Dave Sampson, Chief Executive Officer
Dave Sampson conceived of and founded Mezzo in 2004. With a background in new product development, marketing and strategic development, Dave has successfully navigated Mezzo’s progress from a simple idea to bring entertainment to people on their travels to a rapidly growing global company with offices in London and Australia.
Dave has a BSc in Marine Biology from the University of Wales, Swansea in 1980 and in 1982 an MSc in Aquaculture and Fisheries Management from the University of Stirling. After three years of working at Stirling University and for the British Government on projects in Southeast Asia, Dave moved to Mars Inc to follow in the footsteps of Dr David Ford, inventor of Aquarian fish food.
After 10 years at Mars Inc., and having developed and launched too many food and non-food products to remember, he moved to Tesco to head up part of the store design team. He designed a new trolley and won an award for visual merchandising before moving on to help launch Tesco Personal Finance, where he developed the first and very successful checkout leaflet system and developed and launched the first Tesco Personal Finance website. Onto Tesco.com and Tesco.net as head of strategy, he realised that new media (as it was known then) would be a fun place to work and eventually headed for Hutchison 3G and “Three” in the UK where he became head of marketing and assisted in the launch of the first 3G service. In April 2003, Dave left to start his own business…
When Dave is not having fun at work, he is having fun at home, and with two boys, it’s not difficult. His latest toy (apart from the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1) is a 600 cc Motorbike and an old piano to accompany his singing (which is good, or so he says). If Wales is playing rugby, it can be very difficult to contact him and he is still hoping to get time to watch Lawrence of Arabia from start to finish.