A Founders Story
In the Beginning.
I was born in ‘73 into a working class family in the midlands in the UK, and raised by a single, very brave mother. My world was very small. A trip to London was 6 months in the planning, and either a tent in Anglesey or narrow boat on the broads was the event of the summer.
A Captain from a young age.
There were a few other amazing things to be given life in 1973. It was the year the Xerox Alto (the first computer with a graphical user interface), the first cell phone call, TCP, Ethernet, and fiber optics were all created. All of those technologies have, in combination, formed a large part of my work focus, my personal interests and the wider world we live in today.
In my youth I moved to Germany and went to a school that was built on part of the old Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which was ever present in my schooling. The evil that existed back then was clear and is well covered, but there also was widespread collaboration from people that were clearly not evil, but the oppressive nature of the environment at the time meant that it was difficult not to be complicit in these terrible activities at some level.
My School was attached to the Bergen Belsen Site in Northern Germany
“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” ― Yehuda Bauer
In todays modern, tiktok driven world it’s easy to be a commentator and to share how we feel about things, but it’s also important that we get on the playing field and do something when we know something is wrong, and be an active participant in this life, and on this planet that we all share (more on this later).
Getting to work.
I count myself very fortunate that I started working in marketing with the UK’s largest (and only) computer reseller at a time when the Intel 386, and then the 486 processor had just come to market. It really was the birth of modern affordable (ish) computing. Fun fact, the man that gave me my first break, is now the chairman of Cleo Tech almost 30 years later.
Launching a new marketing agency in 2002
I went on to start my own marketing agency in 2002 with the aim of supporting large tech brands generate awareness and build demand for their solutions. Over the last 20+ years we’ve grown to have clients and offices in the UK, US and Asia working with some incredible bluechip customers across tech, banking, fintech and manufacturing.
In the last 20 years serving clients we’ve seen the shift from print to digital, and the transition from web1 to web2. We spent the first few years working with large tech brands to educate companies on why they should have a website, then that developed into why they need to have an email marketing system, then why they should do search engine marketing, then social media, and then onto things like marketing automation and lead scoring with partners like Marketo and Hubspot.
In 2017 we signed our first blockchain clients, and we have a number today that we work with from NFT platforms and decentralised social media, to the worlds largest Crypto exchange (where we’ve just finished our first quarters campaign that saw an uplift in active users by 17%, a 32% increase in transactions, and 44% increase in volume) — but although these are in the new, exciting space, we’re still essentially providing a web2 based marketing service (typically ABM awareness to lead generation using digital, email and social media marketing).
I believe the next 20 years will be dominated by innovation coming from the web3 space, and this is an opportunity to do something new, and ‘for good’, and that’s where my work experience meet my personal passion. Impact marketing but do it with a social conscience.
Where I am!
The agency is in very good hands — the team that have helped build the business will take it forward operationally and own a stake in its continued success. So after being the Managing Director for first 10 years, then moving to group CEO for the second, I have earned the right to pick the role that I really enjoy and thats focussing on strategy and innovation. This allows me time to focus on supporting the team, whilst bringing web3 solutions that fix real world problems to our agency clients and beyond.
What’s the biggest and most common problem to fix in Marketing?
The biggest problem in marketing today is the value exchange at point of contact request. At some point, we have to ask the prospect for an email address and permission to contact them, and that’s the single biggest pinch point in Marketing today. I can optimise impressions, I can do things to get more clicks at a lower price, but ultimately I need to present you with a form. And this is where a prospect pauses, and considers the value exchange.
My lightbulb moment came with a simple exercise at a marketing event
My lightbulb moment came while preparing for a marketing workshop at a large event in London. I’d just re-read Dr. Robert Cialdini’, I wanted to test the strength of the claims that reciprocity is the strongest of all human emotions. Something so inbuilt into our DNA that the desire for fairness can override common sense.
So I did a simple game with the audience. I picked 2 people at random that didn’t know each other, and told them both I had £100 to give away, and they could have it all. But I gave participant (A) the money and they had to decide how much to keep for themselves and how much to offer participant (B).
If they accepted then they both kept the money but if (B) refused, then they both get nothing. All this was done in the open, so everyone knew the amount on the table.
Take a pause for a moment and think about how much you would offer if you were (A) and how much you would accept if you were (B).
I ran this 8 times during the 3 day event, and the results were really interesting and fully supporting Cialdini’s position. Now of course, if you offer £50, it’s accepted 100% of time and it’s seen as a fair outcome — everyone is equal, and walks away happy (well, I guess I’m £100 down, but that was the price of the engagement in the workshop). But some (A)s felt that they could keep more. I mean, why not? Surely something is better than nothing? Free money is free money right?
One offered £10 and another £20 and both were firmly rejected. “That’s just not fair” — and most of the audience seemed to agree. So someone that came into a session was offered £20 for free, no strings attached and refused, and the only reason was a perception of fairness.
