CV
Dave Yates: Marketing and Design Professional
Marketing and Design Professional
I am a uniquely experienced and qualified digital marketing professional. I have grown with the technology over the last 25 years, from traditional marketing through award winning creative direction, award winning digital design and development through to account direction.
I have worked on a range of projects from blue chip to niche clients with a strong track record of leading the successful delivery of consultancy, creative and interactive programmes.
I have continually developed skills and monitored trends and developments, particularly in the digital arena, to add client value and establish a competitive advantage. This passion for modern marketing work and my ability to apply creative thinking with a problem-solving approach has served me well. I have keen analytical skills and sound commercial judgment. I am an enthusiastic ‘people person’ which works well in my role as a team leader and influencer both internally and in client-facing aspects of my work.
Core Competencies
Marketing Consultancy | Design Management | Departmental Management | Graphic Design | Web Design | SEO / PPC | Copy Writing Social Media Management | Media and Public Relations
Industry experience: Retail | Agency | Financial Services | Oil and Gas | Sports
Experience
E-tailwebstores.com: Head of Design and Development
August 2011 – Present
- Trouble-shooting role to turn the development department into a profit generating department
- Redesign of the core product to become a core plus modules, adopting a mass- production model
- Department will move from a loss making position to profits in October 2011.
Contact Insurance: Head of Marketing and Design
March 2010 – July2011
- Part of the senior Management team negotiating the strategic partnership with Confused.com
- Generated 700 sales leads per month through email marketing
- Produced 100 leads per month via PPC and SEO
- Took the company from page 100+ on Google to page 1 for 90% targeted keywords
- Board level negotiation with Aviva, Legal & General, Pru and Aegeas to change their business model accommodating the first free-to-market life insurance offer
- Design, copywriting and marketing strategy including PPC, SEO and social media
TheWatchHut.co.uk : Head of Marketing
Aug 2009 – March 2010 – 6mth Contract
- Winner of international design award (Interactive Media Awards) for my design of thewatchhut.co.uk
- Redesigned organic linking strategy to move the site to Page 1, position 1 (from page 3) against key search terms including ‘watches’ and ‘watch’
- Identified inefficiencies in hosting and bandwidth costs. I sourced new suppliers specified requirements and negotiated new contract saving the business over £90,000 per annum
- TV and radio advertising management | Launched Pandora retail sites | Management of £1M+ marketing budgets for SEO, PPC, Social, Radio and TV
Creative Thing Ltd: Owner / Director
2004 – 2009
- Set up the company to apply some of the ergonomic principles of product and systems design to communications design. Achievements include:
- Took the business from start-up to £500k annual turnover in four years
- Key projects: ACID (Anti Copying In Design) web build and communications strategy | Gloucestershire County Council Registration Services communications | MOD public consultation communications for the redevelopment of Catterick | Strategy and web interface for Tourism Tasmania – online presence plus dedicated Social Media Channel.
- Other projects include; Pfizer; Staffordshire County Council; Royal Navy Blog.
Marlborough Stirling plc: Head of Design
1999 – 2004
- Key part of the management team that took the company to the market and increased turnover from £20Million to over £200Million.
- Key projects:
- Original Egg.com strategy and web design and development.
- Bank of Scotland credit card and online loan microsite strategy design and delivery.
- Website Design and online membership area for Sony Card site and loyalty incentive.
- Winner of Revolution Magazine Award for New Media Marketing for Best Use of Intranet or Extranet in the UK’s premier online awards.
- Winner of the CSSA UK Technology Award for the Insurance and Financial Services Sector
BP: Global Intranet Project Manager
1997 – 1998
• Briefing, developing, managing and delivering strategy and solutions on the world’s largest and most sophisticated intranet. I was brought in to provide a more entrepreneurial approach to the management of this internal asset.
• Saved BP over $9Million by eradicating duplicated activity on the intranet and combing the individual budgets from each distinct part of the business into a single larger operational budget. Thereby, delivering a single organised and coordinated ‘super-computer’.
• Improved the development and quality of the intranet functions and design by opening up the project to external contractors. This introduced competitive pricing and allowed access to broader skills
• Reduced the cost and disruption to business through a program to replace expensive global conferences with smaller moratoria accommodating online broadcasting and online delegate involvement.
Media X Ltd: Creative Director – 1992 – 1997
Karrimor International: Marketing Manager – 1990 – 1992
Regatta / Craghoppers: Marketing Manager – 1988 – 1990
Rohan Designs plc: Marketing Manager – 1984 – 1988
Education
Staffordshire University
- Interactive Design
- Post Graduate Certificate
- Post Graduate Diploma
Coventry University
- Business Studies (Marketing)
Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)
Skills
IT Skills: Microsoft Office, Microsoft Project, Mac and PC advanced user.
Software and Technology: Advanced ability in Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign), Fireworks, Quark Xpress, Flash, Dreamweaver, HTML, PHP, MySql, CSS, WordPress, Final Cut, Audacity, PodCasting
Skill-sets: Management, Marketing, PR, Copywriting, Graphic Design, Web Design, SEO, SMO, Multimedia Design, and Presentation
Awards
- IMA (Interactive Media Awards) 2010: Awarded for Ecommerce Design – The Watch Hut
- BIPP Photo Industry Award: British Institute of Professional Photography Photo Industry Awards: Best Promotion / Advertising Campaign.
- Creative Review Poster Competition: Placed as runner up in this open competition for a 48 sheet poster designed as a branding exercise for Daewoo Electronics in the UK’s most prestigious creative magazine against over four thousand other entries.
- Revolution Awards for New Media Marketing: Best Use of Intranet or Extranet for First Mutual. Revolution is the UK’s leading professional magazine for professional web and multimedia design.
- CSSA UK Technology Awards for the Insurance and Financial Services Sector: Most effective use of technology to support a trading relationship for its innovative use of the Internet.

Print Design
Web Design