Working It Out Along the Way

2. Daniel Bell: The Global Creative Leader Who Grew Up in a Sunshine Coast Cult

• David Stephens • Episode 2

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In this episode of Working It Out Along the Way, I sit down with Dan, a designer whose story arcs from growing up in a cult on the Sunshine Coast to leading creative teams at Booking.com. Dan shares what it was like to leave a controlling religious community as a child, discover design by accident in a t-shirt shop, and eventually build a global career in London and Amsterdam.


It’s a conversation about curiosity, courage, and the freedom to write your own story, one decision at a time.

David:

Welcome to episode two of working it Out along the way. It's been a while since the first episode, longer than I planned, if I'm honest, but I'm really glad to be back, and I've got another episode ready to come out soon after this one as well. This series is about exploring how people find their career path, often in ways they never expected, and this conversation is a perfect example of that. Back in June, I flew into Amsterdam to record this interview in person with my friend Dan Bell, someone whose story I've known for years but had never really heard in full detail until now. Dan grew up in an incredibly strict religious community in Australia, a cult, and somehow made his way from that world all the way to leading creative teams at booking.com. It's a story about breaking free. Following your instincts and figuring things out as you go, which let's be honest, is what most of us are doing. So here it is my conversation with Dan Bell. Really nice to be with you, Dan. I know you've got such a fascinating journey and we are going to come to the job that you're in right now later on, I know it's a job that you love and one that you feel like you are adding a lot of value in and you're, you're doing something that you enjoy and feel like it's meaningful and so on, which is incredible, but. I'd really like to start at the beginning. you and I have known each other for a very long time.

Dan:

few years,

David:

and we both grew up in Australia, not that far away from each other, but you and I had quite different childhoods and I, I think, I think this is gonna be very interesting to listeners because you grew up on the Sunshine Coast hinterland in what is probably best described as a cult. What was that like? What, what, how was that as a little kid?

Dan:

It was strange, but as a kid, I didn't know the difference. I didn't know what else there was, so I just kind of thought it was normal life. I sort of describe it as somewhere between. Amish and Mormon. 'cause we lived in the community. We went to a normal school.

David:

You had neighbors who weren't?

Dan:

Yeah, we had neighbors who were not part of the church. So anybody who was not part of the church, we would call worldly. And so we were amongst the worldly people,

David:

but not interacting with them.

Dan:

We didn't. Befriend them. we would interact and say, please and thank you at the

David:

the bakery

Dan:

or the mechanic, but you're not gonna have a worldly person over for dinner. I was in that until I was about 10 or 11. and at about that age I realized it was called Sunday. And before that I thought it was called Lord's Day.

David:

Wow.

Dan:

As the seventh day of the week, because we would go to church About eight hours for that day. There was the prayer meeting and then I called it the big meeting, which was over lunch. And then there was an evening meeting. and meeting is like a church gathering.

David:

Yeah.

Dan:

It was very patriarchal. the men sat at the front of the church and would stand up and give prayers. The women sat at the back dressed very conservatively. Women wouldn't cut their hair. men would wear trousers and a shirt tucked in. you had to live within the vicinity of a church, and typically it would be a nuclear family. husband, wife, children encouraged to have many children and that was life as I knew it.

David:

And I imagine the men were working and the women were not.

Dan:

Yeah.

David:

And that just seemed normal

Dan:

was

David:

you.

Dan:

normal to me, that dad would go to work. And mom was essentially a housewife. She finished school in grade 10, and then she worked as a bookkeeper in her father's business. all the men had businesses. Mostly trades and that sort of thing. they often supported each other's business. if you had a metal working business, you would support the builder who was also in the church, and he would support the landscaper who was also in the church, who would then support the boat maker who would support the upholsterer they kept the economy within their church going pretty well.

David:

So it all sounds very insular. Absolutely. And it, despite going to a quote unquote normal school, mainstream school where, most of the kids were not members of the church, you were essentially told not to make friends with those other kids.

Dan:

Pretty much. I, um, it wasn't so much that I was told not to make friends. I just thought that if I was friends, then the devil would come and get me.

David:

Mm-hmm

Dan:

I was raised thinking they were bad. it was probably a few years after we left the church that I said my first swear word. I was 12 or 13 riding my bike with some worldly friends. when I said the swear word, I literally ducked. 'cause I thought God was gonna strike me with lightning or something. So it was very much a church of fear. I remember the fear as a kid just wondering if I did something wrong. I was gonna go to hell. So I didn't want to make friends with worldly people 'cause they would take me to hell.

David:

It's a very powerful thing, isn't it? that must have, it sticks with you. I bet it still does in a lot of ways.

Dan:

Yeah. I don't duck when I swear as much anymore. sometimes. But, yeah, there was definitely some lessons that I've kept going, like, my approach to certain. Behaviors. I'm probably a bit more conservative not in my views, but if I'm going out, I have to iron my shirt and put on a nice button up shirt and tuck it in, which is very much a church thing. in my mind, Sunday is still family day

David:

I suppose that's, quite a juxtaposition. I mean, you are an out and proud gay man living in Amsterdam, and you've been here in Amsterdam for quite some time now,

Dan:

Coming up five years now that I've been here. and I'm so grateful that I'm not in that church anymore 'cause I wouldn't be able to be where I am When you leave the church, you sort of go through this, phase of almost like house arrests So when my parents left, they went through this phase and then we sort of came out the other side and we saw the world.

David:

and this was because your parents had started essentially saying that they weren't buying into the message of the church anymore. and so the reaction of the church when that happens is. This person must now be shunned lest they infect anybody else in the community. Right.

