7 minute read
Tonbridge Spotlights on Old Tonbridgians i. Ben Jeffries
from OT Magazine 2021
REBECCA WATSON
FROM MILITARY SERVICEMEN TO MODERN DAY INFLUENCER
TONBRIDGE SPOTLIGHTS ON PASSIONATE AND INSPIRING OLD TONBRIDGIANS
This year has been one of challenges and change for many of us. With the drought of real events and reunions and with most of our community stuck indoors, the Tonbridge Society embarked on a new venture to help keep you connected to the school and to other Old Tonbridgians. We created a speaker series to ‘spotlight’ as many different careers and members of the Old Tonbridgian Society, to provide our community with insightful and fascinating speakers from around the globe.
We have heard Craig Frederick (PS 72-77) talk about horrors in the depths of the ocean, and Neil Lawson (PH 80-85) on redesigning the way mass-produced vegetables are grown here in the UK. Hamish de Bretton Gordon (MH 77-82) gave riveting accounts of his expertise in locating and preventing Chemical Warfare. New OTs have offered their advice and recent experiences from a variety of industries to help current pupils with their own career decisions.
Two of our Spotlights speaker sessions are highlighted here, and we hope this encourages you to tune into our series of online talks from Tonbridge.
Please contact us if you have experience that you would like to share with the Tonbridge community.
OT Relations Manager, Rebecca Watson
For all enquiries, including how to become a speaker, contact: tonbridgesociety@tonbridge-school.org
To listen to previous talks:
www.tonbridgeconnect.org/pages/ tonbridge-talks
BUILDING MY BRAND
SEEING FAILURES AS STEPPINGSTONES. BUILDING FOLLOWER NUMBERS
BEN JEFFRIES (SH 09-14)
At just 24, Ben Jeffries has won several entrepreneurial accolades, including being named in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 listing for 2020. So, when Ben spoke to an online Tonbridge audience in December, it was interesting to hear that his entrepreneurial journey began with a clothing business he started whilst at school, aged 15.
‘Breeze’ was a catch phrase that Ben and his school mates used to throw around. “We joked that we should put it on a t-shirt, which I decided to do,” Ben explained. “I wanted to turn Breeze into the next big clothing brand.”
He didn’t know any celebrities to endorse his products, but being a big Chelsea fan, Ben reached out to Chelsea’s reserve team players with the offer of free clothing in return for tweets showing them wearing it. As he explained: “These footballers were recognisable names to anyone following Chelsea and they had 10,000 – 15,000 social media followers each. They really helped me build my brand.”
Ben realised that if he could use the success of these relatively small-scale influencers to reach potential customers, then he could help established brands do the same thing. He developed this idea into Influencer, a business which Ben has built into one of the UK’s largest influencer marketing companies, with 60 employees, working with brands such as Ocado, McDonalds and Uber.
Sporting metaphors were plentiful as Tonbridge Director of Sport, Chris Morgan, posed questions during the talk, about how Ben went about building his business.
Ben spent his gap year selling classified ads which built up his confidence and selling skills. Rather than go travelling afterwards, Ben saved his earnings for start-up capital.
Initially, Ben embarked on a Business Administration degree at Bath University, to learn the tricks of the trade for entrepreneurship. But in his second year, after a short industrial placement at Shell, Ben used his remaining placement time to develop his own business. After three months he had built up momentum and found it impossible to focus on full time studies, so he quit university to continue full-time with Influencer.
“I learnt a lot of lessons from University and it’s the right path for many people,” Ben explained. “But for me, it was a fantastic to just throw myself into my business at that time.”
Ben explained what social media influencers do, how they make money, and how brands use his company to connect with the right influencers to reach their target market. Giving advice to anyone interested in becoming an influencer Ben recommended developing content based on true passions and interests, “because it’s a long, rough journey to build follower numbers”.
