I was an avid windsurfer since the age of 8 when I first felt the buzz of powering across a cold lake in the north of England. I studied escapism and the absorbing nature of sports for my final project at university and finally found myself editing Kiteworld Magazine, where I worked for 20 years, eventually taking over the business.  I was also media director for the first couple of seasons when the GKA Kite World Tour launched, and commentated on the Red Bull King of the Air livestream for four years. 

Ozone were one of our longest advertising partners at Kiteworld, from the very first issue. I had a great relationship with the team and always looked forward to working with their riders who had the wildest adventures, especially in the snow. When general manager, Iain Hannay, approached to see if ‘I was busy’, I jumped at the chance to get stuck in with such an authentic, product driven company with its own factory, passionately still owned and operated by riders and pilots.

I used to travel pretty heavily with Kiteworld, but now spend most of my time at home on the south coast of the UK, where I live with my wife and young daughter. I do still travel for events and meetings with the Ozone crew, but we are also trying to keep our travel footprint low where possible.

As marketing manager I work really closely day-to-day with Kyle Cabano who works on most projects with me, with Jesse Richman who fronts our Maui media team as well as our ambassador programme, Max Seitz on socials and Santi Cisneros, who runs our global Demo Tour. However, I work with pretty much everyone in the company in some form or other. Marketing is a broad scope and we’re all a close team!

Absolutely! I live two minutes from my local, and still have so much to learn! I never quite know what I want to ride till I get to the spot, so the van is always loaded with kite / wing and now parawing gear.

Yes, I really enjoy any activity I can do to music. I have road and mountain bikes and last year I ran a marathon… and caught the running bug! Run training over winter was a great way to get out for a few hours, really focused, covering distance, buzzing on my playlists. It’s good cross-training leg fitness for watersports, too. 

When I was windsurfing I thought I’d never give it up and that it would be the only thing I’d do forever! Now I love the fact I have options – and I try to choose the right activity for the conditions in front of me. Often it’s windy, choppy conditions, and more and more that is playing into the wing and parawing. But when it’s really windy with good kickers or waves, there’s not much that beats a kite. More and more the equipment is becoming so good that all sports are great in all conditions, including now light winds with a foil kite. We’re very lucky.

Just slightly cross-offshore wind, head high waves, 8m Ozone Reo and surfboard. Then I’d come in and grab my 3.5m Flow V2 Ultra-X and foilboard. You didn’t say I couldn’t do 2 sports!

Steady progress together. Be honest with each other. And keep getting in the water to remind yourself what it’s all about.