Dan:

my dad was a bit of a rebel as a kid, so I think he'd probably started to see a bit of what was on the outside. I was a kid, so I don't know what happened during, the whole period, but I've been told things. I was told that mom and dad were seen on Lord's Day when they should have been in church. They were seen by the beach where there was no church in the vicinity, so they should not have been there. It does raise the question who was there to see them and who dobbed them in. I was also told a story of my dad when he was. A young guy, and

David:

he

Dan:

a Volkswagen Beetle that he did up, and he's an upholsterer. he'd sewn in all the speakers and a tape deck into the car to hide it, because in the church you can't have stereos, you can't have TVs, you can't have mobile phones. So even as a sort of young adult, he was hiding this stuff from his parents and. getting away with it. So when I hear these stories, I'm not surprised that they were eventually, whether or not they were asked to leave or whether they said, you know, screw this, we are leaving. Um, I dunno how it happened, but it happened and we're at the other side and I'm very grateful for that. There are instances, on TV shows in Australia where, An adult has sort of come out as gay and has had to leave the whole church, whole family behind. 'cause once you become worldly, you can't go back to the family.

David:

so they get disowned. By their own family.

Dan:

On their own

David:

Wow.

Dan:

And it's not an uncommon story like any of those sorts of things like gay, like, I mean, if you told somebody you were trans, that would be the end of your social life, family life, anything in the church, you'd just be out,

David:

Mm-hmm. And this is, I mean, we should say the name of the church. we haven't mentioned it. it's called The Brethren, isn't it?

Dan:

The Exclusive Brethren.

David:

The Exclusive Brethren. And it still exists. Yep. and going strong on the Sunshine Coast Center land.

Dan:

Yeah. it's across Australia. there's big churches in Sydney The head Australian church guy. lived in Sydney. I believe they're in the US and I believe they're in the uk.

David:

So you were 10 or 11 when your parents essentially escape with you and your, siblings. And at that point you'd been going to a school, in Namor. did you have a sense at that age of what you wanted to be when you grew up?

Dan:

Yes and no. I had a sense of like, I was the eldest son and I'd seen my father with his business and, the men in the church had to be successful. they were the breadwinners and you're expected to have a wife and she would be the homemaker. So in my mind, I just knew I had to be. Good at something. 'cause I had to provide for my future family. There's probably a little bit of that still in my mind now, even though, I don't have a family in the future or anything like that. but it sticks with you from childhood to be like, right, you've gotta be the. man in the relationship. I remember lying in bed, panicking thinking, oh, I'm the man, so I have to propose to a woman. That's so scary. Imagine proposing, but it's my job 'cause I'm a man. I've gotta go get the job, I've gotta do these things. I've gotta propose. So it was very much, it was all on me as a male 'cause of this whole patriarchal church thing drilled into me.

David:

By the time you get to the end of high school, did you have any more of a sense then of what you wanted to do when you left?

Dan:

maybe a bit more. I'd sort of uncovered a few more avenues of things that existed. I think probably like a lot of young kids, when I grew up I was gonna be a doctor or a fireman or something like this and had these things in my mind. I don't think it was actually until I went to university and I started with a casual job to sort of, you know, pay for my weekend bike rides or whatever I was doing, where I realized that graphic design was a thing. When I came outta high school, I went and did psychology and political science, and then I thought, this is way too many theories and textbooks and my brain doesn't work like that. I got a job in a tourist shop, designing t-shirts for Ken's nights and Bucks parties

David:

Yeah.

Dan:

boys weekend trips kind of thing. I just sort of fell in love with the arrangements of letters and graphics on a t-shirt. you'd hot press it onto the shirt there and then, and people would be like, oh my God, you've just made this. And I'd be like, yeah, I just made this, this is cool. going through that I thought maybe I could, do a course in computer art. I didn't even know what it was called. I found a course in, computer based art and graphics at the Sunshine Coast University. then someone said. You know, this is actually a career, like people do this for their job. I moved down to the city after that, into to Brisbane and I completed the course at a different university, completed a Bachelor of Visual Communication, which sounds a fancy way of saying graphic design, and, landed a job in a studio and the rest is history.

David:

you basically had a light bulb moment when you were working in that t-shirt shop, which is that not only is this something that I enjoy, then a little bit later you worked out that I can make a living from this as well. That sounds like a very satisfying realization to come to.

Dan:

Was probably 21 at this point where I'd sort of had this thing where I was like, okay, this is a career. it was refreshing and comforting because I was starting to panic 'cause my friends were, you know, studying law or business or architecture and I was sort of sitting there going, shit, what am I doing? I need to pick something and I need to be good at it. I need to provide for my future family. then, this sort of happy alignment of things put me into design. it just really worked well. I quite enjoyed it. And then when someone said, you can make a job, I was like, great Perfect. Let's keep going with this, please.

David:

And did your parents have any expectations? Anything in particular they wanted you to do for a job?

Dan:

I dunno if they had. Expectations of what I should do. I think they just wanted me to do it well. Like whatever I pick, you know, be happy and do it well. actually for a moment there I started to do landscape architecture. mom loved that because then I would landscape the property at home. And so she was like, whatever you do, just do it. Well, by the way, you should do landscaping.

David:

Brilliant.

Dan:

so they were just happy that I was doing something. And I was sort of into it. my dad has a thing that I remember being drilled into me from a very young age. Like, if something's worth doing, it's worth doing properly. And so I guess that mentality of, you know, if you're gonna pick something as your job or whatever it is, do it well. And so that stuck in my mind. Whatever I do, I've gotta do it. Well, maybe it's a little bit of competitiveness too.

David:

So you finished the degree in otherwise named Creative Design. Yep. and you get a job at a studio. And how different was it once it was your full-time job? Is it everything that you had expected it would be?

