Meet Thom, our Chief Marketing Officer with dual identities

Thom has recently joined the company as Chief Marketing Officer. Interesting facts about him — he is half-British and half-Liechtensteiner, he is a marketeer as well as the author of 62 books! Thom speaks English, German and is more than fluent in the marketing jargon. At savedroid, he is responsible for all marketing related activities, but his main task is to ensure that the customer’s voice is heard.

Hi Thom!

• Thank you for participating in this interview. How about we start with what was your journey to savedroid?
• I’ve been working for a number of years as a consultant and I got to the point where I felt it’s high time to bring my skillset to a business and to see projects all the way through. One of the problems with being a consultant is that you only get to do parts of a project, you might implement them, but that’s it. I grew up professionally with a lot of startups and I’ve decided, now it’s time to move, to go for a new role in one of the most exciting start-ups I’ve seen.
• What do you think is the most interesting about cryptocurrencies and the fintech industry?
• I think cryptocurrencies are a new frontier in a world of digital transactions. I was very fortunate to be involved at the start of Internet, as well as at the start of the mobile Internet, not so much with the cryptocurrencies, but I think that this sector is still at the take-off point. What I like about it, it makes the process of transferring value fun and accessible for all. For me that’s very important because it focuses on the customer.

• How do you see the future of savedroid?
• I think the future is looking very bright! There are new products that are being developed. I’m not allowed to say anything about them, so watch this space. We’re looking at extending our reach around the world, engaging more with markets that were already in. It’s all looking very promising. I think, the product offering will appeal to many people. It’s up to me to make sure that they are appropriate, again — that’s the customer-centric approach. I feel, if we succeed, the company will grow, and the customers will be delighted with products, services and experience.
• How will the future of payments in your opinion look like?
• I think that the payment process will essentially remain the same. It is an exchange of something for some goods. That will not change. How we do it? I think to certain extend money will disappear as notes and coins. We’re already seeing it with credit cards. We’ve now got digital wallets on phones, which is now being extended to things like smart watches. So, wearables are going to become more and more important, and part of the overall payment mechanism. And I think then, we’ll see things like just a facial recognition and remote beacons getting incorporated.When you look at the grocery stores that Amazon have set up in Silicon Valley, as long as your phone is able to communicate with the store, you just go and fill your basket, and go out again. Your Amazon account will be billed accordingly, and you don’t need to physically make the pay. I see all of that sort technology driving the future of payments. We won’t be touching money anymore, which is a shame because I’ve got a collection of very old banknotes and tell a great history.
• What makes a good marketeer, or to be precise, what makes YOU a good marketeer?
• I’ll answer the first question first. I think, it’s being able to listen to the customer. If you are able to listen to customer and provide them either with what they want or you can persuade them to what they want, then you’re doing your best for your customers and for your business. What makes me a good marketeer — I think, I do listen to the customer. I do try to make life as easy as possible for them, and for the business — obviously, only happy customers bring revenues.
• What tip would you give to somebody who pursues a career in marketing?
• I would say it takes time. It’s not something that can be rushed. There are a lot of elements in the world of marketing, so a lot of specialties that you can focus on, and it’s worth deciding fairly early on what’s sort of specialism you want to be in. You know, if you want to be in PR, generally speaking you stay in PR, whereas in digital marketing you could move into E-mail marketing or Social Media or any number of other disciplines. It is a case of being patient, there are far too many people out there who think they can do things. I’ve taught marketing for many years, so I’ve seen these people. They can be very impatient, they want to become a marketing director straight away but unfortunately, they don’t have a broad enough skill set for that sort of role.
• We know that apart from marketing, you are a novel writer. How do you balance it?
• I just don’t stop, I suppose <laughs>. I generally write books, not just novels. I write my books whenever I have some spare time, in the evenings and when I’m traveling, — I find it quite relaxing to do something creative. I always have my laptop with me, and I do the writing when I find a moment.
• Was it always a dream of yours to be a writer?
• I was told that I was useless at writing when I was at school. So, not quite sure how it happened <laughs>. My first book was actually a University project, my dissertation for my Masters. I was advised to turn it into a book. It involved completely rewriting it, because it included some confidential information from the company that I was working for. That book is about ethics and trust, mainly in the digital marketing industry. I’ve written 62 books so far, and only 4 of them have been novels.
• Where do you come from originally? Our readers cannot hear you speak but when somebody does, they would be 100% sure you’re British but that’s not fully true, right?
• I’m actually a dual-national, English and Liechtensteiner, one of the few. I was born in England and did my schooling in England, hence the English accent. But I lived for a number of years in Liechtenstein. I speak a village dialect of the Liechtenstein-German language, but I’ve also lived and worked in Germany before, in Switzerland, I studied in France. I’m a bit of a nomad, I suppose.
• What is the funniest fact about you or something extraordinary? I’m a qualified glider pilot, to qualify you have to do a solo. The gliders that we trained on had little engines on the front, so it’s easier for us to practice. The trick was, you had to switch the engine off and stop the propeller with a brake, so that when you land it, the propellor wouldn’t dig into the ground. On my solo, I switched the engine off and I tried to pull the brake, but it didn’t work. Then I realized, there was one switch that had to be turned off before the brake would work. So, I let go of the stick to hit the switch and the nose went straight down, I pulled it up and got myself leveled again. I landed safely and the instructor asked me — “did you forget that switch?” <laughs>.
• What motivates you in life to achieve goals?
• On the one hand, I’m motivated by having loads of experiences; whether it’s travelling and visiting new places; whether it’s meeting people, doing different things — basically learning; I’m constantly looking for new information and more experiences. I do a lot of reading; a lot of my books involve a lot of research. The novel I’m writing at the moment is set in 1936; I’ve done a lot of research about very simple things there — like the price of petrol, the weather in various locations, just so I get the facts right for the fictional story.
• But what’s at the core of it? What makes you to really sit down and start writing?
• I know why I like to write, and I know why I like to teach, and that is to give others at least the sense of the experience I have gathered. I like to get people to understand what I have understood, basically give something back. For example, when I teach marketing, I like to give something back to people who are just starting out, so that they can be hopefully a lot better than I was and that someone from that group will strive to do the same as me and keep the ball rolling.
• Thank you very much for the interview Thom!
• Thank you.