Robin Gurney M IDM

I am a co-founder of altex so you might like to know a bit more. maybe?

Personal interview with me here (nov 2009, in Estonian)

I am English by birth but consider myself a global citizen.

Over the past 20 years I have worked primarily in sales and marketing: since 1997 I have been dedicated to internet marketing in one way or another.

Having lived and worked in Chile, France, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Morocco and now Estonia and having visited even more, I can communicate in 5 languages (some are rusty) Portuguese, French, Spanish, English (of course) and Estonian, although I am still embarrassed about how hard I find Estonian to learn. For me the Estonian language is a bit like Turkish (aggluminative-ish) but sounds like Japanese, sometimes. (More on the Estonian-Japanese connection)

I founded one the the UK’s first internet marketing agencies in 1997, DVisions, which was a profitable company that did excellent work. It was one of the first European internet marketing agencies to offer pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimisation and affiliate marketing. I was fortunate to have worked as part of a great team and feel proud of what we achieved. DVisions carries on but without my involvement any longer.

During my travels I have flown kites in the Sahara, walked around the highest lake in the world (Chungara), partied in Kurdish villages, eaten crabs fresh from the sea (in Vietnam) and more. Most recently I flew with my princess to Mexico on a cheap ticket: we then did a 2 week crazy tour down through Belize, across the border into the jungle of Northern Guatemala (Tikal etc.) and back up to Cancun (yuk, touristville). Belize is just about the weirdest..but wonderful..country I have ever been. Although Iceland was pretty weird, I mean: eating rotten whale/shark/walrus meat is not normal, is it?

I have very few regrets about my life but given the chance I would like to relive 2002, my annus horribilis : my mum died, my health worsened, an important personal relationship hit the rocks, the company had one big bad debt, one major cancelled contract [value around 1 million euros] and I was forced to make redundancies..sorry if you were one of those and are reading this, I could have handled it better, I know. Yep 2002 was a mega-shi**y year. Thankfully the rest have been ok, great or even fantastic.

I maintain a healthy interest in great rock ‘n’ roll (by that I mean bands like The Fall, The Smiths, The Cure, Nirvana, The White Stripes etc) I love cooking, walking, dogs (all animals really), Liverpool FC and the colour green.

After arriving in Estonia at end of 2004 and following a period of initial market research and working as a freelance internet marketer, I decided to found Estonia’s first internet marketing agency.

altex marketing oü is based in Tallinn (capital of Estonia)

My main role is to create internet-sourced leads, sales and enquiries for altex’s clients and to generally look at the big picture (business development) for altex a s a whole.

altex offers internet marketing services: website strategy, website evaluations, website and microsite production (in league with partners), website promotion and also organises regular free emarketing events (called Eturundus!) for modern Estonian marketers.

BTW if you are not Estonian, here is your first lesson. “Turundus” means “marketing” and “internet marketing” is “internetiturundus”

Whoops! That all got a bit commercial for a moment, sorry about that (well not that sorry, this is a commercial blog after all)

A bit more about me though?

Think of me, if you like, as a bridge between traditional marketers (who understand commercial wants and needs) and “techies” (who know what is technically possible on the weird wonderful web).

Over the years I have created/directed/managed marketing projects for over 100 organisations including BBC, Adidas USA, Greenpeace, The Labour Party (before they sold out), The Times Literary Supplements, Barclaycard, UMBRO, Sonera etc. and lots of SMEs too.

I co-created a film festival in Brighton, England called Fringe TV and helped make about 50 short films in one year.

Oh and I stopped smoking and started going to the gym about nearly two years ago (long overdue)

I guess that’s enough but if you are curious what I look like then here you are:

And why did I come to live in Tallinn? Because she’s lovely and Estonian

In May 2006 Birgit and I got married :))
and then in June we adopted a wonderful little boy aged 1 and a half, now called Josep Martin Gurney :)))))))))

Jan2007: Now spend 20 days in London per month establishing altex’s UK operation and 10 days in Tallinn meeting clients and partners etc.
August 2007: I became a member of The Institute of Direct Marketing
March 2008: Decided to move back to Estonia in May 2008 and visit my long lost (half) brother in Australia (and some other relatives) this winter
April 2008: There is a Japanese Estonian connection, I knew it : Tat-C (haplogroup 16) is a Y-chromosome lineage that originated in Central Asia and spread to Northeastern Europe with male migrations occurring over the last 4000 years. 7C (haplogroup 12) is its ancestral haplotype, which has been dated to about 6000 Y.B.P. Read more here
June 2008: Adopted second kid: Miabel aged 2 months
March 2009: Just got back from first trip to Australia where I met my half brother (Hi Chris) for the first time and all his family. Lovely people. Must find time to keep in touch Managed to squeeze in a quick trip to Thailand where at one point we (Princess and Josep came too) were “surrounded” by a huge number of wild monkeys..And oh yes we managed to stroke a wombat and koala bear, fed kangaroos and saw a Tasmanian Devil….

March 2009: More on TAT C: it would seem that the Estonians are genetically closer to their Latvian neighbours than they are to their linguistic relatives the Finns.