Building a successful global business is something to be proud of, but being recognised in your home town can be just as satisfying, if not more so.
Mark Robinson stepped into the CEO role at Infomedia in Northamptonshire in 2021 knowing he had a lot of work to do to turn the business around and instil a more positive culture while overseeing the continued impact the company’s direct carrier billing platform was having across the Middle East and North America.
Just over a year later, having already entered Infomedia into the Business of the Year category at the Northamptonshire Business Excellence Awards 2022, Mark was staggered to receive a special gift telling him he’d been nominated by his team, and shortlisted for, the Businessman of the Year Award, too. Infomedia was named the winner of both awards won the night.
“I’m a Northampton lad and I’m proud to be leading a company in my local area but this was my first CEO post and there’s always that element of doubt, that feeling of imposter syndrome,”explained Mark. “I was just putting my experience into practice and trying to tailor what I’d learned to my leadership style over the first few months – and the fact that my team felt they wanted to nominate me made me very proud. I received a mug telling me I was a finalist, and that mug still sits on my desk every day.”
Infomedia provides a quick and seamless payment solution that allows clients to maximise conversion for their content, charging the cost of services directly to their customers’ mobile phones with one click rather than via payment cards. Requiring no additional payment credentials, it’s a safe, secure and fast means of paying for services.
Differences in approaches to digital functionality meant that Infomedia found a good fit for its services in the Middle East and North America and, more recently, South East Asia and Eastern Europe, but its local customer base is also growing steadily.
“Our customer base in the UK is still a fairly small part of what we do but the opportunity has recently opened up again,” said Mark. “What is important to me is that everything we do was born and developed here in Northamptonshire. The UK was the initial sounding board and it was the expertise of our team, most of whom live locally, that developed this product that we take out to companies all over the world.
“We recently tipped over the one million subscriber mark and that just goes to show that something that grew in Northamptonshire can work globally.
“And what’s even nicer is that our clients love to come here to visit us. You might think that we’d struggle to convince them to make the long trip to rural Northamptonshire to see where we’re based and meet the team, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. People are queuing up to come and visit us and their reaction when they see what they call our ‘quintessentially British’ location is a bit like our reaction when we visit New York or Dubai with their amazing skyscrapers – they’re blown away by it. It helps that we’re based on the beautiful Holdenby House estate, so they call our offices ‘The Infomedia Castle’.
“But in all seriousness, it’s great for our team here to see the reaction of telecoms giants from all over the world, who want to come here and find out more about us and what we do. Sometimes, a team in a small town might feel what they do is insignificant, we show them that it’s not at all, that we’re doing something massive here.”
Four new starters this year, and two more appointments about to be made soon brings the team at Infomedia to 26, all of whom buy into the company culture, the creation of which was part of Mark’s ambition when he took up the CEO role. The growing team will be overseeing new contracts as Infomedia builds on its early-stage development in Singapore, with plans to expand into the likes of Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong very soon.
Increased activity in Hungary and the Balkans has prompted the company to create its first team outside of Northamptonshire, taking on four staff in Belgrade that will grow cultural diversity within the business, bringing innovative ideas and ways of working to complement Infomedia’s expansion strategy.
Mark said: “Markets are opening up and we want make the most of that, and the team in Northamptonshire will take up the majority of that new work. We do have a great culture here now, after having to strip things back a little when I first started. When people come to work for us we show them that if they come in and they are good enough, they will get the autonomy to do things the way they want to, and we have seen the rewards of that through performance and through the awards, which we have every intention of entering again this year. I’m very proud of this Infomedia team. I am delighted that our latest employee surveys have been exceptionally positive, and that we’ve got a team that really buys into what we are trying to do.”
Find out more about Infomedia at www.infomedia.co.uk
