University of Hull

Desborough Boys School, Maidenhead

Chief Commercial Officer at TheHiveNetwork

Tadworth, Surrey, United Kingdom

TheHiveNetwork

Chief Commercial Officer

TheHiveNetwork builds engaged communities of business leaders to share their ideas and experience within a specific sector. Utilising the principle of collective intelligence – we unlock knowledge from across a range of organisations to help drive innovation throughout the industry, and because each Hive is sector-specific, we provide our members with truly relevant & personalised experiences to help understand & overcome their most urgent business challenges.As Commercial Officer & Head of People across all our Hive networks, I am responsible for revenue generation from across our technology partners as well as launching & implementing our culture program & team training programs aimed at supporting our fast-growing business.

Commercial Officer & Head of People

In April, I was promoted into the position of General Manager  at Customer Focus who provide SaaS based marketing & software services for the Promotional Merchandise sector. My task is to grow revenues whilst maintaining margins, and secure our position as market leaders, despite increased competition and under investment from previous teams.I lead a team of 20+ people across Design, Marketing, New Business, Account Management, operations and Administration and report directly into the Board of Directors for Altitude PLC.Current projects include developing a new show concept for 2018, re-launching PPD Magazine & associated website, repositioning our 2 catalogues (Spectrum & Envoy), building a New Business Development team of 4 people. In addition, I have worked as part of the Management team to reposition our SaaS product suite into a "Business in a Box" concept. This includes a brand new 3 tier subscription package which has been launched with revenues already in excess of £600K across 350 SMB's.Successes to date include recruiting a fantastic new team across the division, implementing a new performance management program with associated KPI metrics, repackaging & futureproofing SPECTRUM catalogue into a "Business in a Box" concept, re-launching PPD magazine into a more authoritative and credible monthly publication for our industry & growing the PPE exhibition by 8% YOY.

Customer Focus Software

General Manager

As Commercial Director, I was responsible for growing revenues across the publishing & event portfolio of Customer Focus.In January at our large exhibition Promotional Product Expo (PPE 2017), I focused upon delivering an onsite rebook strategy that resulted in YOY increases in revenue of 33% YOY through yield and space upselling.Under my stewardship, revenues across the division have increased by 4% YOY from January - June 2016.

Commercial Director

I was originally recruited to run a team of 15 Sales Managers on the entertainment marketplace <a href="http://play.com">play.com</a>. My key responsibility was to set the sales strategy & activities to deliver a revenue budget of £9.5m. In addition, I conducted all training & recruitment, set activity KPI's and goals in line with targets, worked with B2B marketing team, and worked as part of Senior Management team on cross functional projects & managed commercial relationships with all 3rd parties.During the last year, I was part of the Senior Management team who launched a brand new e-commerce marketplace site <a href="http://www.rakuten.co.uk">www.rakuten.co.uk</a> to the UK in October 2014. I was also involved with working with European counterparts as part of the "One Europe"​ commerce strategy.One of my highlights was to be nominated as one of only 3 UK representatives to attend the prestigious "Global Leadership Course" at Head Office in Tokyo.

Rakuten

Head of Sales

I was promoted to the management team at kgb in recognition of my success in leading the London sales team, and was responsible for leading additional sales projects outside London worth £500K per month across UK, France & US. The projects included eliminating merchant refunds through introducing effective merchant payment plans and managing "Merchant Care" as a function.

Head of Sales Operations

Kgbdeals were a major player in the online daily deals marketplace, and pioneerd alongside Groupon and others a new media format that shook up the way SME's attract new customers. I was responsible for structuring and focusing the sales resource of 14 Account Managers to deliver and overachieve the London budget. I delivered a record breaking year in 2012 through the introduction of new initiatives including a "Most Wanted" deal sourcing strategy, a stronger KPI focus on productivity resulting in higher order yields, focusing the sales team into higher value territories, and splitting the team into New Business and Account Management teams.

Head of Sales  (London)

At CBS Outdoor, I launched a new division called "London Local" a brand new service to local SME businesses where latent underground poster sites (Zones 3-6) were sold on long term contracts.I was fully responsible for the recruitment, training & organising of a brand new team of 11 graduates into a unified field sales team with the goal to deliver £1.5m revenue in year 1.Our success earned me a prestigous internal award (Most Committed - Gold Medal Winner)nominated by my own team members and voted on by the company which makes this one of the  most special accolades in my career to date.

CBS Outdoor

Business Director (London Local)

Caterlyst is a specialist online resource for the food service industry offering data, news, insight, lead generation and broadcast services. As the Sales Director I was responsible for developing key revenue streams for the business through leveraging key relationships with blue chip organisations such as Nestlé, Red Bull, Premier Foods and Kraft. The role included board presentations, product demonstrations and managing a team of account managers along with an outbound telesales operation.Key achievements in the role included developing a modular pricing strategy to increase sales volume, expanding the online subscription offering through launching new services such as pay per lead dashboard.

Caterlyst.com

Sales Director

Alchemy Media is a specialist media business focused upon the leisure sector. I joined the business as Commercial Director, and was instrumental in growing the business from a small turnover of £250K in 2005 to £2.2m by 2009. My achievements included coordinating pitches to win contracts to publish SKY's Preview Magazine and William Reeds CLASS Magazine  worth £85k per month; launching ClubHouse Golf Magazine worth £200K per annum; launching a number of events around the CLASS brand including awards and cocktail competitions and developing the company sales culture including all KPI's, reporting, recruitment, training and appraisals.

Alchemy Media

I was head hunted from VNU Publishing to head up the advertising team on Computer Buyer magazine. I managed to increase revenues from £1m to £1.2m in a declining market through implementing higher yield management, in using in-journal research from AD Q to prove & deliver premium value on certain advertising sites within the magazine. There was also a strong focus on new business allowing advertising rates to be maintained at a higher yield.

Dennis Publishing

Sales Manager

I was initially recruited to manage a team of 4 sales people working on the award winning Computer Active Magazine with a budget of £6m per annum,  but soon ended up managing the sales teams across Personal Computer World & What PC as part of the Consumer Division Portfolio. I was also part of the launch team for Web Active. Initially a supplement within Computer Active, it soon grew into a stand alone magazine which is still on news stands today.One of my personal highlights was to be selected onto the VNU management program run by award winning "People Focus".

Incisive Media

I was recruited as one of four graduate trainees in 1993, and l worked initially selling Display advertising on The Publican Newspaper, the leading Weekly print journal for the hospitality sector. I was promoted four times in 6 years eventually ending up running The Restaurant Group which contained 2 exhibitions (The Restaurant Show & Northern Restaurant & Bar Show); 1 magazine (Hotel & Restaurant Magazine); and 1 awards dinner (Restaurateur Awards). The portfolio was aimed at top end restaurants.I enjoyed many highlights and achievements in my 6 years at Quantum including launching Dimensions - a database and list rental division that grew to £500k per annum;  winning sales person of the year twice; setting up a brand new Key Account Team on Publican Newspaper; growing revenue across The Restaurant Group from £1.675m to £2.5m (33% growth) in 2 years.

Paul Kehoe