Dan:

no, of course not. I was like, as soon as I come outta university, I'm gonna be designing global brands and. Making these amazing, beautiful artworks. But of course when you're straight out of university, you're making digital ads that are gonna go on Facebook for, one person scroll or a magazine ad for a barbecue restaurant that goes in the back of the TV guide. So there was a a bit of realization of like, okay, there's grunt work I've gotta get through, but even in the simplest of things. There was some satisfaction because at the end of the day, you make a thing, even if it's an ad or if it's a, a post or a billboard. You've made a thing and decided on the arrangement of elements, and so it's almost the closest you can come to being like a maker with your hands, but it's all on a screen. So even if it's an ad for a barbecue place in a TV guide, it was still my ad that I made. That was my typography and my color scheme. And then to have the creative director say, well done. We'll send that to print. It's kind of like, yes, I won. So yeah, it was a little shocking at first, like I said, to kind of go through the grunt work, you get through that everyone has to do grunt work in the beginning of their career. I was probably in a bit of a race with myself to be successful really quickly,

David:

which meant what in your mind, was there a goal that you thought, you know, this is what a successful designer looks like?

Dan:

Well, for a second there, you're starting to sound like my therapist or my, my

David:

coach. Like, what's

Dan:

goal, Daniel? I have ideas of versions of success. You can be a successful creative director in an ad agency. You can be a successful designer in-house in a big brand. You could be a freelance designer that works two days a week and lives by the beach. I think there's many versions of success. In the beginning, my version of success was I had to own a studio. employ other designers, and I had to work on big brands in this studio. That had my name on the door. My version of that success has definitely changed, from having to own my own thing to wanting to work in-house and sort of be, top dog Like bring design forth out of this brand and show the organization that, brand and creative is important. That then became my measure of success. Like how many people am I influencing? But now, it's probably shifting again in recent years so a successful designer for me is starting to look like creative fulfillment in the work that I do and long weekends, a laptop by the beach in Spain, you know? Sounds great.

David:

Well, before we get there, let's talk a little bit about where you went from the studio, because your next move was in house, wasn't it?

Dan:

Yep.

David:

how did you find that job?

Dan:

it sort of found me, I was in the right place at the right time, which I feel like a lot of my career has been right place, right time. The way the studio operated, it had its clients that would come to the studio for work and then the studio would rent out the designer to the brand. And so this happened to me, this brand came along and said, we need some help. The studio said, great, Dan can help you. so I started working in-house in this brand. That brand at the time was sort of an offshoot consulting company under a parent brand, which then merged with two other companies to become a bigger brand. So I was there five years. By this point, I had worked my way up from an intern designer. I then was grasping for a bit more. I had social media under my belt and I started to do social media posting. somewhere in there I went and did a master's in advertising. I probably should point that out.

David:

Just casual, uh,

Dan:

casual masters. Casual masters

David:

on top of your job?

Dan:

is the competitive thing in me again. I had to be good at what I was doing. So I did that. I took on social media.

David:

Tell me a little bit about the masters, which you were doing part-time alongside your full-time job at this brand, which was, well, well, it became Warley, didn't it? And at that point it was something else.

Dan:

At that point, it was a brand. The name was Vizient, which was a merger of, Evans and Peck, MTG consulting. And another brand, but they all came together to make it Vizient, which was a consulting company.

David:

And so the Masters, were there things that you learned in the Masters that were actually useful for your job at the time?

Dan:

yes, I think so. The Masters, so it was creative advertising. I did it full-time for the first year and the second year I did it part-time 'cause I realized I'd probably bitten off a bit too much doing full-time work and a full-time masters. What it really taught me was. How to think and approach creativity. It was quite theoretical. it just helped me sort of break down a brief, respond to the brief to think about different solutions to solving the brief. it was a bit more in depth and a bit more broad than just the design craft that I had studied earlier. I do think the Masters is quite helpful to get me where I am now 'cause it set me up with all the right thinking. I then did award school, which is an ad school thing in Australia once a year they select, 12 students from Queensland in Sydney. It's a bit more in Melbourne, it's more than Brisbane, but less than Sydney. you'll do this intensive course where each week you'll go around to a different agency and have the creative director give you everything there is to know about print or outdoor or digital or radio, send you off with a brief. You had to respond to that brief. And the next week pitch that idea to the next creative director. So you do that for 12 weeks. And in my Bachelor and my masters, I had some late nights, but I never pulled an all-nighter. during ward school, multiple all-nighters. The most intense 12 weeks I've done. and I was up on Red Bull stressing about assignments. That was sort of like being thrown in the deep end in appetizing world, also super useful. in my day job now, we get a brief in or we give a brief out to an agency and I'll look at it and I'll just think this wouldn't pass the standard of award school calling back on the lessons I've learned from award school about, keeping the brief, brief, it's one page, not 12, we still do 12 page briefs. the quick thinking and the creative thinking methodologies that you learn during award school has just been so invaluable the whole way through my career. I, I'm so glad I got to do that.

David:

After a few years of, working at this consulting firm, where you rose through the ranks, you decided that you wanted to move to London. And presumably you must have told your bosses that that's what you wanted to do, and how did they react?

Dan:

it was both a very long journey and a very quick journey. let me explain. I had told them maybe a year earlier that I wanted to go to London. And I was looking for opportunities within the organization to transfer and nothing was coming up. There wasn't any opportunities in that brand to go to London and I, I think I got to a point where I was, you know, I was frustrated. I was anxious to move and do the next thing during a call with my manager at the time. I said, okay, I'm gonna go regardless, I wanted to go with this brand. But I cannot, so I'm just gonna go, I will figure out my timings and let you know. And then I think it was maybe a week, maybe two weeks, that I got an email from the managing director of the brand that said, Hey, Dan heard you wanted to go to London. We'd love to keep you in the brand. Hold tight. Let me see what I can do. Wow.

David:

Wow.

Dan:

At first, I saw his name pop up in my email and I thought, oh crap, I've done something wrong. But it was a quite supportive email from the MD saying, Hey, we'd like to keep you.