The lesson is that people will punish themselves if they feel that there isn't a fair transfer of value. I’d rather punish the other person (and myself) if I feel its not a fair transaction.
Word of my generosity spread
This is what we face in marketing every time we present a form to capture people’s data, usually in return for a piece of content. You give me your time + attention + contact details and in return we give you a piece of corporate material or content. Over the last 10 years we’ve seen landing page conversion rates drop from over 30% to below 1%, so even with a fixed cost per click that’s a x30 increase in your cost per lead (and guess what? clicks have gotten more expensive too).
A lot of people in marketing approach this by creating dumb downed content, and use tactics like FOMO, lead magnets and trip wires. This creates a fix where you can keep your CPLs low, but in reality it just fills your marketing pipeline with people with a very low propensity to buy. So when these get passed over to sales, they don’t convert.
I’ve been obsessing about this issue for over two years now and we’ve done some considerable testing on how to keep the cost to lead low but not to damage the lead quality.
The truth is the buyer is getting younger, they are much more digital savvy, and their time is more precious. Combine this with clicks becoming more expensive due to increased online activity and spend coming from recent global events, and you’ve got a perfect storm that means it’s incredibly expensive to capture somebody’s attention and it’s very easy to lose it.
This is a global problem and I think we’ve developed a unique solution that benefits everybody.
The Journey
The idea was to meet people with value for value, so when we ask them for their attention and data, one of the first things we tried was actually giving them a reward.
The easiest thing to do was to offer somebody money in the form of a gift card, so we did this with one of our USA SaaS clients. Essentially we invited the prospect to a webinar, qualified their interest and then offered a sales meeting where if they turned up — they got a gift card.
Of course the impact was instant we cut the cost per appointment generated literally in half, which had the impact of saving around $300 per appointment, even when you include the $100 gift card.
Your time for Money.
So value for attention worked, but sending out gift cards isn’t scalable and the team didn’t like the idea of giving money for somebody’s time, because we felt that didn’t really feel right and it wouldn’t be the right fit many of our clients. But it was very useful test in the mix of many other things that we tried. So we started to think about what we were passionate about as private individuals, and what we felt resonate with an audience as well.
Marketing for bad?
A career in marketing has done some measure of bad to the planet. The yearly global weighted impact of digital ad emissions is over 77k tonnes of CO2e, and this is the equivalent of flying 1.35 million passengers from London to Paris. It would take 3.7 million fully-grown trees one year to absorb this amount of carbon.
It’s also widely reported that over 15% of advertising spend is wasted on inventory that generates no value while generating excessive amounts of CO2 emissions. We need to recognise this as an industry, take stock of what we’re doing, and then implement measures to reduce waste and provide a greater balance in our campaigns. We are all responsible and need to get on the pitch and help.
Your time for good.
So the idea we landed on was about providing a benefit for good, keeping the money in the equation, but to take the money from the vendor, and instead of giving it directly to the prospect, we do some good in the world and provide that impact and value to the user.
Your time for the planet.
Excerpt from our B2B Launch event in Barcelona
Starting with Marketing for Good, then beyond.
For brands wanting to improve their marketing effectiveness our proposition is simple. They get improved engagement and a lower cost per lead. They get a ‘for good’ reward that’s actually self funded by the reduction in the cost per lead and they get an improved lead quality because in our system when the prospect claims their good, they are asked some qualifying questions that can be set by the brand.
The user hopefully benefits from the content from the brand they’re interested in, but they also feel that in return for their time they have done something good for the world, and that can be from something as small as a single tree planted all the way up to being carbon offset for life.
In Cleo they can accumulate tokens (also purchase if they like) and really put them to work on projects that they are passionate about and at the end of the day they get a nicely designed NFT that they can share to show they are carbon zero.
Since starting to sign marketing clients, we’ve also had requests come from the sports sector (where teams want to provide digital assets to sell to offset their carbon), from charities and schools, all wanting to use the blockchain for good.
Sports for Good: Harnessing Passion for a Purpose
Sports have always been about more than just the game. They are about community, passion, and belonging. But what if the energy and emotion behind every match, every goal, could be directed toward something even bigger? What if we could use the immense power of sport to make a tangible difference in the world?
That’s exactly what we’re doing with Sports for Good.
From professional clubs to local teams, sports offer a unique opportunity to bring people together. Through the Protocol, we’re turning every fan interaction into a chance to drive real social and environmental impact. Whether it’s offsetting carbon emissions from stadium events or funding meals for children in food poverty, the possibilities are endless. Imagine attending a match and knowing that simply by being there, you’ve helped plant trees, reduce ocean plastic, or feed children in your local community.
