Eddie C

00:00:03 So my name is Eddie C. I am the head of device and sim technology and I work for Vodafone UK. Vodafone put loads of handsets into our shops, and I lead a team of people that tries to make sure that those handsets work with Vodafone services and that we provide a great customer experience. That’s basically what my team does.

00:00:26 What was I like at school? I suppose I was a little bit of a geek. I did pretty well academically but also very sporty, a huge football fan, loved playing football. If I’m honest, I think I was a little bit lazy at school, as well, because sometimes I didn’t push myself as hard as I probably could have done. The A levels I did were maths, physics and sociology, and then I went onto university to study physics at Loughborough University.

00:00:58 My dad worked in insurance, so… Actually, my dad died when I was quite young, so really I grew up in a single parent family. My mum was a nurse, so no real… My sister didn’t go to university; my brother didn’t, so I was the first from our immediate family to go to university. So at university, I met a whole new social network that I probably wouldn’t have met before. I went to a basic secondary comprehensive. I wasn’t very high up the achievement table and I was at university with people from some of the best schools in the country, so Wellington, Marlborough, some of those places, and it just opened my eyes to a whole new area of society, so that was really an education for me outside of academia, and I still have great relationships with some of those guys now today.

00:02:22 I think there has always been a belief within me to try and achieve as much as I could. If I’m honest, I was always a bit in competition with my brother. So I’m trying to achieve academically the best I can, and I saw university as a way of doing that. It’s funny because as you get older you start to realise that becomes less and less relevant in what you do. So, yes, I think that competition has definitely died away now.

00:02:52 The biggest impact on my life recently has been the birth of my daughter. That really puts things in perspective. When you leave university and you start to get on the career ladder, it’s all about you. It’s all about ‘I need to earn some money, I need to pay my debts off, I need to get myself on the housing ladder,’ and as you start to build a family, the focus goes away from you to the support of your family.

00:03:19 What that allows you to do is just take a bit of a step back and say there’s a broader focus here. It’s not about climbing the career ladder. It’s not about earning as much money as possible. It’s about providing for your family and enjoying your daughter and your family growing. From someone who has always tried to strive for the next best thing and really get a sense of achievement, probably I’ve taken my foot off the gas a little bit there because I want to put my efforts in a different space.

00:03:44 It has been quite life changing, definitely. It really puts into a sense of perspective your work/life balance.

00:03:52 End