David:

So your bosses must have really rated you. To take the step to escalate it to the big boss.

Dan:

I don't think at the time I really realized that, in my frustration to want to go, I almost felt like. I'm going, regardless of whatever you do, doesn't matter. And I think I took for granted how much they actually did for me. I got a call, maybe a month or two later from the marketing director, from the parent brand, Wally Parsons. She called me and said, Hey, I hear you wanna move. If you want to come over here, jump to the parent brand, do the design work for us. You've got a job here if you want it.

David:

Wow.

Dan:

and then I remember she saying, when can you get here? And in my mind I thought, okay, this is gonna be weeks if months of planning. I just casually joked and I said, well, my rental lease ends in six weeks. And she's like, okay, well I'll see you then. And I, perfect. it just lined up. I kind of freaked out a little bit and I thought six weeks to pack up my whole life, say goodbye to my family and move to the other side of the world. But I think it was a blessing in disguise. 'cause if I delayed, I might've found a reason not to, or got cold feet, but I just jumped in the deep end. After I got off the phone call, I rang some friends and family and said, I'm moving to London in less than two months. It was Halloween, 2017. I landed in London.

David:

what made you decide that you wanted to make the move in the first place?

Dan:

I don't know if it was a single thing. I think it was just a slow build I have a tendency every, I don't know, five to six years, I feel like I want to change a thing. I'd been at that job for probably five years at this point. I'd been living in Brisbane for. maybe 10 years I thought, okay, time for a big change. I think I'd seen most of the career opportunities I could within Brisbane and I thought, there's gotta be something else. bigger brands, more of the world.

David:

Is this the competitive side of you coming out as well?

Dan:

I look back now and I'm kind of like, yeah, okay. I was. Competing with a different version of myself to do more. I had friends from uni who did, a semester abroad or six months abroad, and they all loved it. I just was curious to see what the other side of the world looked like and also a little bit curious to put myself in a position that I might screw up. Which sounds strange, but I'd, I'd felt like at that point I'd had a pretty cruisy ride. I was in a position of privilege to go to university get a job to, you know, have friends and family around me that supported me when I needed, I had a partner at the time who was so supportive, without him, I probably wouldn't be where I was, where I am today. I almost wanted to just see if I could put myself up for a challenge.

David:

You wanted to go into hard mode?

Dan:

I wanted to upgrade the level a little bit. Moved to London. Everything worked out pretty fine. I think it was maybe the second night after landing in London, you invited me out for dinner at this fancy restaurant. and I ordered steak tar. I had no idea what it was. And you asked me, do you know what this is? I said, sure, I know what this is. And it came out and I thought, what is this? I have no idea what this is. but I ate it. It had a raw egg on top if I remember correctly. haven't had it since, but, that's what you get when you step outside your comfort zone, steak Tart and a good friend in London

David:

that really is jumping in the deep end, isn't it? But the great thing is you were in London and you had a brilliant job lined up that you were walking straight into.

Dan:

Yeah. Which is pretty lucky that I was able to do that. I had a job lined up. they sorted my accommodation for the first, three weeks. They helped me with all the visa stuff. I just kind of jumped on a plane got off the other end and went to work. obviously there was hard bits about the move, like having to make new friends and figuring out, you know, how to use the transport system or. Which bank to use and all these sorts of bits and pieces, but everything works out. You go in and figure out one thing at a time the goal this week is to get a bank account next week, figure out the train until then, just walk.

David:

Yeah. And that was your first introduction to Expat Life? Yeah. That you've now been living for eight years.

Dan:

Yeah, eight years now. I probably didn't picture myself as an expat. When I was younger, I didn't think I would be living on the other side of the world. I still recall a conversation with my mom when I told her I was moving to London and she was happy for me, but she was also upset that I'd be leaving and I said, I'll be back in two years.

David:

And so much for that. Yeah.

Dan:

Yeah, sorry Mom, her friend, was there during the conversation and made a joke and said, oh yeah, I told my mother the same thing. I was in London for nine years and then my mom said, oh no, that'll never happen. I said, no, that'll never happen. Now coming up to eight years, five of those in Amsterdam, almost three in London, and I dunno if I have any plans just yet to return home. I dunno what's in the future.

David:

Maybe

Dan:

Maybe one day. Maybe one day.

David:

So you're at Warley or Warley Parsons, the parent company. Yeah. in London. And you are doing what is a relatively big job, aren't you? what was your title when you first moved?

Dan:

to be honest, I can't remember. I think it was graphic design lead or design lead, something like this. I had walked into the role and I'd had two people that I inherited, and then I interviewed some more and I soon built a pretty cool team of eight people. My role had changed from design lead to head of creative, um,

David:

for the, for the Globe?

Dan:

Yeah, for the Globe, for the parent brand. At some point we rebranded. From Warley, Partons to Warley. By this point we were 60,000 people. and me and my team of eight were working super fast and super hard to get all of the branding out, all of the design needs of this whole organization met. they're a pretty good team. And so what that also meant is when we produced good work, people would come to us for more good work.

David:

it's a curse,

Dan:

yeah, you do your job well, you get to do more of your job.

David:

Yeah.

Dan:

And so that's the position we were in. it worked somehow for us. we kept going. We had to rethink how we would do things. We went from being very much a delivery center of design. to a thought center of design. we went from making the assets to empowering everybody else to make the assets and teaching them why brand and creative is important. 'cause a team of eight cannot design everything for 60,000 people.

David:

That sounds much more sustainable. Yeah,

Dan:

Yeah, exactly.

David:

And I remember from conversations with you at the time when you were in London, that you had an incredibly supportive boss. what did that mean for you and your career?