Our partnerships with professional sports organizations are already showing what’s possible. In June 2024, we offset over 1,000 tonnes of carbon during the UK’s first-ever NetZero football match, a groundbreaking collaboration with Soccer Aid and UNICEF. But we’re not stopping there. We’re building systems where clubs can engage their fans on a deeper level, allowing supporters to contribute to causes they care about through something as simple as buying a match-day program or cheering for their favourite team.
Sports for Good is about transforming the energy of sport into action. It’s about creating a legacy that goes beyond the final score, one that fans, players, and clubs can all be proud of.
Schools for Good: Empowering the Next Generation
If we want to create a world where doing good is second nature, it starts with the next generation. Schools have always been at the heart of shaping future leaders, thinkers, and innovators. But today, they are also at the forefront of environmental and social responsibility.
With Schools for Good, we’re giving students, teachers, and parents the tools to turn everyday actions into powerful contributions to the world around them. From reducing their carbon footprints to raising funds for critical causes, the Protocol makes it easy for schools to engage in sustainable practices without adding to already stretched budgets.
It’s a modern-day bake sale, but instead of cupcakes, students might be creating and selling digital art NFTs to help fund reforestation projects. Parents can earn cashback on their everyday shopping and delegate those earnings to their child’s school, supporting everything from new green energy projects to classroom supplies. And every transaction is tracked and verified on the blockchain, ensuring complete transparency.
The beauty of Schools for Good is that it doesn’t just help schools meet their net-zero goals — it turns sustainability into a collaborative effort. Students learn the importance of environmental responsibility firsthand, while parents and communities have a direct way to contribute. We’re already working with a number of schools to reduce their carbon footprints and engage students in meaningful ways that turn learning into action.
Because at the end of the day, if we want a better future, we need to start by investing in the ones who will build it.
The Next Chapter: Integrating Web3 and the Blockchain. The Birth of Zenko Protocol.
Ever since working with our first blockchain clients back in 2017, I’ve wanted to find a real world application that solves a problem in my space. And here we have the perfect place to start. We needed a global, scalable in-app currency, and a way to prove that we were not green washing.
So we will be the single most transparent platform that can provide an end to end record of where every dollar has gone and because this is a global program and many campaigns are regional and global, then it needs to be in a way that doesn’t require lots of currency conversions. So the Blockchain really empowers two things (1) full transparency of transactions, and (2) the ability to create an in app currency that can be utilised in every country, by every brand. Also, being on the Blockchain gives us the advantage of being able to provide a completion certificate to the user in the form of a really nicely designed NFT (that can be customised by the brand) that can sit in their wallet that they can use to share, accumulate or even print out and put on their wall.
As Cleo evolved, so did our vision. We had always believed in empowering individuals and businesses to do more than just exist in the world — they should make a meaningful impact. But as we ventured further into the space of blockchain-powered solutions, it became clear that to truly scale our mission of driving social and environmental good, we needed something bigger than just Cleo.
We needed a decentralized, transparent system with its own governance — a protocol that could exist independently from the technology company that birthed it.
And that’s how Zenko was born.
Why Zenkō?
Zenko, which means “good deed” in Japanese, is more than just a protocol. It’s the embodiment of everything we believe in: transparency, verifiability, and positive impact. We wanted a system where the value of every action — whether it’s walking, learning, shopping, or supporting causes — could be seen, verified, and rewarded on a global scale. But we knew that for this to work, it had to be separate from Cleo. It needed its own foundation, with independent governance and a decentralized framework that could outgrow us.
Zenko operates under a foundation, not a company. This was intentional. We didn’t want a centralized entity controlling the rules or dictating the direction. Instead, Zenko is governed by a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) — a system where token holders have the power. The decisions about the future of Zenko, from investments to ecosystem growth, are made by the community, not by a corporate board.
Introduction Video
The Power of the $ZENKO Token
At the heart of this new ecosystem is the $ZENKO token. It’s a utility, a proof of good in the world. Every transaction on the Zenko platform contributes to the strength of the token — either through a deflationary mechanism where tokens are burned, or by reinvesting fees into climate-positive technologies. The cycle is sustainable, designed to keep growing in value as the Zenko community expands.
What’s Next?
The launch of Zenko is more than just a milestone for Cleo — it’s a movement in its own right. While Cleo remains focused on building tools and technology that empower businesses, Zenko allows anyone, anywhere, to make a verifiable difference. It’s a separate entity, but deeply aligned with the values that have guided us from the beginning.
This isn’t just about technology — it’s about trust, transparency, and a shared commitment to leaving the world better than we found it. With Zenko, we’re creating a new standard for impact, and I couldn’t be more excited to see where this journey takes us.
Together, we’re not just imagining a better future — we’re building it.
You can learn more about Cleo at Cleo.Tech, Zenko Protocol at ZenkoProtocol and connect with me on LinkedIn here.
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