My name is Mark Banfield. So I did a BSc in
Geography and I graduated from Kingston in
2000.
Vice-president of international Autotask Corporation.
We're a global software company, cloud-based
software, business management software for
IT solution providers, headquartered in upstate
New York. I'm based at our international headquarters
in Richmond in west London.
So I run out international business from our
headquarters here in west London we're selling
to all countries across Europe from west London
from here; France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands,
Sweden, Finland etc. We also have offices
in other locations.
We have an office in Munich in Germany, we
have an office in Sydney and in Beijing in
China, which are report in to me here in Richmond.
We're a cloud-based software. as I said already,
this is probably the biggest technological
advancement in software In the past 20 to
30 years and this is a very cutting edge opportunity
for Autotask right at the forefront of the
IT industry.
During my time in Kingston I got the opportunity
to work on geographical information systems.
GIS was a new phenomena at the time; Kingston
was the first university in the country to
provide a GIS course and doing the geography
degree I was able to do some GIS modules,
it exposed me to a very fast moving new technology
area which really has set the groundwork for
my entire career in a sense. It got me into
a company called MapInfo straight out of Kingston
and that has transpired through all of my
career to where I am today at Autotask.
So during my time at Kingston I was exposed
to IT. It was my first exposure to IT, first
exposure to the internet at the time. I didn't
get any of that training at school or anything
like that. I found it really useful, I found
Kingston to be very technologically advanced,
and obviously it had an impact on me, I've
been in the technology industry my entire
career from the minute I left university right
up until today I've always been in technology
and software.
So one of the things I loved about Kingston
and my degree in Geography was that I got
to do a lot of fieldwork, I went to the south
of Spain, I went to Dorset, I went to many
places during my time there doing field courses.
I found this very interesting because it exposed
me to a lot of different ways of life, different
cultures. That's something I've always had
a passion about and it's transpired into my
career and I've done a lot of international
business since my time in Kingston.