Ben also discussed challenges facing the tech industry, in particular mental health and addiction highlighted in the recent Netflix documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’. He pointed to actions tech companies like Facebook are taking, by hiding ‘likes’ and follower numbers, and remains positive they will find ways to self-regulate, to stop users leaving platforms and prevent government regulation.
Describing his proudest moment in business yet, Ben talked about raising £3 million in venture capital investment which felt like “a defining moment” for Influencer after nine months of tough due diligence.
It’s not all been plain sailing, however. “There have been multiple times I have wanted to give up, but I’ve learnt to see failures as steppingstones,” explained Ben. “It’s just about making sure you don’t make the same mistakes twice.”
Ben encouraged Tonbridge alumni to connect on LinkedIn to ask further questions about the industry or to share ideas. As he concluded: “It’s great to be able to give something back to the Tonbridge community which has been so great to me.”
LEADERSHIP IN THE MILITARY
Two Park House alumni from different generations, Seb Pollington (PH 80-85) and Tom Brown (09-14), shared their insights on leadership and the modern military in December.
Seb joined the event from Naples, where he was working with NATO in Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Recently retired as a senior British Army officer, Seb now mentors political leaders in a civil servant role, after 30 years’ experience leading UK operations around the world which started with a heady introduction to conflict when he joined the army as a Tank Commander in the first Gulf War.
A five-point guide to the British Army’s thinking on leadership, was Seb’s starting point for the talk: 1. Leaders are made – not born: leadership is an entirely trainable ability 2. Persuasion, conviction and strong communication are highly crucial and also highly trainable: the army uses trained actors to enable officers to speak with authority and conviction 3. ‘Serve to lead’ is central to ethos at Sandhurst – officers are trained to look up to the people they lead 4. Command (legal authority) is different from leadership (vision), which is different again from management (allocating resources to carry out set tasks) 5. Self-awareness is an increasingly important leadership commodity.
Seb touched on the military’s recruitment strategy, which recognises that people are now well-connected global citizens who seek variety in their careers, rather than a single job for life, and look for jobs with genuine value and flexibility.
He described the integrated operating concept as the biggest change in military in several generations, with defence no longer about peace and war but about medicine and intelligence, and threats from resurgent and developing powers that are remarkably difficult to defeat without undermining openness.
Tom joined Seb to give a recent Sandhurst graduate’s perspective on the modern military, after recently receiving the Sword of Honour at his commissioning course at Sandhurst, the first Tonbridgian in decades to win the award.
During the talk, Tom gave advice to current Tonbridge boys, and recent leavers, about their aspirations for joining the military. He described his own experience at Tonbridge and how Major Martin Brennan (CCF 2000-current) and the CCF helped him develop enormously, both as an individual and a leader. After Tonbridge, Tom went on to study a master’s degree in science at the University of Bristol and joined the Reserves, which is very integrated with the Regulars. He talked about the pros and cons of joining the Reserves as an officer or a soldier, encouraging boys to do their own research into the different services in the military. He invited any would-be recruits to get in touch with him for advice and support.
Since completing his Sandhurst Commissioning Course, Tom has joined the Welsh Guards. He described how he visited lots of regiments during his application process and said “I just got a feeling that was where I belonged” when he walked into the Welsh Guards mess. He talked about the strong bond that is like a ‘brothership’ that develops amongst those he has served with and the strong ethos the army has, and its commitment to putting people first. He also highlighted the unique career options offered by the Welsh Guards, with a two-year rotation of ceremonial and combat roles, which were a strong motivation to him.
The pair answered questions on how ICT has changed the military and the importance of social networking to military leaders. Other questions focussed on the differences between the UK and US military, leadership vs followership and the future for battle tanks.
They concluded with discussion around the challenges that face a modern-day British Army and the huge importance of technology for cyber warfare and artificial intelligence ●
Missed these talks? Watch again at
www.tonbridgeconnect.org/pages/ tonbridge-talks
