About Guy
My name's Guy. I'm from High Wycombe in the UK, a town close to London. My degree is actually in Mechanical Engineering but I was always more of an entrepreneurial and business type. That’s how I ended up in sales. I also play guitar in a rock band in my spare time. The band is called Rhyn and I started 15 years ago with some friends from school. We’ve released a few recordings and play live fairly regularly, mostly in London. It’s really enjoyable to do something creative.
Tell us about your job. What do you do at Backbase?
I work as a Business Development Manager in our London office, covering the UK and Ireland. My job is to be the "first one on the ground", getting in front of new potential customers and growing our footprint in the market. It’s a great feeling to realise that Backbase has a unique offering to help banks do things differently.
What brought you to Backbase?
I was really impressed by the vision of the company. I love how Backbase focuses on one industry and doing one thing better than any other company in the world. I feel excited about our product and that there’s something better we can offer banks than what they have now or what they can build themselves.
How does your work contribute to Backbase's mission to power the digital banking revolution?
Everything we do in sales is crucial to our mission - taking the banking industry to a new level and accelerating digital transformation. To achieve our goal, we need to grow and develop as a company and the sales team is responsible for bringing in the revenue that makes it possible. On top of that, when a new deal is signed you actually feel like you contributed to making people’s life easier. It’s really rewarding.
How would you describe the Backbase sales culture?
It's great to be part of a scale-up that's growing fast. Backbase is a fairly new company that still manages to maintain a start-up environment. It’s like a family where everyone supports each other. We have a really warm and inclusive culture that helps everyone to do their best work. There’s a huge opportunity for us to expand in the UK and Irish market and bring on more and more customers every year. The pressure is high, but it’s also something that motivates you to move forward.
There’s a belief that salespeople are all about the money. While revenue is a measure of your performance at Backbase, it’s also about a bigger vision: growing sales in order to invest more in the company. I truly relate to it.
What advice would you give to someone who's interested in joining Backbase's sales team?
Just go for it!
Name the most jaw-dropping place you traveled to for work?
Amsterdam is awesome, we go there regularly to meet with the rest of the Backbase team. We don't travel as widely in the London team as some but we're also lucky that most of the UK banks are on our doorstep.
What do your parents think you do?
Something to do with "fintech". I tried to explain what fintech is but all they remember is that it’s something to do with finance and technology. I’m fine with that 🙂
If you could do another job for a day, what would that be and why?
CEO of a bank. It's essential to understand what the world is really like for our customers day-to-day. A lot of salespeople understand their customers a lot less than they think they do. In my job it’s important to empathise with the other side in order to understand their challenges and needs better.
