He is currently a Director of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club and Cheif Executive of Blue & White Capital, a family office specializing in a range of investment.
He is a trustee of OMS, a charity which supports and empowers people with MS, and a trustee of Albion in the Community, the charitable arm of the football club, which works across Sussex providing a multitude of services, including disability sport, education and health programmes.
When you were at Brighton College, what did you want to be when you ‘grew-up’?
That is a good question and probably one that I did not spend enough time contemplating. I have more or less fallen into various roles through my career and did not do sufficient planning. The one proactive decision I took in my early twenties was to move into the Media Sector Equity Research within the Financial Services Industry, which was a fascinating sector. Thinking back, at various times, I wanted to be a sportsman – either football or golf; or a journalist. I also thought about Law for a time. Equity Research proved a great career.
What do you do now, and what does your job involve?
My role is multi-faceted. I help run a Single Family Office, where we effectively run an investment fund. I am a Non-Executive Director of Brighton & Hove Albion FC, which as a kid growing up in Brighton would have been an absolute dream. Similarly I am a Trustee of Albion in the Community, through which the club attempts to use the power of football to help local community.
What are the most rewarding and challenging parts of your job?
One of the other roles I have is as a Trustee of a Philanthropic Foundation and currently we are working to try to redevelop the site in New Church Road next to St. Christopher’s School. This is incredibly rewarding in that its mission is to revitalise the community that has always been my home, and the care and effort that has gone into listening to the community and determining what assets would really make a difference has become a labour of love. This has also been hugely challenging because nobody wants a development on their doorstep, because o f the number of stakeholders involved and because bringing any development to Council is no easy undertaking.
What are you most proud of so far?
This is probably going to make the reader cringe, but it has to be my family. I have an exceptional wife who never gives up, and three amazing kids, all with very different personalities, but each with very strong and absolutely admirable values – kindness, self-discipline and truth.
What is your fondest memory of school?
When I was 15, playing as fly half for Durnford in the house rugby competition, we actually made it through to the house final, where we played Aldridge. We were a very average set of players and faced pretty much the whole first XV1, certainly the back line, so it was obvious we would be killed and we were. After about five minutes the ball came to me out of the scrum and I delivered a Gary Owen – running through to try and catch it, I smashed my face into the elbow of the fall back and was out cold. Next day my face swelled up like Rocky and for a good week or two I was a real hero!
Who was your favourite teacher and why?
Mr. Smith who taught me German and French. Very sadly he passed away too young but he was a great teacher and an outstanding person.
What was the best piece of advice you were given whilst at Brighton?
The best advice I have always found comes more from the way people or an institution treats you rather than words. I attended Brighton College when it was a good school, but not the outstanding school it is today. Academically it lagged Lancing at the time. What was brilliant was how it encouraged not just academic achievement but also sport and the arts. That taught me not to sacrifice any aspect of life for another; a wise man told me that life is like a cake which is too big for the cake box – you need to shave off slithers of the slices without removing a single slice altogether.
What advice you give to your 18 year old self?
Keep a journal. The years role into each other and the human memory is extremely fallible. When I recently watched Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony, whilst some of his journal was cringe-worthy, it was quite something to be able to pinpoint what he had done on a certain date in a certain year; I struggle to remember what I had for breakfast this morning. I also think the accumulation of small interesting events often helps generally with tasks in life.
- Is there a book, song or film that changed your life?
If This Is a Man by Primo Levi is a stark reminder of the capacity for man’s inhumanity to man and I am so impressed by the College’s efforts in teaching Holocaust studies. This book demonstrated to me the talent and resilience of a man who was a Chemist by profession but became an amazing narrator of one of the saddest episodes in modern history. I guess it taught me the power of the human spirit to overcome. And then Searching For The Sugarman by Rodriguez, which is quite funny and has absolutely nothing to do with me.