Dan:

Honestly, shout out to Heather Warren. She was amazing. She was the one who was on the phone to me and said, see you in six weeks. She helped me immensely in not just career and sort of work life, but also personal life. She was great for a chat. we had each other on social media and we would talk about what we did on the weekend then talk about work in the next sentence, and then go back to the dating life in London. And so she brilliantly mixed personal professional. She became a friend super quick, and it just made it so much easier to receive feedback, to give feedback, to have hard conversations. she made me feel quite empowered to do what I thought was right. I don't think there was ever a situation where she told me I couldn't do something. She might suggest ways I could do something better or something that could have more impact. But if I had my heart set on something, she would never stand in my way, which I value greatly because of course I got some things wrong Maybe on the level of, sending the wrong thing to print and we, you know, miss an ad deadline to, you know, sitting down with the CEO and interviewing him about the importance of pride and diversity. You know, like there's opportunities for so many things to go wrong. But she said, go and do it I'm here if you need. It was great.

David:

that sounds amazing.

Dan:

She was awesome.

David:

So you spend three years at this job. You, you grow, uh, in your, in your job, both in terms of title and. responsibility and you're learning a lot, getting great experience and skills and so on. and obviously you're having nice dinners with good friends Absolutely. I can't remember which restaurant it was that I took you to.

Dan:

going to Google it.

David:

it for the steak Tata, but I'm sure it was a nice meal. even though maybe you didn't enjoy the steak tar, but while you're in London, you've done some trips to the Netherlands and you've decided that you'd like to be there instead.

Dan:

Yeah, it was, I did a lot of trips to a lot of places to just kind of explore. It was half the reason I was in London to just see the other side of the world. There was something about the Netherlands. And I still can't describe it. And even Dutchess kind of say to me like, why? Why are you here if you're raised in Australia? Something in the air. I don't know. When I first landed, I just thought, this is my next home. And coincidentally, my first trip here happened to be, I think it was the first week or 2nd of June, and I put a picture on Instagram. Of the Amsterdam canals with the caption found my next home, and it was two years later, almost to the day that I moved to the Netherlands. It was June 17 that I moved to the Netherlands and it was my new home.

David:

Wow. And so that means we're actually very nearly at the fifth anniversary of you moving here.

Dan:

years.

David:

Wow.

Dan:

Wow. that's gone by in the blink of an eye and it still feels like home. I just love walking around the streets and. Looking up and watching everyone cycle by It's like a magical little watery village. I love it.

David:

Very romantic. But you weren't making the move for career reasons. it was just for the lifestyle basically.

Dan:

Bit of both. I had made the move for both lifestyle and career, but there was a moment between Amsterdam and London. So I'm gonna back up for a second. When I left London. I'd left with a different intention. I had sold all my belongings. I had quit my job. I had accepted a job with Top Deck Travel as a tour guide for the foreseeable future. I was gonna live in and out of hostels and a suitcase taking young Australians or Canadians around Europe on. bus trips that could last up to 30 days. we had a small global pandemic. So that put the brakes on travel for a while. I was within the 30 day period of my notice for my job. So again, Heather, amazing boss had a chat with her and she said, well, this hasn't gone through. It's not been the 30 days. Come back. I had negotiated a change and said, I'll come back if you can move me to the Netherlands office. She helped me organize a transfer to the Hague during COVID They were super quick on the remote work in that period they said Everyone just will work remotely, don't come into the office. So I took that as an opportunity to go to Amsterdam instead of the Hague. And I worked remotely from the spare room in my apartment.

David:

Wow, that's

Dan:

so,

David:

I had completely forgotten the whole top deck travel thing. but I mean, that would've been a, a very different path. i'm assuming you were only planning to do it temporarily.

Dan:

Yeah, it was always a temporary thing. I didn't know how long temporary was. I didn't know if it was gonna be a year or three years, or three months. I had no idea. I just thought, you know, tomorrow's another day. Keep going. See what else is out there. Against all the advice from my friends with careers and mentors, and they all sort of said, is this the right thing to do? You know, you're, you're selling everything up. You're at, you're at a really high point in your career right now. Is it the time to step away and disappear on a bus in Romania? luckily, I suppose COVID. Stopped me from doing that, which then landed me in Amsterdam. But I haven't looked back at all. I don't regret, anything that happened. I think everything's happened for a pretty good reason and I love where I am so,

David:

You are in Amsterdam, you've kind of sneakily done this thing of your job is in the Hague, but you, you've managed to move to Amsterdam instead. 'cause you, you wanted to live in Amsterdam.

Dan:

Mm-hmm.

David:

And you are still at Warley. did you move with basically the same job

Dan:

it was pretty much the same job. the rationale for my move was since one of our latest mergers, a lot of leadership was in the Hague. So we had, I think it was, Sydney, the Hague and Houston became our biggest offices. So being in the Hague was good for access to leadership, to see the comings and the goings and the decision making live sort of thing. so that was the original rationale for me to be in the Hague, to bring brand and creative closer to leadership decisions. Again, COVID. So I was in my own spare room, not in the boardroom. But it was, it was more or less the same job, just with more access being in the Hague.

David:

when was it then that you decided to move on?

