I work in the computer networking industry in sales which I believe I'm good at and love, and also have had a business/hobby of buying and selling diamonds which is something that I just fell into and has been a lot of fun (and very profitable).I like fast cars (unusually for girls I suppose) and have owned and loved three Lotus's (two Esprits and one Elan Plus II) and having thought I had got them out of my system I found I might not have... for anyone that's curious it's not about the speed, it's about the aesthetics of the car :-) Other than that, I like shopping, keeping up to date on my field of sales, games with an element of skill that exercise the grey matter, the internet and I spend too much money on eBay!

Autobiography (tl;dr)

I grew up in North London spending my first two years living in a mansion house where my parents were caretakers. My father was an artist and he and my mother struggled for the first few years with the unpredictable income from his exhibitions. Reluctantly after realising it didn’t matter how good his paintings were people just weren’t going to buy them in enough volume to support a growing family he took a job as a telephone operator working night shifts; a job that he hated but that he stuck at for 20 years.

I went to St. James primary and infant school in North London until I was eleven which was to be the longest that I stayed in one school. Unfortunately my parents like so many others chose to separate and I spent the next few years going from one secondary school to another as I moved between them. I think I attended seven secondary schools in all which was difficult as each school was invariably at a different point of the curriculum. At fifteen and at my seventh school in four years I gave up on trying to learn anything and decided to get a job. I was living in Belsize Park at the time and I got a job as a sales assistant in a chemist called Belsize Pharmacy on Haverstock Hill working for a Mr. Maurice Cohen who paid me ‘under the counter’ until I was at proper school leaving age. Belsize Pharmacy is now a branch of BootsAs well as being in a girly paradise with lots of make-up it was there that I learned that my future was to be in sales. I would be offended if anyone came into the shop without buying anything and though some must have thought I was a pest no-one complained and I would often add 30% to a whole days takings by persuading a lady to let me loose on her face with the testers and she would usually buy what I had used on her. Having decided that my future lay in sales and determined to make a success of myself I spent the next couple of years trying to find my feet taking various telesales jobs usually on a commission only basis. I hadn’t learned how to differentiate yet between a quality sales role and a bad one so it was fortunate that I got a job in a sales recruitment agency in Finsbury Park aptly named Park Recruitment where I did learn that there were actually companies that would pay you a basic salary and train you; and that some of these companies were considered to be the perfect place to start a sales career. Of course some of those doors were closed to me due to having no qualifications but I learned that Rank Xerox would take people into their training corps without qualifications as long as they had some sort of respectable sales experience behind them. Such then became my goal and I tactically next took a position at the Evening Standard selling advertising space where I did well, got promoted and watched the ads in the paper every day for the next Rank Xerox intake. By now I had the requisite experience under my belt and I had just passed my driving test when the next ad for Rank Xerox appeared - and right there I began my sales career ‘proper’. Based out of the West London Branch, Northdale House on the North Circular Road (now a TraveLodge) I became ‘Xeroid’ as those of us who worked for Rank Xerox called each other. And for the next three years or so I had a great time selling photo-copiers, fax machines and word processors, gallivanting around London making and spending a lot of money and buying my first home.After those early milestones things pretty much went according to plan, my sales career evolved and I like to think that I became very good at my work. For one reason or another the idea of leading a sales team didn’t appeal to me as I liked being on the front line too much (and still do) rolling with the punches and enjoying the exhilaration of pulling off a major win against all odds and steep competition.

After my great start at Rank Xerox I next got on to the computer networking wave at its outset and I’ve stayed there ever since, apart from very recently where I stepped off while considering whether or not to make a permanent move to the USA. Not being in a position to take a permanent role with only a 90 day visa I made a living by buying and selling diamonds something I had done as a hobby prior to this and today my creations grace the wedding fingers of scores of happy ladies up and down the country. However after that entrepreneurial episode and realising that my future did not lie overseas I was happy to come back to the UK to find a role in a good company back in my old industry. As it transpired after a longish search I accepted an offer to go back to one of my old companies, nscglobal (which is where I am from March 2011).

Labels : Roz Bennetts | Dee Thornton | Diamond seller | N10 2PY | Autobiography | Rank Xerox | Boring | Tl;dr | Diamonds | lotus | Richard Allan | OT Committee | NSCGLOBAL