A wealth and lifetime of experience
Jim Irving
Jim was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and now lives in rural Northern Ireland with his wife, Yvonne. He spent over 30 years in corporate Business to Business (B2B) selling, marketing and business leadership roles in a number of tier one technology organisations including Amdahl, Sequent, Silicon Graphics (SGI) and Information Builders (www.ibi.com).
Over the last 18 years, since leaving the corporate world and starting his own consultancy, he has improved sales processes and results, and mentored salespeople, sales leaders, marketing and business leaders in many early stage and SME (Small to Medium Enterprise) organisations. He has also worked with major corporates.
His career started with the hardest possible assignment – selling office equipment door to door in Scotland, in the depths of winter! He rapidly developed into senior selling, marketing leadership and sales leadership roles then ultimately to senior executive positions at major multinationals – including becoming the UK MD of Information Builders – a leading US based enterprise software company. At Silicon Graphics he was awarded the Corporation’s ‘Exemplary Leader’ award. Jim has also held several executive marketing leadership posts. In recent years Jim has been both the Managing Director of an SME tech company and VP/CRO of sales and marketing for another.
Jim has travelled extensively and worked in over 25 countries worldwide. He gained an MBA from Edinburgh Napier University in 1988. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM) and a Founding Fellow of the Institute of Sales Professionals (FF.ISP). He has spoken at a number of seminars, conferences and kick-offs, and has in the past been an occasional visiting lecturer to the Postgraduate Business schools at two leading UK universities.
His three-book series have become highly rated, positively reviewed, and award winning. Supporting comments from leading sales authors, and positive reviews from professional bodies, have added to his reputation. He won a world-wide ‘Best Sales Books of 2021’ Award from ‘Book Authority’. A year later his second book was awarded ‘Top B2B Audiobooks of 2022’ – one of only five in the world to achieve this. Most recently his first book achieved a place on the “Best Business Development Books of all Time” listing. Consistent 5* Amazon reviews have further cemented his reputation. He is, quite simply, a thought leader in this space.
When not working, Jim enjoys dining out, family time, walking in the country, travel, reading fiction and following current affairs.
“Jim Irving – www.jimirving.co.uk”
“Jim Irving – www.b2bsellingguidebook.com”
Norman Manley
Norman Manley (1951) has been working in the field of information technology since 1973, first as a programmer and systems analyst, later as a project manager for several international companies. In 1984 he was invited to start the Netherlands operations of Information Builders as Country Manager. As Vice President Northern Europe he also became responsible for a large part of Information Builders’ European business. In February 2001 he was asked to head up the European organization of iWay Software, an Information Builders company in the field of enterprise application integration and data integration (EAI/DI). In 2005 Norman joined Passionned as a Managing Partner where he worked as an industry analyst and was a regular speaker at both national and international congresses and seminars on Business Intelligence and Data Integration, speaking mainly about the business benefits of adopting new technology. In 2014, having sold his share of Passionned he formed Decision Support Systems, an analyst and consulting company who have partnered with BARC in Germany to produce various white papers and the BARC DI Score. He has taught a Masters course in Business Intelligence and Performance Management at the University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands
“Norman Manley – www.normanmanley.com”
“Decision Support – www.decision-support.org“