My computing history.
You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever
1981
BBC Micro computer - my Primary School gets one - the first computer I have used
Age 9 : I become the IT 'monitor' for the school - exploring and setting things up for the teachers
1987
8086 chip PC - High School would get me hands-on, and learning Turbo Pascal
1990
Sixth Form project - a friend and I implemented an inventories database for our Health Authority!
1993
CERN : 3rd year Physics research project used Fortran with remote data from the ALEPH particle detector
1995
Postgraduate research included 'the Educational use of multi-media and internet-based information'
1997
Mars Pathfinder : As a Physics teacher I would take all my pupils to use the live data from the Sojourner rover on Mars
1998
HTML club - I would run after-school clubs on web development. We would build the school's first website.
2000
dotCom startup : Dendral - I switched professions, to become a fulltime developer - #2 in a VC backed neural-semantic net startup, way ahead of it's time
2004
CSW Healthcare : NPfIT - a small cog in one of the largest IT projects in UK history - the national data spine
2006
XML Summer School - Jeff Barr would talk about Amazon's new S3 service -which would herald the start of AWS
MSc in Information Technology ... while working on another side-project ;)
2007
CSW : won British Computer Society’s SME Organisation of the year 2007. From a team 30 to 150 in 9 months.
ISO/BSi Technical Committee member for IST41 - technical reviews of key standards ODF and OOXML.
2007
Adobe : joined as Senior Technical Manager, would become manager responsible for Professional Services EMEA for the Scene7 product.
2009
Conference speaking including Adobe Summit, Digital London, and Webinars
Followed by meetup talks and 'finding my voice'.2012
Amplience : Director of Professional Services, in this Amplified User Experience focused UK startup.
2015
Amplience: became Director of Pre-Sales - as we achieved 425% growth over 3 years. ($37M series C)
Authored ‘Practical Responsive Images’, published by Five Simple Steps. Sold 1000+ copies release day.
2017
Storyus : the family-friendly storytelling platform - I started building the ideal 'slow social' platform.
This timeline is part of it.2018
Cloudinary : Principal Solution Engineer : I joined this developer-first Dynamic Media platform, 500k+ users, 40 billion + assets
Aside from technical pre-sales, I would lead some of our Enterprise Training, present 'No Forking Way' at ImageCon (CA), contributing author for Web Almanac
2021
Cloudinary : remarkable, with no VC funding, hits $100M ARR and $1 Billion valuation, Forbes cover story
May 2021
▲ Vercel
2022
First dedicated Sales Engineer, becoming Director, Sales Engineering with the global team of 15 incredible SEs.
True hyper-growth: company size from from 40 to 430, 1000% ARR growth, over 2 years.
Jan 2024
Through constant innovation by an incredible Engineering org. and very strong PMF, Vercel announces crossed $100M.
June 2024
Series E, putting Vercel valuation well in excess of $3 billion.
Sept 2024
The Global Sales Engineering team alone now numbers 25 - such a privilege to work alongside this incredible world class team.