Dan:

I did another. Creative course I got accepted into the Khan, 30 under 30. Thing that they do and each year they take 30 students. similar to what award school was, you're sort of in a room for a week having all these big creative directors and minor celebrities, sometimes major celebrities coming to talk to us about creativity. so we had Ryan Reynolds, we had creative director of Lego. We had creative directors from Deloitte and big agencies come to talk to us. That triggered something in me that I wanted to do. Something with completely different brands. most of my career was energy resources consulting, and then a lot of sustainability as Wally had pivoted. And I thought that's enough of that. I want to go to something, a sort of customer facing a bit more of a B2C brand. And so after Kane seeing all the creativity that happened out there with these big brands. It sort of piqued my interest to see what else I could find. I was casually applying for jobs. I wasn't in a rush. Again, I was in a pretty good position where I currently was, so I wasn't chomping at the bit to get out. if something came up, I would apply. then a couple of interviews here and there. What was actually the kicker for me is when I actually, through a long process, I ended up getting my European passport through Irish heritage. Which meant I could be a lot broader in my search because I no longer needed to be sponsored. I was essentially a European citizen, so I could do almost anything I wanted. I could quit and live here and be fine. it opened up a lot more doors for me. That's when I found a job@booking.com listed on LinkedIn, and i'd, I'd always looked@booking.com as like a cool brand. I had friends that worked there. I knew they're a big employer in Amsterdam and I just thought, how cool would that be to take what I know, my creativity, my brand knowledge, all this sort of stuff to a travel brand. I missed out on the travel in the bus for top deck, but I could do what I know, do what I'm good at in the same context. So I think I applied for maybe three or four jobs@booking.com.

David:

Oh, really? So you were, you were so focused on that one employer.

Dan:

Yeah, there was probably a few that I was focused on. There was a few brands that I thought I could do good work for, and so I would apply for a lot more broader roles there. So I guess if it was anything related to design or creativity or marketing, I would apply. Whereas if it were a different brand, I'd probably be a bit more selective. So I think I'd applied for some marketing roles, a brand role. This design role came up and I thought that's just, it's too good to be true. It's everything I'm doing now for a brand like booking.com. In my head I thought there's gonna be hundreds of people applying for this. And you know, LinkedIn tells you how many people clicked apply. I think it was 450 people clicked, apply. And I just, thought, let's just go along for the ride. Like worst that'll happen is they'll just say no, and I'll go back to my day job. a recruiter called me, between Christmas and New Year's, and said, do you wanna have a chat? it took me a second 'cause I thought, oh crap, which role is this about? So I had to ask some subtle questions to. Jogged my memory about the role I applied for, but yeah,

David:

I do. By the way, take the credit for your European citizenship.

Dan:

It's absolutely yours. two separate Visa lawyers did not pick up on the fact that my grandfather was from Ireland, and you did.

David:

sorry.

Dan:

my Irish passport.

David:

if I remember correctly, you were kind of scrambling around trying to figure out what type of visa you could be on here in the Netherlands and what sort of sponsorship you would need Yep. I think I had a little bit of a light bulb moment that, uh, actually you, you probably qualified as an Irish citizen

Dan:

Yeah, it was, 'cause it happened before I had moved to the Netherlands. the original intention with Wally was they would sponsor me, I was curious what other options they were, they don't love the idea of being tied to an employer.

David:

Yeah.

Dan:

And, um, yeah, you, you'd said something to me, I can't remember what it was, but the next day I phoned Ireland. I phoned immigration, like some guy just picked up and was like, hello? I'm like, this Irish immigration. He's like, yeah, yeah. What, what do you want? And I said, okay, I've got a question. my grandfather was born. Just outside of Belfast, what does that mean for me? And this guy said, yeah, you're a citizen. You just have to register your foreign birth. I'd been here, three years by the time I got that passport. And when I did, it came just in time. 'cause I was midway through my interview@booking.com and that came just in time for me to be able to say to them, you don't need to sponsor me. I'm a citizen.

David:

Thanks again. Did you still think this job was too senior for you? That you weren't qualified for it?

Dan:

Yes, in a sense. I, I thought this brand is so big and well known. There would be so many talented people applying for this role. with that in mind, I approached it just as a friendly conversation. I thought, you know, screw it, I'll go along, I'll go as far as I can in the interview process, make some friends on the way. Worst case scenario I get a few more ads on LinkedIn from people@booking.com. I went through, I think it was five interviews.

David:

And you approached them in a casual way because you weren't so invested in getting the job. You really wanted the job, but you were kind of thinking that it wasn't a possibility.

Dan:

Exactly. I just kind of approached it as just a conversation. We'll see what happens.

David:

I love this because you would've projected an aura of confidence. you weren't nervous about the conversations and you were speaking, from a position of. having a whole lot of experience and knowing about the questions that you are being asked about, and it's the same way that somebody who is incredibly senior would approach those conversations they're very secure in themselves and their career and what they know and what they can do. I'm sure you came across that way as well. I don't mean to say that you've exploited some kind of loophole because you've accidentally found yourself being casual and being the way a senior person would be. It's true that you were already at that level, and so whether you recognized it at the time or not, you were coming across in the correct way, for where you were in your career.

Dan:

I look back now and see, that's what I did at the time, that wasn't going through my head. I just kind of thought, you know, be yourself. If they don't wanna hire who I am, I don't wanna work there anyway. I also look back into my own hiring days when I was building my own creative teams, and one of the biggest things I hired on was attitude and the relationship I felt with the person in the interview. I generally think, apart from doctors or lawyers, you can pick up most things along the way if you have the right attitude and you're working with the right people. So again, going back to my manager in London Right attitude, right person. She helped me a lot. I was willing to listen my team, we could talk easy. It's just how I hired, so I somehow came across with that.

David:

I can't speak for doctors, but I think probably that's true of lawyers as well.

Dan:

There is some study in some bar or something involved. Right.

David:

Do you know what I think most lawyers would probably agree that, the stuff they learn in law school. compared to the stuff they learn on the job is pretty minimal in terms of what matters, for the job they're in right now. Um, that's, that's probably true for you as well. I'm guessing, that your formal education pales in comparison to the things that you've learned on the job.

Dan:

Yeah. I think there's some stuff in formal education that I wouldn't be able to do my job without. I. but the majority of my experience is from learning on the job, especially in the creative fields, the majority of the job is influencing stakeholders and selling your ideas. they don't teach you that in design school or ad school. it's creative thinking, it's techniques. Of course, you've gotta have those, In the business world that I'm in, you have to influence your stakeholders and you won't be successful without that ability.

