Set course for success
“My job is not what I do for a living, it is simply my lifestyle.”
Interview: Sue Wilcock | Martine Silkstone
Pictures: Warren Page
Rob Masson talks to Suffolk Director
On the road to success, Rob Masson has employed a wealth of entrepreneurial traits including an eye for opportunities, a talent for sales, and a passion for hard work. However, throughout his life, it is actually the ability to just keep moving forward that sets him apart. Whether it is through the trials and tribulations of growing a business or running across the Sahara (more on that later), he is always pushing ahead – recovering from the stumbles, relishing the challenges, and determined to reach his goal.
He says: “If there is one thing I am good at, it’s never giving up.
“Of course, being successful in business means knowing how important it is to ‘fail fast and fail often’ – that’s something that I’ve learned the hard way – but in terms of my day-to-day thinking, I’m someone who looks forward not back. I’m a futurist not a historian.”
It is this innate drive that saw him through the challenging early years of entrepreneurship, during which he opened then moved on from on his first few ventures, learning skills and valuable lessons along the way. Now, using his wealth of experience, he has built a leading, international data protection and privacy compliance consultancy based in Suffolk – The DPO Centre.
Since its launch in 2017, the company has continued to grow its international client base and range of services each year, working across a wide variety of sectors and providing expert privacy advice and outsourced data protection officer (DPO) services. With offices in London, Toronto, Dublin, and Amsterdam, and a network across all 27 EU member states, The DPO Centre now employs one of the largest DPO teams in the industry.
So, Rob, is that mission accomplished?
“For me, it’s all about the journey, not the destination. It’s about enjoying the climb to reach a peak, simply to reveal another, even higher peak. Yes, you need an end game, but how you get there is more important, and you always have to be thinking about what comes next. In our early years, we clearly defined our mission, core values, direction, and what we aspire to achieve. None of that is around profit or market share, it’s all about inspiring and developing our team through our #ONETEAM philosophy.”
This focus on ‘people’ is key to the company’s overall mission. With that in mind, Rob says he wants to create an ever-expanding platform that enables his business to positively influence attitudes, perceptions, and behaviours – and ultimately legislation – for the benefit of future generations. No small task.
“It’s challenging, but I enjoy the challenge – that’s what drives me.”
“I am never the smartest person in the room – something I quietly celebrate. If I do add value, it is through my ability to read people and situations, to see opportunities that others don’t, and to know exactly what needs to be done to realise them. I’m comfortable with making the hard decisions, leading from the front, and being the one to set the example.
“At the end of the day, my job is not what I do for a living, it is simply my lifestyle.”
In the beginning
Rob is Suffolk born and bred.
His parents moved to Withersfield from London in the 1960s to enjoy life in the country and, following two older siblings, Rob came along in March 1971.
When he was three, his parents divorced and he moved to a cottage nearby with his mother, enjoying a childhood that was “simple but quite privileged”, with a lovely home and the freedom to play around the village on his skateboard or BMX bike.
He says his mother, Carol, has always been his rock, adding: “As a primary school teacher, she always worked hard. She made constant sacrifices to provide for us, and taught us respect, manners, and the value of money. We were not wealthy, we didn’t have fancy holidays and nice clothes, but she made sure we always had a safe and nurturing environment and a proper meal on the table.”
When it came to finances, Rob quickly recognised the need to earn extra money and started his very first business – a gardening service – at the age of 14, with the help of a friend in the village and some…ahem…‘available’ farm machinery. While the methods may have been unconventional, his approach to life was set from a young age: “If you want something, you have to get off your backside and work for it.”
However, things weren’t so clear when it came to his education.
During his school years in Haverhill, Rob says he found it hard to focus and was “a very average pupil”. It was only when given a computer for his 12th birthday that things dropped into place and a career path beckoned.
