Marketing Manager
Paper Company

Charles E

0:00:00 My name’s Charles E, I’m the Marketing Manager for The Paper Company. A lot of promotional activity involved in what we do, writing sales briefs, identifying opportunities in the market for new products, developing those products and taking them to market. Nuts and bolts is giving the customer what they’re looking for and, and that’s a challenge. It’s knowing what they’re looking for and answering that with, with your products and your services.

00:00:29 At school, I certainly like to play sport, I was very sociable. I was lucky that I went to a, a co-ed school, so there was a lot of fun to be had and, yeah, it was, it was good grounding. I took an A level in design, so there is a creativeness in, in there somewhere and I think in marketing you’re able to express that and, and that’s one of the things I really like about the job. I decided to take a gap year because I wanted to travel. I was actually over in New Zealand teaching at a school. I think I was looking as to whether I wanted to be a teacher at some point, and I think going over and doing that kind of helped me understand that, perhaps, I don’t want to be a teacher, but I did enjoy the sort of presentation side of things, you know, working with, with people. I think that’s the sort of things I learned that, yeah, get out there and get talking to people.

00:01:27 At university I studied an Operations Management degree and within that degree, there was a marketing function, there was finance functions, operational, logistics; so it really did start to shape my career without me realizing it. I based my thesis on The Real Paper Company. I came along, did some interviews, wrote the thesis and then sent them a copy and the rest is sort of history; nine years later I’m still here.

00:01:58 Well, I started with The Paper Company on a six month marketing project and that then led to a role in sales. There was two parts to the job; there was account management and then there was the marketing of our products through their catalogues. So I was starting to get a feel for, for marketing and three years ago I was offered a job as Marketing Manager. The beauty is starting with some things, you know, a brief, coming up with the, the design element of it and taking that to the market and then really seeing if that, if that works; and it’s great when it does.

00:02:35 In the next ten years, I see my career certainly continuing within the industry. I see myself doing some travel as well. We’ve got our Head Office based out in Australia, so being a global business, there’s certainly lots of travelling opportunities and, yeah, I’d like to see and certainly explore some more of those in the future. As for my career, I don’t know, I’ve love to know. If I knew in ten years time where I’d be that would be great, but just continuing to do what I enjoy and see where it takes me.

00:03:12 The inspirations in my life? My, my parents have been very supportive. Through university I had some great tutors and, and through my working career I’ve had some great bosses so, you know, I think all of them have a, a part to play in who I’ve become.

00:03:27 Turning points in my life were probably graduating from university and, and then being out there in the, in the wide world and knowing that I needed to knuckle down and get a job. You know, the, the career progression, moving from sales into marketing and becoming a manager, you know, these are sort of mile sticks in my career, if you like, and when you achieve those, it’s very satisfying.

ENDS