Artistes of the Month
Also featured: Paul Mason, Dr Kevin Jones
Graham Poll
Graham
Poll is said to be the most well known and most experienced English football
referee of all time. Whilst his achievements are considerable, including
the last FA Cup Final at Wembley stadium in 2000 and the first referee
to reach the milestone of refereeing 300 Premier League matches he will
always be remembered for issuing one player with 3 yellow cards at a World
Cup match during the 2006 final competition in Germany 2006.
Educated at Alleyne's School in Stevenage, Poll was motivated to achieve at the earliest possible age so left education to follow a highly successful sales career in the FMCG marketplace after learning the principles of selling in the business to business world of office equipment with Canon UK Ltd.
An excellent communicator and presenter, he quickly progressed to first and then second line management and for 7 years oversaw a rapidly expanding direct sales force at Coty UK alongside his refereeing career. Forced to leave full time employment in 1999 due to his dedication to achieving world recognition in football, Poll started his own business with another ex- sales director from Hays and fellow International referee, Graham Barber. Together they developed an internet site which they negotiated the sale of for £1.5m in 2001 before becoming a full time professional referee.
Poll is available to speak to businesses where he combines his sporting experiences to those of his sales world producing a humorous and insightful view of the importance of MOTIVATION, TEAMWORK and LEADERSHIP.
"The speakers were fab[ulous] & went down very well."
BT on Jeff Probyn, Graham
Poll & Rod Woodward who spoke
at a BT sporting dinner in December 2007
Paul Mason
Paul
Mason is Newsnight's business and industrial correspondent. He joined the
programme in 2001. Before that he was deputy editor of Computer Weekly, a campaigning magazine whose investigative team regularly broke stories that made waves across government and industry. He spent a total of nine years covering business in magazines and newspapers before making the move into TV.
Prior to becoming a journalist Paul was a professional musician and lectured at Loughborough University of Technology. He was born in 1960 in Leigh, Greater Manchester. He was educated at Thornleigh Salesian College, Sheffield University and London University.
Paul's mission on Newsnight is to tell the story of business from the inside and to bring into the limelight the people who actually make businesses, charities and public services work. He aims to put the actions of industry regulators, lobby groups and ministers under the microscope.
The decision to add a business correspondent to Newsnight's team reflects the BBC's wider aim for more thorough coverage of business issues. Paul works in tandem with Newsnight's Economics Editor.
Paul won the 2003 Wincott Award for business journalism for his series of reports from China covering the economic and political transition there.
Paul was named Broadcast Journalist of the year in the 2004 Workworld
Awards, for his reports on China, pensions and a film from Ebbw Vale on
the way the steel unions are coping with life after the works have closed.
Dr Kevin Jones
Born
1st January 1955
Pupil at St Anselm's College, Birkenhead
Qualified in Medicine from Liverpool University in 1977. Worked as a junior hospital doctor in Liverpool and St Helens.
1982-1986 Worked on the hear-lung transplant team at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge. Funded by the British Heart Foundation to study methods of protecting the lungs from acute injury.
1986-1992 - Worked as senior registrar in Respiratory Medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London.
1989-90 Spent a year as a visiting research fellow to the University of Colorado, Denver, and USA. He studied the release of Von Willebrand factor as a market of acute lung injury.
September 1992 - Appointed consultant physician with an interest in respiratory medicine and HIV disease to Bury General Hospital, Lancashire
Author of the MD thesis - "Clinical and Experimental Studies into the effect of Prostacylin on the Pulmonary Vasculature".
1978-1982 - Medical Officer to Huyton Rugby League Football Club
1992 - Medical Officer to Salford Rugby League Football Club
Dr Kevin Jones has been an after-dinner speaker for 20 years. He has spoken at all types of events - all male, mixed and female. His speech is a completely non-serious look at medicine through the eyes of a hospital consultant. He has spoken at Lord Taverners dinners, Round Table National Conferences, Sporting Testimonials (e.g. John Emburey, Alan Lamb) business conferences, sportsman's dinners etc. Despite work commitments he is at present doing up to 70 dinners a year.
Dr Kevin Jones is married to Liz Perry a general practitionar in Bolton, with two sons Robert (named after Bob Dylan) and William.
(Kevin pictured above speaking at the Surfex Dinner in June 2000)
Further Information
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