“I was hooked from day one,” he remembers. “This was 1983 and when you turned a computer on back then, all you got was a flashing cursor on a blank screen. If you wanted it to do anything interesting, you had to work out how to make it function, and that meant hours spent inputting pages of code – and then it would just make an asterisk fire an exclamation mark upwards!
“Most kids these days wouldn’t have the patience, but it sparked my curiosity, it seems, and from then on I knew exactly the direction I wanted to take.”
Learning the BASICs
Rob left school with few academic qualifications but, with the help of a maths tutor, managed to gain just enough to enrol on a computer studies course at West Suffolk College. It was at that point, he says, that the “lights switched on”.
“When I hit 17, I matured a great deal. I started to understand where I fitted into the world, and why I needed to concentrate, knuckle down, and get on with it.”
While in his second year at college, another business – Sci-Clone – was formed, working with two classmates and using software created for their final projects. He claims his friends were far better programmers, but they all received a distinction for their projects and their company continued designing software tools for the advertising industry for the next 11 years, at which point he sold his shares to the other shareholders.
“There’s a theme here – surrounding myself with people far more intelligent than I am,” he grins. “I always gravitate towards being the guy in the suit; I’m the sales guy. That said, I can only do what I do because I understand how it works and where it adds value.”
Running man
During these years, Rob also discovered a passion for fitness and started going to the gym.
One day, while reading a copy of Men’s Health, an application for the London Marathon fell out and, though he had never been much of a runner, he decided to sign up. After securing a charity place, he ran his first race in 1999, having followed a five-month training program found in a magazine.
“To prepare, I took my long run from three miles to 20 miles, adding one mile a week,” he remembers. “To be honest, five months isn’t really enough – but I still managed to finish in just over four hours.”
In fact, his goal had been to run the 26.2 miles in UNDER four hours so, of course, he immediately signed up for the New York Marathon which he did in 3.44 – goal achieved.
“Training to run a marathon again but faster was a lot easier,” he smiles. “Then I decided: I quite like this. I found it a really great way of being single but still being able to travel, because you’re surrounded by like-minded people, and there’s really no better way to see a city than via the marathon route.”
“But then of course, once you’ve done seven or eight…”
Now finding a standard marathon too ‘normal’, it was time to set his next challenge, and in 2012, Rob completed the Two Oceans Ultra Marathon (35 miles), followed in 2014 by the epic Marathon des Sables across the Sahara Desert.
“It was a six-day event, running 250km over five stages, through sand dunes and up jebels (mountains). You carry everything you need for the week on your back, apart from water, and you sleep in a ‘tent’. It was a fantastic, amazing experience,” he recalls.
More of these incredible adventures followed – from the Kenyan savannah to the Arctic – and The Coastal Challenge in Costa Rica is next, adding ‘rainforest’ to the current list of conquered terrain.
But what’s the appeal?
“First and foremost it’s about the personal challenge – I’m doing it to test my limits and prove if I can.”
“But, also, you’re running through wilderness where only a handful of people a year tread. I’ve always liked to be different, but not stick out – it gives me a sense of achievement.”
Epiphany
It was while lying in a tent in the middle of the Sahara – body tired but mind clear – that Rob came to a decision about his professional future.
He had been running two software firms side-by-side for a few years, but one was struggling to keep up with emerging technology, and the other was neglected in the background.
It was time to move on.
“Those years taught me a great deal but at significant personal cost.”
He says: “I was putting on a brave face for my team but carried the burden for a long time, balancing on the sharp edge of success and failure.”
After putting one company into administration, Rob returned his focus to the remaining e-commerce agency, but says it felt like a big step backwards. So, while lying in that tent tending his blisters, he decided that it was time to find a way out.
“It took almost two years to find an appropriate buyer and a further one year ‘earn out’ to complete the exit, but once done, I was free.”
A new beginning
By March 2017, Rob was ready to find his new path, and with the new General Data Protection Regulation on the horizon, and so many companies looking for guidance, the way ahead was clear.