David:

So it's diplomacy and other soft skills.

Dan:

absolutely.

David:

And being able to approach situations from a position of experience.

Dan:

Quiet confidence in your ideas, in what you're selling, in your pitch.

David:

And so going back to this hiring process, obviously they were very impressed by you and they brought you on. You must have been ecstatic about that.

Dan:

I laugh because I remember the recruiter telling me he'll call me on Monday with an outcome. by this point I had known that it was down to me and I think two others. Monday came and went and I didn't have any phone call. No text message, no email.

David:

Oh, no.

Dan:

no, I know. And I thought, that's it. they're finding the right words to let me down gently. then Tuesday came and went and nothing. Wednesday I woke up, panicked, stressed to the point that I felt sick. by this point, I'd started to put a lot of energy Effort and hope into it. I thought I've got this far, this is amazing. I started to imagine

David:

you were believing now working

Dan:

in there. Yeah. I believed that I was having a good shot at this position. by the time I had got to Wednesday. I think I had a stomach ulcer or something from the stress of not getting a call. I'd built it up in my mind so much. It was Wednesday afternoon that I got a call, I think it was like 4 59 or something. It was right on five. And I was like, of course they leave the rejection to the end of the day. And he just said, anyway, so we'd like to offer you the job. I didn't quite hear him at first and I was like, wait, what? He's like,

David:

is, this is classic Dutch directness. Is it? This

Dan:

This is it. So we would like to offer you the job. it's yours. And then I remember even after that I was like, made it amazing. This is fantastic. Offered me a package, which I then went and Googled and looked up everything and I thought, I'm just gonna try my luck because I've got this far on luck. And I went back and I negotiated a different package. They came back and said, we believe in this so much, we'll give you even more.

David:

I'd

Dan:

asked for 10% more. They'd come back and give me 15% more.

David:

That's, quite impressive. I'm not sure I've ever heard of that happening before.

Dan:

It was brilliant.

David:

Well done.

Dan:

yeah, I dunno what it was I was very lucky with that,

David:

So you've now been@booking.com for two years, and your role is that you essentially run what's known as the brand studio internally, is that correct?

Dan:

Yep, exactly. So we have, yeah, we call it brand Studio, and we are a team of, I think we're about 11 creatives. we have motion designers, photographers, illustrators, brand designers, uh, UX design, event design, All aspects of visual identity and creativity and Amsterdam is head office. we call it the campus. Such a tech nerd thing. So all of the teams in Amsterdam, bar one in Manchester. It's quite refreshing to be able to sit next to somebody and work on something directly with them. In previous roles, my teams were spread around the world. It was Houston, Australia, India, Mexico, but yeah, we're all in Amsterdam.

David:

I remember you traveled to India a bit from from London, didn't you?

Dan:

Went over there to visit the team. Brilliant food every night. Loved it. But now I go to level three to visit the team.

David:

and the staff canteen is not quite as nice.

Dan:

you'd be surprised. a, we have three restaurants and one of the restaurants is, the menu is designed by a Michelin star chef each season.

David:

Okay. This really is a tech campus then, isn't it?

Dan:

Yeah.

David:

Wow.

Dan:

Yeah.

David:

And from what I understand, this brand studio has an incredibly broad remit. I mean, you've spoken about events and, ad campaigns and basically anything that, booking dot com's brand gets attached to. But the thing that's most impressive to me is. The Super Bowl ad

Dan:

it's uh, we call it our big brand moment, and we use that term internally to refer to Super Bowl, but it's also the creative platform for that year. So we'll typically have the big brand moment go out and there'll be a creative tagline attached to that, and that'll influence everything we do for that year. We might work on everything from, Sponsored ads on Facebook and Instagram. To, global events where we get thousands of our partners in one location to tell 'em about all the things we're doing on the app. We'll do local events, like, we'll do women in tech, we'll do some recruitment events. We sponsor some pretty big things like, Amsterdam Pride, Manchester Pride, we're the major sponsors of those. we have a deal with MLB. We're a major sponsor there. we sponsored international cricket. there's an event coming up in Amsterdam for the 750th anniversary of Amsterdam. We're sponsoring a big sail ship that'll have our branding all over it.

David:

Brilliant.

Dan:

So very big and very visible campaigns and activations that we do. Super Bowl is one of those things that's really cool to say. I've got this on my CV that my team has worked on Super Bowl.

David:

It doesn't get bigger than that, does it?

Dan:

Not in the ad world. that's the holy grail. A Super Bowl ad. Um, and obviously I'm cannot take much of the credit. I, I have an amazing team who works on it and we have an amazing creative lead that I work with she'll go on the shoot and almost direct this from the booking.com brand point of view. so many of us are sort of on it, like reviewing imagery and reviewing taglines, and we will have it translated into five different languages and spread across the world, and we'll change ss to Zeds for the US and all of these different things. It'll, it'll just permeate into almost everything we do for the entire year. it's pretty impressive to see the amount of stuff that goes out.

David:

Very cool. Do you. Have moments where you pause and reflect and think, well, this is the biggest possible stage that I could be working on in the ad world. I've made the move into B2C and done it at a very big brand and, in a very big way, and I've got this enormous job and doing it really well. you've had great success in the role. Do you ever take time to take stock of all of that and just think. Do you know what? I've made it.

