About Us

James King - Director

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After reading Maths at University James joined the IT industry and during the eighties was a very successful Marketing and Business Development Director steering IT companies, such as Decision Systems and Apricot Computers, to a brand leadership position, in highly competitive market spaces.

In the nineties he set up European distribution for two US west coast storage manufacturers, raised venture capital and built channel distribution for a British software house before starting his own marketing consultancy.

Whilst operating as an independent CRM and brand consultant, James was offered an interim Marketing role with the University of Surrey. This turned into a permanent position and James became Deputy Director of Marketing and Communications.

During his 4 years at the University of Surrey, James lead the Marketing and Communications team and achieved significant measurable improvements in key indicators:

• the annual rate of student enquiries doubled across 3 years
• the number of students attending Open Days trebled across 3 years
• the number of applications (UK and Overseas) increased by 70% across 2006 to 2009 entry.

The introduction of a ‘personalised prospectus’ in 2006, sent in response to web based student enquiries, undoubtedly had a substantial beneficial effect. Surrey was the first University in the UK to do this. In addition, the increased awareness of Surrey as an attractive HE choice was further enhanced by a complete brand redevelopment, with the consequent realigning of all marketing communications to reflect the brand messages and the introduction of a new visual identity.
James left the University of Surrey in 2008 to form an independent marketing consultancy – The Conscious Brand, specialising in offering marketing consultancy to the education sector.