Digital Operations & Online Tools, Bournemouth
I'm Chris. I've lived and breathed computers, IT, marketing and media since I was in short trousers. Based in Bournemouth with a habit of walking into a problem, pulling it apart, and building something better in its place.
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The Full Story
I started in IT back in the day, but morphed into media and marketing, running a photo and videography studio at BAE Systems before moving into publishing with some of the biggest magazines in the UK in the early 2000s.
Moving to New Zealand, I soon found myself on a Harley-Davidson and, by chance, in the local dealership in Auckland because I needed a part and they needed someone who knew computers. That was 2006. Over the next 17 years I moved through IT, marketing and operational leadership, eventually taking COO responsibility. Along the way I built a connected digital ecosystem: live stock feeds, VIN lookup, parts cross-referencing across 400,000+ entries, ecommerce updating every 30 minutes, B2B wholesale tools and reporting that gave management genuinely useful data.
Marketing moved from everything on paper to digital billboards, cinema advertising, placing Harleys in cinemas, food festivals, and shopping centres, catching people who didn't know they wanted one until they were standing next to it.
Senior operational responsibility made customer service a personal mission. Our online store shipped orders within minutes, not hours or days. Removing barriers to sale became the thread running through everything, online and in-store. That meant live stock, not "email us for availability." It meant customers could find what they needed, see it was in stock, buy it, and have it on its way before most businesses had finished reading the order notification. In an industry where that kind of friction is still the norm, it was a genuine competitive edge.
I met my wife in the UK in 1992, followed her to New Zealand, and came back to Bournemouth in 2023. New chapter, same curiosity.
These days I work remotely for the same motorcycle group, keeping systems running, finding better ways to report data, and spotting niche markets most people haven't thought to look at yet. The servers, hardware, online tools and integrations all sit within the same practical view of how the business needs to work.
Outside of work, I metal detect, I've tried fly fishing once and loved it enough to want to go again, and I cook best when there's a table full of people to feed.