management team and will be managing our Business Development department. Keep reading to find out more about Si’s background.
As Head of Business Development, my role is to ensure we are communicating our proposition clearly and are well-aligned with the needs of our customers. I’m often the first point of contact for new clients and partners. Above all, I’m here to ensure we devise a solution that meets the needs of our customers.
Since leaving Uni, my whole career has been with agencies. I’m a former Designer who started my a creative business in my late 20’s. The business grew over a number of years and eventually transformed from offering branding and print design to web solutions.
In 2015 I co-founded a WordPress agency, which was eventually sold to a larger firm. Following the acquisition, I took the opportunity to change direction and began focussing on the commercial side of agency life. I found the behavioural science between agency and client fascinating and wanted to explore further. As it turns out design skills and the enjoyment of meeting new people are a great combination for someone in my role.
Outside of office hours, I’m a father of 2 and live with my wife in Hove, near Brighton. My very first job, was as a street artist at the age of 14, I used to draw portraits of famous people on the pavements around towns in Cheshire where I grew up. I still enjoy painting, particularly portraits. I’m also crazy about basketball, I follow the NBA and play each week, which is getting tougher every time.
Working with a hotel group with more than 20 destinations, I was the project lead on the technical discovery. Not being a developer my role was to ensure the right questions were asked, addressed and documented. The sheer size of the project meant weeks of research and documentation were required. I’m pleased to say the outcome was successful, but it pushed my organisational skills to the absolute limit.
Gosh, there have been so many. I really do think satisfaction is a direct result of the energy and creativity you put into a project. If you enter into something half-heartedly, the result and levels of satisfaction are bound to be lower. Thankfully I’ve still got enough energy to keep things interesting. If I had to pick something, the Condé Nast Johansens website that my agency built a few years back was such a pleasure to work on and ended up winning us a few awards.
I had spent some time outside of the WordPress industry and missed the community, I knew all the knowledge I’d built up over the years had value that was not being utilised. So I set my sights on finding a commercial role that would make the most of my experience and skills.
When the opportunity for this role came up, it was serendipity. The timing was perfect and after one call with the founders, I knew I’d found the right place. Everything from the remote and family-first set up to the team structure and technology were exactly what I was looking for.
I’m most excited about the quality of work, I know I should say growth. But for someone in my position you have to believe in what you represent. Filter has an incredible team who repeatedly achieve exceptional standards. That for me is all the fuel I need, I know that growth and success are byproducts of outstanding services.
We converted the spare room into an office at the beginning of 2020, it’s a great space where I can make calls and work without distraction. However I do enjoy variety, I’m currently exploring the idea of working in a co-working space 1 or 2 days a week. Fair warning to anyone that sits next to me, I’m an oversharer, you’ll probably want to move in 20mins.
Obviously, WordPress and surrounding technologies are areas of focus for me. I’m interested to see if WordPress manages to establish itself as a genuine Headless CMS contender over the next few years. Also, the team at Filter have a lot of experience with React, I’m keen to see how we can push the boundaries in performance there.
From a UX perspective, I’ll be looking out for the latest thought processes and UI trends.
Beyond next year, there are big conversations around Web 3, for instance, how will general web development adapt to 3D bowsing with VR / AR? So much to look forward to.
Find out more about our clients and projects that Si will be getting involved with here.
You can also read more about the company values that help us to attract talented people like Si to our team by clicking here.
