Could you please describe yourself in a few sentences?

I was born in Southampton to an English father and Malay mother. I did my Bachelors at the City of London Polytechnic, an MBA at Cranfield, and a doctorate (a DBA) at Henley. I have been at Westminster Business School since September 1992, and am currently head of the Department of Marketing & Business Strategy.

What is your area of academic interest and which courses were you involved in?

I mostly teach marketing management and strategic marketing, but also consumer behaviour, branding and advertising. I do less teaching nowadays, and have reluctantly handed over my pet subjects to some of the many star lecturers in the department, though I continue to supervise dissertations and research students. My research interests are in the area of risk and creativity in advertising, and the ethics of marketing, advertising and consumption. I am also currently looking at retail atmospherics with a research student who is particularly interested in the role played by music.

Could you please tell us a bit about the courses that you are involved in?

Most of my teaching has been on the Westminster Business School MBA and final year undergraduate business programmes. Whilst in Westminster Business School I have taught advertising as a Visiting Professor at the University of Malta, on their MA Marketing Communications, and international marketing as Visiting Professor at the Universiti Teknoloji MARA, Malaysia.

What was your first job? What did you learn from it?

My very first job was as a fifteen year-old farm-hand. My father was in the RAF so we always lived on or near RAF camps, which are all in the countryside. I used to work on farms in the long summer holidays, helping to get the harvest in. My job was tying up sacks of grain on the back of a combine harvester. The following summer I dismantled a tractor engine, decoked it, ground the valves, and put it all back together. To my great surprise it worked, and I learned that nothing was as difficult as it seemed. I then used the tractor to do the baling, driving it round a field towing a machine that made bales of straw from what was left behind by the combine harvester. I should have learned to take it easy and slow down, because whenever I went too fast the machine jammed: but I was young and trying to impress by getting the job done quickly. I should have learned that speed is not the only way to impress. I took time off after A-levels for a gap year in Malaysia/Singapore, getting to know my Malay family. The summer I returned I got myself a job in a factory, making parts for Ford gear boxes. I enjoyed working fast and being productive but the other workers told me to slow down; they were afraid that they would be expected to work as hard. I believed that it was unnecessary to have a piece of paper to prove you were any good, and tested this theory out by taking a job at Morgan Guaranty Trust Co of NY – a merchant bank in the City of London (my father had asked me to get a ‘white collar job’). After a few months doing the same thing every day I learned that I was wrong, and that I did indeed need a degree.

What did you do in your career before coming to Westminster Business School?

The degree I chose was a BA in Business Studies (Sandwich) with a Marketing Pathway. Those were the days of ‘thin sandwiches’ – instead of a one year placement we had three lots of six months, alternating with six months of study. Although this meant no long summer holiday, the regular change made life interesting and challenging. My first placement was with Carreras (Overseas) Ltd. This placement was usually reserved for Year 3 students, but I was picked because of my ability in French, and was sent out initially to the European HQ in Brussels, where I was amused to see sprouts growing between the runways at the airport, then to Switzerland, where I was to do sales promotion in Geneva, then market research in the French-speaking town of Yverdon. After that I was sent to Rotterdam, where I worked in the duty-free market in Europoort, making sales calls on the ships that came into harbour. I learned a great deal from this placement, about life, about myself, about being self-reliant, living in foreign parts, making friends with people of different nationalities, and how to sell large quantities of cigarettes to ship’s captains and pursers – quite a challenge for a non-smoker. My second and third placements were with Burmah Oil, who paid me a salary for the rest of my studies on condition that I joined them on graduation. I was interviewed for the job of Middle East rep, to be based in Beirut, and offered the job on the spot. I hid my surprise and delight and said that I would have to think about it. The Lebanese civil war started during my long induction (it was a technical company and they wanted me to have a thorough grounding in the entire product range), so I covered the Middle East from London, eventually taking up residence in Abu Dhabi instead of Beirut, as this was the epicentre of the construction boom. After two years I joined a locally owned conglomerate as GM of a small consultancy, then marketing manager of a luxury goods retailer/distributor. Two years later I returned to Britain to do my MBA. I joined London International Group as a marketing manager, and became global marketing controller for their main product category after four years. I left for a consultancy practice following a reorganisation, and joined Westminster a couple of years after that.

