From Backpacking to BAND: My Journey to CEO

As you do when you start something new, I’ve been looking back and reflecting…

How did I end up in my recently announced role as BAND CEO?

If you believe in the butterfly effect, it may all stem back to a book I read in 1998 while backpacking around Australia and Southeast Asia. It was set in a London marketing agency awash with everything a 20-something in London could possibly want.

The novel was terrible, but how could I, a law graduate and photocopier marketer from Milton Keynes, resist the bright lights of London? After returning to the UK, I joined a thriving agency in West London, Dynamo, before moving to another agency – RPM. After a few years, I took on the task of launching an experiential agency as part of the Dynamo Marketing Group. Thanks to an amazing team and some great clients, ‘Theatre’ became the UK’s fastest-growing agency within three years.

Along the way I’ve met brilliant, creative people, learned from incredible strategists and worked with amazing brands. I also gained a real understanding of how to build and shape marketing campaigns. Whilst also observing the senior leadership teams within both Dynamo and subsequently under the various owners of Incepta, Huntsworth and Media Square.

In 2007, after taking voluntary redundancy, I went it alone and launched my own marketing agency, Purity. Purity grew quickly, we had offices in the UK and USA and we worked around the world with some wonderful brands including Samsung, BMW, Microsoft and Pernod Ricard. Thirteen years later, I sold and stepped away from a role that I’d initially given myself 6 months to see if I could make it work.

That brings me to now. After building and exiting two agencies and spending the past 3 years launching and building Fortus London, I wanted to use my knowledge and experience to support other business owners from the sector I’ve always been part of.

BAND allows me to do that. I believe my experience gives me the empathy and insight to help fellow entrepreneurs and creative business leaders, as I’ve often been in exactly the same situations they’re in. But I’m just the tip of the iceberg. We offer so much as a team – technical expertise, sector knowledge and unrivalled know-how.

So, that’s my story. And it begs the question: where would I be if I hadn’t read that terrible book? I’m not sure, but one thing’s for certain: it helped set me out on a brilliant path full of job enjoyment, laced with a lot of fun along the way. And now at BAND, I’m just getting started…

Rob Quinn