White Hat Media

Who are you, what do you do and why do you do it?

We are White Hat Media. We're a web marketing agency and specialise in natural (organic) search engine optimisation, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and email marketing. We are also expert at applications and web development. We do it to help people improve traffic and sales from their sites and we enjoy it.

Did you really want to become a founder member or were Nick's skills of persuasion too hard to resist?

I've always admired Wired Sussex so little or no persuasion was required.

What's going to happen to Wired Sussex in the next five years?

It's going to continue to grow to become a global centre of excellence in digital media.

What was your most unpleasant job (factory work included) and how did it help you to get where you are today?

When I was younger I took a job gutting chickens to earn enough cash to drive an old Ford Cortina around Europe with some friends which turned out to be a hilarious holiday. The car caught fire and we were forced to leave it in a garage by a Gendarme. It proved to me that if you want something enough you need guts.

Everyone's got a book in them, what's yours?

It's got the working title of 'Down the River' and is about a guy who moves out from the city to the sticks and sets up a local poker night with the people who live in his street. It all starts jolly but things get nasty and it ends in total mayhem. It's a sort of combination of Tom Sharpe, Trainspotting, with a touch of Tarantino and a bit of Conrad. It's a black comedy which takes a sharp look at the darker side of human nature while being gut-bustingly funny.

If you could pinch anyone's genius idea (myspace, youtube, the wheel) and claim it as your own, what would it be?

The Web. Tim Berners-Lee is a genius and has changed the course of history in multiple ways.

When you're not being a big cheese and making important decisions, what do you do for fun?

On a hot and sunny day taking my daughters to Arundel Lido and pretending I'm in the Maldives. On a cold day staying in and playing board games, doing silly walks and pretending we're balloons deflating quickly by making rude noises with our hands and mouths. The days of clubbing, windsurfing and carousing have been put on hold for a while. I still sometimes get time to read and travel to warmer climes though.