Andy Beard

Experience

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  FKI Babcock PLC

  Sept 1986 - Apr 1989

  Mechanical Engineering Apprentice Technician

  Full engineering apprenticeship. I was mostly working on Mainframe CAD/CAM systems. Most interesting was creating a program in Fortran to calculate and output CNC g-code for the machining of nuclear fuel flasks from 80-tonne blocks of steel. In those days we still used paper-tape on the shop floors.In 1989 the company shut down the London office in Dover Street and moved to Crawley. 6000 lost their jobs in the restructuring. Whilst offered a place, 3-4 hours on a train every day wasn't attractive.My new employer wouldn't allow me to continue my formal education at SELTEC. Show less

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  Richard Klinger Ltd

  Apr 1989 - Jan 1990

  Mechanical Technician

  Creating engineering drawings and creating bills of material for the shop floor. On a PC gathering dust, I hacked together a small program (in BASIC) to calculate all the materials needed to fabricate an industrial level gauge saving me 3 hours per day.

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  JS Industrial Services LTD

  Jan 1990 - Feb 1992

  Sales Engineer

  Humidification specialist in HVAC. Using DOS-based CRM, cold-calling, customer support, fulfilling requests for quotation (RFQs), and targeting consultants and other decision-makers at the top of the specification ladder.

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  Educational Institution

  Mar 1992 - Aug 1992

  Self-Education

  Employment break spent refreshing computer skills and gaining contacts. Extensively used Lucy, Nicola and Ameol offline readers to access Cix, an early U.K. BBS and Internet gateway (text-based).

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  16/32 Systems

  Sept 1992 - Mar 1993

  Sales & Production Assistant

  Shop, mail-order & exhibition work for Public domain software specialist

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  New Age Magazine

  Apr 1993 - May 1993

  DTP & Computing Specialist
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  Agency

  May 1993 - Jul 1993

  Temporary Employment

  Operating injection moulding machines to produce special zip-ties for H.M. Customs

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  Modapol

  Aug 1993 - Oct 2019

  Consultant

  Privately held family run apparel business

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  Almathera (Poland)

  Sept 1993 - May 1996

  Founding Director

  - Joint Founder of first specialized CD-ROM publisher in Poland- Established large distribution network in the territory - Single-handedly assembled first Polish software CD-ROM – wrote own invoicing & shipping system (Arexx)- Negotiated exclusive distribution rights with various publishers- Preliminary presentation to found the first Commodore Office in Poland after a successful management buyout (which never happened)

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  Techland

  Jun 1996 - Nov 2003

  - Placed 4 products with worldwide publishers, whilst overseeing design, development, marketing, localization, and QA (Crime Cities, Extermination, Speedway 2000 to Eon Digital in 2000, and Millennium Chess to various European territories). Performed the same duties on various additional products during the earlier stages of their development.- Negotiated development of 3rd party for Activision, and oversaw the design, development, and QA (Survival: The Ultimate Challenge).- Specified feature requirements and oversaw the design of original content specifically for the OEM market, and then placed said product with 3 major OEM clients (Future Beat 3D with Creative Labs, Aureal Inc, and Videologic)- Oversaw design, development, marketing, QA and sales of original content to home markets- Negotiated the purchase of 100+ products from international publishers worldwide, and maintained the business relationship whilst performing a lead role in their localization and introduction to the territory.- Lead for External Relations with all hardware vendors and software developers/publishers- Primary negotiator for all international contracts, legal proceedings, and settlements & maintained relationships with professional advisors.- International PR, Exhibition stands design and implementation, exhibiting at and visiting industry events.- Website design. Used groundbreaking OpenGL drivers as a hook for traffic, link building & building 5000 detailed leads Show less

  • Consultant

    Oct 2001 - Nov 2003

  • International Sales & Marketing Manager, Business Development Manager (CMO)

    Jun 1996 - Oct 2001
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  NET COMPUTING SERVICES LTD

