Biography

Rob was one of the three founding executives and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Freeserve, the transformational Internet Service Provider backed by Dixon Stores Group where, after a floatation on the London Stock Exchange and New York NASDAQ, he became one of the youngest executive officers of a FTSE 100 company at the age of 29. Rob exited Freeserve after the completion of a £1.6bn sale to Wanadoo (a division of France Telecom) in 2001. Since then, he has continued to invest in a range of technology, service and media companies, including bcsAgency, an integrated marketing and communications agency, which he set up with business partners Alan Boyden and Murray Carmichael-Smith in 2011. As a board director, Rob leads the digital and social media operations at bcsAgency and provides tailored strategy and consultancy to the agency’s network through regular regional, national and international speaking engagements. His team researches, plans and maps online experiences for traditional brochure websites, social media engagements or e-commerce sites. Rob was made an honorary Doctor of the University of Bradford in July 2010 and in 2011 became a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). He enjoys nothing more than getting involved in exciting client projects in a rolling-your-sleeves-up-and-mucking-in kind of way and what Rob doesn't know about social and digital media probably isn't worth knowing.