Matt grew up in Epsom, and knew whatever he studied, it would need to have a practical aspect. That’s how he ended up on the Business Studies course in Ealing. 

 I wanted a broad-based degree with several different aspects to it. Business was an easy choice, because it had a combination of finance, psychology, sociology, law, and marketing to it."

The structure of his particular course allowed him to spend six months of the year working in industry, and six months studying at university. He didn’t even set foot on campus until the February of his first year.  

That was weird, we arrived as freshers in February. But it actually brought all of us really close together. Everyone else knew each other, so we had to bond. That was hard, but the concept of half in half out was brilliant. It was very vocational, we earned money while studying, and it was a great mix of real world and theoretical knowledge. It helped us to properly understand the application of what we were learning.”   

The key part of this course was finding a business willing to sponsor you and offer you placements during your time in industry. For Matt, that company was Extel PLC, a media conglomerate with an advertising agency, and multiple publishing companies. They also supplied information about horse races to bookmakers for betting purposes.  

Working there exposed me to the fact that advertising agencies might be quite cool. The thing that won me over was an agency that came in to present to us. They were so inspiring, and it was a direct result of the way Ealing College structured the business course that led me to the career I had.”   

After university, Matt travelled for a few months before he started back working at IDK Media (acquired by WPP). He knew by now that he wanted to focus on advertising on the media side of the operation.  

Basically, someone is making the ads, and someone is making sure the ad gets placed on television, radio and now all the digital channels . I joined a business that only focused on media. Most of my early work was with BT, or on a Yellow Pages ad - that ended up being very famous and successful. Not that you’d think that now, as Google came along."

Years later, this side of the business would be merged back with the creative side, and a series of well-timed mergers and acquisitions saw Matt working at one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world.  

I was working in one discipline, and because of the way the industry was going at that time, ended up getting the opportunity to broaden out what I was doing and be responsible for big teams that were working across the whole of the business. I would always say to people don’t worry too much about where you start. You just want to get into the area because there’s always room to move across.”