  Apr 2003 - Jun 2003

  Sales And Marketing Specialist

  This was a bespoke web development company with a very narrow customer base (Ex BT working for BT). I was employed to define a viable business model to expand their business, define a marketable product range based upon current code base and expertise, and to launch a sales and marketing program based on an agreed business plan.After 6 weeks with the company, it was mutually agreed that the directors of the company would be more comfortable with a telesales person addressing a wide market than my recommended plan to focus on core technology and apply it to related vertical markets that I had identified. I researched topics such as digital asset management, business process modelling, workflow, enterprise application integration, marketing resource management & partner relationship management. Show less

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  Self-employed

  Apr 2005 - now

  Owner & Online Marketing Geek

  Currently doing things that don’t scale to prove the potential of a startup hypothesisPreviously established http://andybeard.eu as an authoritative source of SEO & online marketing training, news & commentary. Topical focus included Google search, paid links debate, monetization. Typically 10-28 blog posts per month – 85 at peak (Jan 2007)>> Achievements:- Technorati 100, Adage Power 150 (#23), Judge – Mashable Open Web Awards, Semmys, SEO Ranking Factors- Noted for “Dofollow Movement”, reporting on Google’s war on paid links and discussion on early Advertorial services.- As the SEO consultant to http://blogcatalog.com traffic peaked at 15M unique visitors/month (500%+ growth)- http://articlesnatch.com Google penalty recovery, site restructuring – recovered from 80% traffic drop (40k/day down to 8k/day) and subsequently grew traffic to a peak of 200k/day – Until 2016 they had up to 2M articles.- http://informed.pl site restructuring and URL consolidation boosted Google search traffic 200%- High social profile on Twitter, Facebook, Sphinn Top #3 user & LinkedIn>> WordPress Plugins Published- Antisocial – SEO Friendly Version of Sociable- Custom Query String UTW Edition- Nofollow Those Dupes- Snowfall- DisclosurePolicyPlugin.com – automatic keyword disclosure- Linkflow.com – A PHP class, javascript decoder, and later a WP plugin that turned Nofollow links (and also blocks of content ;) into something that had to be decoded. Client & test purposes only>> Growth Hacks-Linkedin Fast – Viral generator for a simple Get/Post form hack = 100s of site-wide links ☺-Feedburner Feedflares – linkbait-Remarketing.me – Training Membership site using WordPress featuring Remarketing/Retargeting growth hacks with the growth engine results showing in real-time as part of the product/case study.Custom “Pretty Links” & YOURLS with pixel stuffing and cookie consent for use with retargeting (In 2010)-Google Custom Search based on Top Rank Blog SEO blogs list Show less

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  UQast

  Nov 2010 - Apr 2012

  Product Manager for Bootstrapped Startup

  This position grew from an initial consulting role to become a key decision-maker for all aspects of the platform & I was frequently forced to get my hands dirty.Achievements:- Designed ground-breaking affiliate tracking system “Cascading Cookies”)- Rich media embed implementation with unique SEO features, oEmbed & custom WordPress plugin- Advanced analytics system for multiple Google analytics account holders across multiple domains and framed embeds- Rocket boosted viral loop design (was only partially implemented)- Extensive customer-facing role including technical support, presenting weekly webinars- Landing page / Sales funnel design & optimization- Shopping Cart customization & management- Trouble-shooting and re-implementing FFmpeg transcoding servers- Redesign of embedded 1-click upsell cart for use on Client sites.Included work with Rightscale, Amazon Web services, FFmpeg, WordPress, SVN, JiraRegrettably hampered by lack of financial & development resources – for extensive periods it was a constant firefight with no active development team. Show less

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  Techland

  May 2013 - Dec 2013

  Product Development Manager (online)

  This was an internal consultancy role which included:- Designing Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, & Revenue mechanisms for both paid & free to play IOS games and methods to track success. https://shortbreakstudios.com- Consulting on free wall/pay wall implementation for legal information site ( legeo.pl )- Consulting on complete strategy & implementation of electronic software distribution store for computer games including in-depth research on payment platforms. ( boxoffstore.com & boxoffstore.pl )- Hammering away on the importance of actionable analytics, testing, explaining benefits and boosting product retention Show less