Dan:

I've done things. It's funny you say this today 'cause I had a coaching session today and one of the things I got from her is I need to do this more. I need to stop and reflect, even if it's 15 minutes here and there to just say, this is what I've done today. This is what went well. This is where other people might be coming from. I don't do it enough. I'm always thinking, What's the next thing? how do I make this next thing work? And maybe it's a product of, this idea in the back of my head that I've gotta be good at everything. That as soon as something's done, I'm onto the next thing. maybe it's something about the creative industries where we wanna make more and create more and something's created great. It's out. What's the next thing? Oh my God. Let's paint something. So I think there's probably a lot of reasons I don't do it, but I need to stop and reflect because. Even just sitting here talking to you, it's made me reflect and go, okay, I've, I've landed somewhere pretty good. I'm proud of where I got to and I've worked hard to get to where I am, and I don't think I stop often enough to just kind of go, yeah, well done, well done.

David:

I think, your journey is kind of a wild one. Isn't it in the sense that the kid in that t-shirt shop

Dan:

Yeah.

David:

wasn't in his wildest dreams thinking that this is where he'd end up?

Dan:

Absolutely not. I had no idea that this world and industry existed. It was sort of like I just dipped my toes and then I figured it out along the way. I feel like I was kind of accidentally successful. One of the benefits of doing what I was doing at Vizient, Wally Parsons was I was building it as I was going, I didn't. Necessarily know where I was going. I just knew we couldn't keep up with the design request, so we needed more designers. Then we got to a point where you had to have more brand education, so we had to figure that out. And then we had to figure out what a brand platform looks like. Then we had to figure out what a mass education of 60,000 people looks like. Then we had to figure out what, supporting pride looked like, for example. And so all of this stuff, we just kind of figured it out as we went. And it wasn't till I was outside the organization that I looked back and I was like, oh, okay, so we just figured all of this out. Other organizations have procedures and ways to do things and they've got it all done. So it kind of, it set me up in a way that it taught me all the things I needed to know without really having any kind of formal training in it,

David:

And then subsequently, you realized that the things you had to. Learn by doing. Were actually incredibly valuable. And these were skills that were gonna hold you in good stead for the rest of your career?

Dan:

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of it was just also an understanding that, if you fail, it's okay. you'll figure out another way to do something. even if you do fail, it's one step. There is a solution somewhere you just gotta keep going till you find it. We eventually got there. We built brands, I moved different cities. We eventually got there.

David:

Let's talk a little bit now about what the future holds

Dan:

Hmm.

David:

So I imagine that you are now at a level of seniority where. Your next move into something like a VP of brand, at a big B2C business or maybe, taking your boss's job@atbooking.com would mean that you are doing much less of the creative work yourself and you are instead having to manage managers Is that something that you look forward to? Is that something that you slightly dread

Dan:

both? Is that an answer? I, um,

David:

sure.

Dan:

Yes. In that I look forward to it because it's progression and I'll feel like I'm moving onwards and upwards and it's definitely something I want to do. But also on the flip side, I really like being involved in the day-to-day creative. Like there's still that. Little young designer in me that's happy with my barbecue ad and the TV guide. And you get to a point where you step away from the craft and you have to think, you know, somebody might create something that's not how you would've done it, but it meets the brief. So it's successful. I, I'm on that edge now where I think, okay, I can focus on the craft. that puts a bit of a ceiling on my career. Or I can go to a point where I'm managing managers and climb the career ladder that way. I am leaning towards the career ladder, but I'm not opposed to either I like to have a loose direction but I won't be so blinkered that I won't look sideways if something shiny pops up. I'll head in that direction, but I don't know what tomorrow's gonna have. I might see something on LinkedIn in a month that looks fantastic. something completely different. So I have a direction, but I dunno if I'll get there.

David:

am I right in, in thinking from that answer that you now are expecting at least, and, and your base cases that you will spend the rest of your career working in-house in. Some kind of creative capacity. does that mean you're not sort of contemplating going and working for a studio or studying your own studio or anything else that at the start of your career looked to you like, success?

Dan:

Yeah, I don't really know. for the foreseeable future, I will be in-house, I believe. i'm not opposed to the idea of a studio. I'm not opposed to the idea of being a digital nomad and taking my laptop and living in Bali. That sounds fantastic. what I do want to have is some sort of autonomy in my role. I like to feel like I'm making a difference and not just following orders. I still do want to be close enough to the craft and design aspect that I might not necessarily be doing it, but at least close enough to be reviewing it or appreciating it.

David:

So Dan, I, I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down for this interview, have this conversation with me and I, you know, obviously we know each other really well and, and I know your story in, in the broad outline.

Dan:

Mm-hmm.

David:

But hearing you tell it in this detail, it really strikes me that you've had such an incredible. Journey. It really is an incredible path, and I don't think it's something that you ever expected to happen.

Dan:

absolutely. Not

David:

absolutely. Pretty much at any point in the journey, including at the point of applying for the job that you're in right now, which, which is quite funny to me in, in a way, but I think it's such an interesting story and I think it's such a, a credit to you that you've, taken. positives from your childhood in, in some sense, because you've taken that work ethic message and that, thing your parents instilled in you of making sure that whatever you do, you do it well. it's very clear to me that you are passionate about what you're doing you're very driven and you make sure that you give it your all. thank you from me, and I hope at some point in the near future, you end up in Bali. maybe you're running your own agency making millions, from the beach. or maybe you end up. in an incredibly senior job, at booking.com or somewhere else,

Dan:

I dunno what it is, but I look forward to it. thanks for having me on. I was very flattered to receive the invite. It, it's nice to talk about it. It's nice to go into the details of what I've done. I was listening to your episode with V and what struck me about that was you had this very successful person who also spoke about her career journey in a way that said to me like, it's okay to go down a different path, to try a new thing, to jump into the unknown, and you know, your land somewhere. So it's quite refreshing and I think that we should be talking about this stuff more and hearing other people's journeys. So I hope that something I've said has helped somebody, like the way V has spoken about things has helped me. So thank you very much for having me on.

David:

Thanks, Dan.

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David Stephens

Host
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Daniel Bell

Guest