What advice would you give to the students during their studies and after graduation so that they make the right decisions for their career?

This is a hard one. One thing I have learned as a parent living in London is that what applied in my youth in the English countryside does not necessarily apply now or here, so it can be easy to give the wrong advice. Times have changed, society has changed, the structure of the economy has changed, as has the labour market. Expectations have also changed: even though it’s currently a very tough time to find a job, I find that Generation Y are picky about what they will or won’t consider, and sometimes that’s for the very best of reasons. I regarded my six months spell in the tobacco industry as training, I would not have considered it for a long term career. As a Muslim I also ruled out the financial sector because of interest, and also wines, spirits and gambling. That still leaves plenty of opportunities, but I find my two daughters won’t consider anything at all to do with advertising or marketing, which they perceive as simply encouraging unnecessary consumption, ignoring the fact that charities and causes also “do” marketing. I find this so frustrating as I know they would be good at it. They want to save the earth – and get paid for doing it. They don’t realise they need to get some credibility first, not to mention some money! Sorry, end of rant.

So – what advice would I give to students and graduates? Make the most of your opportunities. Work hard and smart at your studies – remember it’s not just about passing exams, it’s about understanding the stuff in the modules and knowing how and when to use it. Get to know your lecturers and tutors. Get to know other students, from as wide a range of nationalities and backgrounds as possible. I’ve learned about the world by being sent to do business in over 50 different countries, but you’ve got them all right there in the class with you! Don’t just come for your lectures and leave as soon as they are over. The university has invested a lot of money to improve the environment for you, so don’t just “study-and-go” – stick around and use the facilities. If you find there’s nothing happening that interests you, organise something!

The market place is unpredictable and constantly evolving, so unless you know exactly what you want to do perhaps it would better to avoid defining yourself too tightly. Make yourself marketable – collect whatever ‘badges’ are going – distinguish yourself in any (positive) way possible. Become a student member of the CIM. Take the Direct & Digital Marketing module and get the Institute of Direct Marketing certificate while you’re at it. If you’re a finance or HR student, I’m sure there’s a professional body for you with certificates you can collect – look into it. Be a course rep, get elected to a student union role, do charity fund-raising stunts – or better still, organise them.
If you’ve already graduated, there are still plenty of things you can do to add sparkle to your CV and get that interview. When you do get it, do your homework. Think of it as another bit of coursework. Read the latest relevant Mintel report. Google the company or brand to see if there is any current news. Put together your own case study, then analyse it the way you were taught. Summarise it all in a SWOT and then write a business plan or a marketing plan. Some years ago a newly graduated student rang me up because there was a job he liked but the ad said he should have two years’ experience in marketing. I told him to add up all the bits of work experience he had had and see if it came to 24 months, and if they could be loosely described as marketing jobs. It did, and they could. A week later he rang me in panic saying he had got the interview – it was with Hallmark, and he wanted to know what to do. I told him to go to W.H. Smith’s, Clinton’s Cards, and all the other chains, and look at the ranges of cards, how well they were merchandised and so on, and see how Hallmark compared with other brands, and then to do the analysis I’ve outlined above. At the interview they turned to him and said “Well, you know we want someone with experience – what have you got to offer us?” He took his marketing plan out of his briefcase, and handed it over, saying “This.” He got the job, and has been going from strength to strength ever since.

Oh, the final word of advice is listen to all the advice from people like me, from your elders, friends, and family – but then think carefully which to follow.

If you were asked to give one piece of advice to students who are considering going into Post Graduate study what would that be?

It worked for me, and it will probably work for you. It’s a further bit of differentiation, and will give you that little bit of extra confidence in the interview and after. Embrace your course fully, and enjoy it.

How do you relax out of work? What are your interests/leisure activities?

It’s quite hard as an academic to separate work from non-work. If you enjoy it, is it really work? If it tires you, is it leisure? If we define leisure as something you choose to do that has little direct impact on your paid work, then the things I like to do include gardening, reading, drawing, painting and sailing (but I seldom find time for any of those) and maintaining and driving the Triumph Spitfire that I bought nearly 37 years ago. The maintenance can be quite hard work – I am in the middle of a gearbox change, and taking one of those out is as good as a few hours spent pumping iron in a gym.

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