Niall Brogden

Currently working as a Design and Sales Director at Croga Studio Builds, I am fortunate to be in a position where I have worked on projects that have been genuinely interesting and exciting to be a part of. My day-to-day role blends sales, design as a technical sales and project management manager which has helped Croga become a multi million-pound business growing our revenue from circa £800k to £2.8m a year, and working with blue chip clients predominantly in the UK.

As a technical sales specialist my role requires a good knowledge on both construction as well as the latest in studio technology. This often means engaging with specialists in all disciplines to create optimised solutions for a wide range of budgets.

As part of this I worked closely to enhance our partnerships with key suppliers securing on average 15% discounts below market price on the latest technology, In addition to this the partnerships brought an increase by over 400% in referral project value , helping offset difficult market conditions in the past year.

Working closely with the marketing team, I redesigned our website to enhance the customer journey and increase engagement with likely clients. This gave me a greater understanding of Google Ads, targeting key markets and decision makers, ultimately increasing our inbound lead by around 20% per week .

The final part of my job was to oversee the project management of the build projects, with a view to increasing efficiency, I achieved this by focusing on two key factors:

Firstly increasing collaboration between the design and installation teams, an additional day of kick off meetings and review, often saved up to a week on site, as the key build/ installation team would feed into the design, often flagging any clashes of difficulties with projects.

Secondly was creating more agile project approaches, ensuring that materials were on site when needed, and teams didn't overlap/ clash on site.

By focusing on this we increased our build profits by roughly 6% i n the first year without making any changes to our pricing structure.

I would be more than happy to expand on the details / requirements of projects that I have worked. In summary the key facets that I believe bring success include:

· Collaboration and communication

· Attention to detail

· Problem solving

· Detailed understanding of requirements

• I have spent the last few years creating and refining design and project management methodologies which ensure project success whilst fostering a culture of creativity and technological advancement
• The key driving factor behind this has been to provide clients with optimised solutions that encompass their requirements, whilst future proofing our solution in an industry that is rapidly evolving
• In July 2024 I set up Croga Tech Ltd as a subsidiary company to CSB
• The idea being to become a market leader in the supply of tried and tested technology for B2B and B2C sales
• In developing this new business opportunity I have been responsible for developing five key partnerships to date, along with designing and hopefully selling my own patented designs in the near future
• One of the key lessons I learnt from starting a new company was the focus on what our mission was and creating a business that would enable the successful execution of our goals
• As a co-founder and director I enjoyed the strategic planning, and creating business cases for both CSB and CT and it gave me a greater appreciation of both the bigger business picture planning, and the attention to detail that is required for success

• Based in Clerkenwell, London this was a great career change for myself with a big step up in responsibility
• I was able to take a greater leadership role in the capture of new business opportunities as well as creating partnerships with other companies
• This change in job also exposed me to working directly with international clients, after an initial settling in period I worked mostly on European projects, usually in English but also supporting French and Spanish teams
• My main role was to coordinate and manage the large infrastructure bids
• A key highlight of my time with Zaha was working on a project to deliver a brand new city in the desert in Kuwait, something that they had not been successful with in the past
• Working with a team of 7 companies from across the world, some of the challenges included time, cultural and language differences
• Whilst ultimately our bid was unsuccessful, our design was preferred by the client

• Company Overview: Part of a multinational construction engineering consultancy
• Part of a multinational construction engineering consultancy
• Proposal coordinator
• Based in the Holborn head office as part of the Property and Building bids team
• The role involved the coordination of input from the various engineering specialist teams, management of the tender process, design and presentation of PQQs and RfPs
• As part of the bid process, I was involved in the capture planning process
• I took a lead in story board preparation and shaping how our team would answer the bids
• As a part of this I took responsibility for writing sections such as the executive summary, project examples and commercial sections
• Once submitted this was translated into the directors' presentations
• Some of my key achievements included: Creation of the Property and Buildings pipeline for the bid team
• Having set up a forum, I have worked on both capture planning and positioning for the bid team and company overall
• Creation of a specific collateral library for Property and Buildings
• Set up easy access InDesign documents for projects across different sectors
• Built a library of C.V's for key technical staff for inclusion in bid documents
• The benefit of these developments is a significant time saving in compilation of bids, and the ability to create uniform case studies which have the best and most up to date information
• Part of a multinational construction engineering consultancy
• Experience gained: APMP Master Class on proposal writing
• 3/4th June, focusing on the writing aspect of bids
• APMP Executive Summaries, 8th June
• APMP foundation stage practitioner qualification gained

• Company Overview: Manufacturer and wholesaler of thermal measurement instrumentation
• This required me to quickly learn a broad knowledge about the physical and chemical properties of different metals and how they interact in various environments
• Key responsibilities: The design of complex and bespoke sensors and control systems
• Purchasing of bespoke items from other companies at competitive rates
• Account management, specifically working with larger accounts in order to both retain and expand business opportunities
• CRM introduction, management and embedding of multiple accounts under key account profiles
• After a period of six months I was moved over to account management and I worked a sales area within the midlands and Southern England
• I regularly travelled to meet with clients and conduct site inspections
• This really helped develop both my client retention skills as well as expansion, quickly making me one of the lead sales persons within the company
• Manufacturer and wholesaler of thermal measurement instrumentation