FINANCIAL - Key Persons

Tom has been a media entrepreneur for much of his life, including as Tech Editor of the Financial Times in Silicon Valley. He has been reporting on the business of Silicon Valley for US and global newspapers and magazines since 1984 when he arrived in San Francisco. In mid-2004 Tom was the first journalist to leave a major newspaper - the Financial Times - to become a "journalist/blogger" and since then is Editor of the Silicon Valley Watcher, having witnessed the most tumultuous and disruptive years for the global newspaper industry. Between 1999-2004 Tom was with FT full-time, after over a decade of work with the FT, as the lead journalist for the San Francisco-Silicon Valley Bureau of the Financial Times reporting on US tech. In 1985 he founded the West Coast News agency providing tech media around the world with news and features about Silicon Valley companies. His 2009 article "Every company is a Media Company" helped drive the content marketing industry. Tom has interviewed scores of top CEOs in Silicon Valley and beyond, spoken at scores of conferences and events globally, and has advised corporates like Intel, SAP, Infineon, IBM, Tibco, Novell, Delphix, SF Chronicle, Weber Shandwick, Microsoft and many smaller companies on media initiatives and corporate communications. He is also involved in several new media/communications projects, like the Society for New Communications Research (SCNR) think tank, Lifeboat Foundation. He earned his BSc in Chemistry and Management Sciences in 1980 at Royal Holloway College - University of London.