Holly Mackay has been working in investment markets since 1998. She read Modern Languages at Oxford, with a special focus on Medieval French which was deeply interesting and arguably utterly useless. From 1998 – 2007, she worked in both Australia and the UK, for Big Global Investment Firms with Increasingly Important-Sounding Titles.
Likes: time with her kids, red shoes, the sea, surfing, India and wine (not Indian wine)
Dislikes: pompous bores, broken technology, laziness, the tube
Least boring thing: Holly was in a stand-up comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival ages ago with people who are now much more famous than she is!
Jim has been working in various types of research for close to 20 years.
He has worked across a wide variety of sectors including banking, insurance, technology and government.
Most recently Jim has been benchmarking banks, insurers and others against each other.
Likes: Numbers, lots of tea, nice wine, time with family and friends
Dislikes: Quiche, bad graphs, being ill, people who don’t remove their rucksacks on the tube
Least boring thing: Jim once took advantage of talented teammates to win a TV quiz show
Jen started her career in healthcare market research, speaking to professionals and respondents all over the world. With specialisms in consumer journey and comms, Jen has worked on everything from complete bank rebrands to matching products with consumer need. Jen has a wide range of experience yet still remains curious!
Likes: Surfing, yoga, laughing a lot, any music she can dance to, sun, beaches, getting out & exploring, banana bread.
Dislikes: rude/negative people, thrash metal, bananas.
Least boring thing: Jen was awarded 'Top Yogi' and 'Most Likely to Still Be Dancing Until the Wee Small Hours' on a surf and yoga tour of Sri Lanka.
Michael graduated from university with a degree in Economics before moving into strategy consulting.
He has experience working with multinational organisations across several sectors, providing research and insights to drive growth.
Michael joined Boring Money in December 2017 and works with our research and data team.
Likes: Football, Chelsea, and Eden Hazard
Dislikes: Arsenal, Gooners, and Emirates Stadium
Least boring thing:
Sam graduated from York University in 2016 with an integrated Master’s degree in Environmental Geography. He has previously worked as a data analyst in marketing and utilities industries, providing analysis and insight for senior leadership and stakeholders.
Likes: Food, gym, David Attenborough, the environment, horror films and people on public transport who are happy to chat
Dislikes: Slow walkers, rude people and overcrowded areas (hence why Sam lives and works in London!)
Least boring thing: Sam ran the London Marathon in April 2019 for the mental health charity 'Mind'.
Jess began her research career after studying Anthropology at the LSE, learning about all the weird and wonderful aspects of human culture.
Prior to Boring Money, she worked in Insight & Strategy at a Welsh building society, and more recently at a global market research firm writing reports across a range of consumer financial services markets.
Likes: 80s music, documentaries on ancient Egypt, painting trees, birds, and all things food
Dislikes: Bad weather, being late, squirrels stealing from bird feeders
Least boring thing: Jess alternated between playing second row and prop for her university and local rugby team back home.
Carmel has worked in advertising and marketing since 2005. After 5 years at Money Marketing she joined Holly at The Platforum as Head of Commercial. From here she went to News UK to commercially run The Times and Sunday Times financial sections (winning Sales Person of the Year 2015) followed by a brief stint at Guardian Labs. But she was wooed back to join Holly at Boring Money in 2016 to tell the financial industry how they can work with us through content marketing, events and research.
Likes: French bulldogs, live music in a field and a good Scotch Egg.
Dislikes: Baked Beans, Talent shows on TV and bad manners.
Least boring thing:
Cara began her career as a (rather impoverished) journalist before becoming a (still skint) magazine editor. Having decided to earn a halfway decent salary, she moved into digital marketing and ran a specialist agency for more than four years, working with brands big and small across search, social and content marketing. Ever restless, Cara got bored of being online-only and moved on to managing the online and offline go-to-market strategies of disruptive start-ups.
Likes: Sunshine, travelling the world and laughing with friends.
Dislikes: People in front of her walking really slowly when she's in a hurry.
Least boring thing: Cara was a County gold medal-winning gymnast in her younger, more flexible days…
A creative who cares, Jamie always finds a way to give the people more! As a Dementia Care Assistant he painted murals and wrote cheeky poems.
As a Newspaper Editor he organised workshops and started a society. And now, after years as a Copywriter, he’s helping Joe Public and Mr Moneybags become firm friends. Power to the people!
Likes: Drag queens, dogs and David Bowie.
Dislikes: Rude people, dull writing and tea without sugar.
Least boring thing: Can make you practically anything out of papier-mâché…
Phoebe began working life at the pan-European stock exchange Euronext, after finishing her MA Viking & Anglo-Saxon Studies masters degree (yep, you read that right!). Having turned her hand from Old Norse runestones to financial marketing, she loves the challenge of heading up our social media & Ask section, updating our site, and dabbling with design & video.
Phoebe takes every opportunity to learn more about the finance industry.
Likes: knitting, dogs, and eco-friendly living
Dislikes: ketchup, ’reality’ TV, and sunburn.
Least boring thing: Phoebe is a commissioned photo-realistic pet portrait painter.
Mikhail started out as an investment analyst before crossing over to marketing and comms for asset managers and investment solutions providers.
During his post grad he worked as a project manager for start ups in media production before returning to financial services.
He oversees client content production, comms, and web content at Boring Money.
Likes: Sarcasm
Dislikes: Sarcasm
Least boring thing: During a prolonged stint as child stunt performer, Mikhail found a niche playing fantasy creatures and feral children.
Brenda joined Boring Money with the aim to keep everyone on their boring toes and make sure we deliver everything we've promised and more.
As a board level support professional, Brenda has gained experience across a wide range of sectors including Tech, Finance, Media and Architecture.
Likes: Cats on synthesizers in space, solar flares, graphic novels, drone metal and The Mars Volta.
Dislikes: Income disparity, the exploitation of labour in developing nations, and being responsible for waking people up.
Least boring thing: It’s my family.
Matt started work at BT developing applications to locate telephone cables over 20 years ago. The excitement was too much so he moved into digital/web development and have worked for a variety of different brands from Sainsbury's to Nike, as both a developer, and in more recent years, a manager of developers.
Technology doesn’t have to be difficult. Matt's a pragmatist and just like to get things done.
Likes: Football (West Ham), 80’s action movies, My mad Schnauzer (Barney), Good coffee
Dislikes: Bad coffee, The only way is Essex – in fact all Z list celebrity, real life programs, The Tube
Least boring thing: My boys and my dog
Chief Feline Officer Mog joined Boring Money after a short career at the North London Cats Rescue Centre in Archway.
She has ideas above her station and has been known to refuse Ocado free-range chicken. As well as having an c-attitude problem, she tends to sleep through important meetings and yawn at our videos. She is currently in a disciplinary process although proving rather hard to fire.
Likes: Baked beans, Magnums, shrews, pensions
Dislikes: Baths, dogs, Whiskers cat food.
Least boring thing: She staged a failed coup against Grumpy Cat.
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