A first-hand account from… Ben Lambert, Global Partner Manager, Cloud Services, London

“Everyone can have good ideas. Its how you execute them that counts”

I joined Telefónica Digital working for the Advertising team around a year ago. As we were building the team from scratch there was a lot to do, which allowed me to get involved in a wide range of tasks and gave me great exposure to the senior team.

With this came a lot of responsibility but it helped me learn quickly. One of the best projects I got involved in was coordinating the reviews between our operating businesses and senior management in the advertising area, exposing me to a variety of people and interesting challenges.

I now work as a Partner Manager in Global Cloud Sales – I’m using my previous experience from advertising to help with any internal issues and I am on track to start managing my own clients by the beginning of next year.

Another project was our office move to Air Street. I worked with our property team, architects and designers, organising workshops to discuss what the building should be like inside and how to achieve the best environment for the people working in it. We wanted to create a global design representing the diversity and international breadth of our business, together with a local feel.

We decided there needed to be a relaxed approach to the break out spaces (refer image).

It’s a fantastic building (one of the most environmentally-friendly in Europe) which has some great features including solar panels on the roof which provide energy to our building. We even have beehives up there (see below), housing over 50,000 bees, which will start producing honey next year!

One reason I joined Telefonica Digital was the challenge of working across different cultures and bringing the positives from each into one business. I’m hoping to spend 6 months working in South America in the near future, which will allow me to gain a deeper understanding of this.

I went to Edinburgh University and studied Spanish and Russian – quite lucky as most of my friends who studied languages don’t have the opportunity to use them at work.

I didn’t really plan to end up working in a company like Telefonica Digital – I was more focused on the financial markets – but I have really enjoyed the opportunities offered and the exposure I have received to all parts of the business.