Meet the team
Holly Mackay - CEO
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!
Contact Holly
Brenda De Carvalho - Operations Manager
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. (I think they deserve that, and they really are the least boring thing about me)'.
Contact Brenda
Carmel Dickinson - Head of Sales & Industry Relations
Carmel has worked in advertising and marketing for 11 years. 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 again at Boring Money in Jan 2016 to spread of the word of Boring Money to the financial industry and 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:
Contact Carmel
Richard Bradley - Head of Data
Richard started out at Holly’s previous business, The Platforum, in 2011, where he looked at how advisers and consumers deal with investments. Following that, he spent 18 months conducting financial services market research at international media agency Fundamental Media, before joining Boring Money in January 2017.
With a penchant for numbers, he spends most of his time analysing what investment providers are up to and keeping tabs on what they cost.
Likes: gin and tonic, cooking, remote holidays
Dislikes: bad grammar, crowds, shopping
Least boring thing: makes a mean gin and tonic muffin
Contact Richard
Alex Jones - Head of Market Research
Alex started adult life up t’North as an economic and social researcher before moving South and into commercial market research. He has undertaken consumer-focused quantitative and qualitative projects for some of the world’s leading finance, communications and technology brands – from global tracking studies to consumer ethnography and has had articles published by the Market Research Society.
Likes: Bananagrams, Ferris Bueller and tropical house music
Dislikes: Milky tea, horror films and the cost of renting in South London!
Least boring thing: Amateur potter specialising in wonky bowls
Contact Alex
Michael Akinwotu - Data and Research Associate
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:
Contact Michael
Cara Whitehouse - Chief Marketing Officer
Cara began her career as a (completely impoverished) journalist before becoming a (still fairly skint) magazine editor. Having decided that earning a halfway decent salary was a good idea, she moved into digital marketing and ran a specialist agency for more than 4 years, working with brands big and small across search, social and content marketing campaigns. Ever restless, she got bored of being online-only – and for the past four years, she has worked in disruptive start-ups, managing their go-to-market strategies both online and offline.
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…
Contact Cara
Mikhail Ismail - Head of Client and Content Projects
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:
Dislikes:
Least boring thing:
Contact Mikhail
Meital Sharon - Digital Marketing Manager
Meital started her career as a writer and SEO content consultant in Israel marketing for a variety of companies, from corporate high-tech brands to a teen-oriented high school chain. Later she spread across all things digital marketing and moved to London, just in time to join the Boring Money team and look after our digital & paid marketing strategies.
Likes: Books, more books, still more books, yes, that's almost enough, but there's room for one more book up there, in the corner.
Dislikes: Tapas meals, empty batteries and dressing for the wrong season.
Least boring thing: Meital was part of the editing committee for an 800 page encyclopaedia about women's health and sexuality.
Contact Meital
Phoebe Smith - Marketing Assistant
Phoebe began working life as a marketer for the pan-European stock exchange Euronext, having just finished her masters in Viking & Anglo-Saxon Studies (yep, that’s a real MA!). After taking on some marketing internships in publishing and corporate networking during her scholarship year, Phoebe wanted the challenge of turning her hand from Old Norse runestones to financial marketing. Since diving into the financial industry, she’s loved every opportunity to satisfy her thirst for knowledge - muahaha!
Likes: knitting (check out the hat), dogs, and eco-friendly living
Dislikes: ketchup, ’reality’ TV, and sunburn.
Least boring thing: Phoebe is a commissioned photo-realistic pet portrait painter.
Contact Phoebe
Mog - Chief Feline Officer
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.
Contact Mog