Dan Cobley

Dan Cobley was Google's head of European Marketing and Managing Director for the UK & Ireland, showing consumers how Google's products and digital technologies helped businesses grow and thrive. He was previously VP of Marketing for Northern & Central Europe, responsible for all aspects of European business and consumer marketing. 

 

Dan spent three years as VP Brand and Marketing for Capital One Europe where he helped make the company the UK's leading new card issuer. He was also Marketing Director at Ask Jeeves, and has held positions with Pepsi and Walkers, and was a strategy consultant with Monitor Company.

 

After leaving Google Dan will take on the role of CEO of the newly-launched Brighbridge Capital, a fintech incubator and investment fund. backed by Blenheim Chalcot and QED investors, both of which are companies he has worked with in previous roles. The firm says it will use the cash to invest in and build businesses that 

"promise to redefine how financial services are delivered through the smart use of internet technology."

 

Dan is an advisor to and investor in tech start ups and is on the board of The Marketing Society, 

is a trustee of the Charities Technology Trust and is on the advisory boards of Telegraph Media Group and eHarmony.

 

Dan can also do internet talks as below that reflect the current crisis.

Getting ready for the rebound - creating a culture that responds to seismic change.

The winners of the past 25 years have been driven by technology and digital. The current lockdown has driven a massive and immediate change in digital adoption, digital ways of working and customer expectations. This presents huge opportunities to organisations that can respond to the change more quickly and an existential threat to those that cannot. But adapting to change is hard.

Dan spent the dot.com crash in Silicon Valley, the financial crisis leading Google UK, and the past 6 years building some of Europe's top fintech startups. Drawing on this experience he will talk about the changes that the current crisis is driving, what is likely to stick, and how companies can develop a culture that is more flexible and nimble. More than ever it is the organisations that are the most responsive to change that will survive and thrive. 

And for companies that are looking to continue training and up-skilling their people while they are working from home, he can offer a video seminar on:

Pretotyping - a vital toolkit for validating ideas for new products or services quickly, objectively and accurately.

With the seismic shift in consumer attitudes and preferences that will follow the Covid-19 pandemic, we will all have to reassess our offerings. Pretotyping is a smart approach, developed by Google, to evaluating genuine customer responses to a proposition, before investing heavily in developing it. In an interactive workshop (even over video!) Dan will help teams understand the power of this approach and how to adopt it in their every day business. He will leave the teams with a reduced fear of failure and an ability to iterate on ideas more quickly and cheaply.