He spent the next four months investigating, researching, and learning as much as he could on the subject, so he could then make presentations about the requirements of the new law. As time moved closer to the 2018 enforcement date, Rob started to receive requests from audience members, requesting help prior to the May 25 deadline.
In May 2017, The DPO Centre was born.
Later that year, with business thriving, Rob was fortunate to meet Lenitha Bishop, who is now The DPO Centre’s chief operating officer. Originally from South Africa, the mum of two attended one of his early presentations and approached him at the end to discuss opportunities.
He says: “I desperately needed more help by this stage, so jumped at the chance and our journey to build the company developed from there. I owe her so much, for her relentless attention to detail, her incredible people management skills, and her tireless contribution – the company would not be what it is today without her involvement.”
It is testament to her ability that “lone wolf” Rob sees her as an invaluable asset and respected sounding board. Generally, as a driven person, he says he is not good at sharing the lead.
“I’m very bad at compromising,” he admits.
“Just leave me to it and I’ll make sure we get where we need to be.”
In establishing The DPO Centre, Rob called upon the valuable lessons learned from his previous businesses to ensure success from the start. The key element being that in order to guarantee steady cash flow and growth in a professional services industry, you need a subscription-based model.
“You have to focus on recurring income,” he stresses. “Most clients are on 12-month auto-renewing contracts, so from a planning perspective, I know exactly where we will be in three, six, or even 12 months’ time in terms of revenue. Thanks to the service level and value we deliver, we have a very low churn rate, so it’s really just about how much we’re able to scale during that period of time.”
Peeling the onion
As The DPO Centre continues to grow, creating a leadership structure that will support success in the years to come is vital.
For Rob, that means handing over certain tasks to others – peeling off layers of responsibility – and allowing his role to become more strategic, as he explains.
“It’s important to future-proof the business and that means ensuring that it can thrive without me.
“Delegation is a real challenge for Lenitha and me. We both continue to work incredibly hard to maintain our momentum and that’s only possible if we can progressively transition away from responsibility for day-to-day functions.
“Every six months, we peel off another layer of operational responsibility and give it to someone else. Unfortunately, finding those who are capable of taking ‘ownership’ of their layer remains a constant challenge, but it’s a crucial element of our rapidly scaling business.”
Is stress also an element?
“Exercise is fundamental in enabling me to cope. Going for a run has a metronome effect which gives me clarity and helps me make decisions.”
“I find there is healthy overwhelmed and there is unhealthily overwhelmed. I need some stress to function and as soon as it starts easing up, I start getting distracted by things that are not a priority…although sometimes that is where the best ideas come from,” he smiles.
Finding balance
Throughout these busy years of running across the world and building a successful international business, Rob still found the time to fall in love.
In 2000, he met his wife, Claire, at the gym and two years later, while on holiday in Florence, he proposed. They were married in 2003 and soon after, welcomed their daughter, Kati, who Rob describes as “an inspiration to us both”.
He says that he doesn’t delineate between work, home, and exercise, instead seeing them all as symbiotic elements of an exciting, happy, fulfilling, healthy life.
“It does require constant compromise and prioritisation,” he points out, “and, of course, none of this would be possible without Claire being hugely supportive. We just try to make every waking hour count.”
So, what’s next?
“The DPO Centre Academy has just opened its doors. We will be developing further sector expertise in AI and life sciences, and investing heavily into infrastructure and resources to support our continued global expansion.
“More personally, I am pleased to be building something of value that allows me to give back, either through my directorship of Menta, or my mentoring of young entrepreneurs.
“I’m not interested in the slightest in leading a millionaire’s lifestyle. When my next chapter begins, I want to travel to the world’s most remote places, helping charities, NGOs, and not-for-profit organisations achieve their goals – whether that’s building schools in Kenya or helping orangutans in Borneo.
“If that all comes true, then having spent my entire life ’taking’ from the world, I’ll finally have a period of time at the end of my life where I give back with interest.”
