Manchester-headquartered Total Processing is a rapidly growing fintech company which supports vendors worldwide.
Cameron was formerly CEO of Total Processing, recently moving to become a shareholder and lead on strategy and corporate development, leading a 60-strong team of developers, marketers, sales agents and support staff. In April, Total Processing opened its first non-European office in Dubai, following £5 million in investment from Boost&Co.
Lee previously has experience at organisations including GP Bullhound and KPMG. He is also a Director at premium fashion brand Boda Skins, and Non Executive Director at Single Muslim, the leading Muslim marriage service.
We found out what a recent week in his working life looked like.
Monday
I like to frame my Mondays to be one of the busiest days for me, so that I can really establish the right tone for the week. We’re a largely young company so my French Bulldog, Chase, often joins me on trips into the office to boost spirits and keep our team entertained throughout the day.
Once Chase has made himself comfortable or finished his morning round of hellos, I’ll jump into a sales origination meeting with the rest of the sales department and the senior team to re-establish our target markets and leads for the week going forward. I’ll then join internal meetings to catch up with our core departments such as tech, to ensure we’re hitting all of our key goals and milestones.
Next up my highlight for the day, as we welcome our four new starters. While we recruited a lot over the lockdowns, it’s been extra special to properly greet team members in-person at our new larger office space in the city centre. With restrictions easing, we feel like we’re really able to get back to the Total Processing culture we had pre-pandemic, that we wish our other recruits had been able to get from day one over the last year.
The rest of my day involves speaking with clients directly to bring our potential leads to fruition. As a fast-paced start up, there are no harsh lines drawn in the sand when it comes to delegating a fully comprehensive service to clients. We’ll all contribute to ensure a customer-focused approach is upheld throughout the business – everyone’s got to do their bit.
Tuesday
Tuesday is very much a continuation of our rapid growth as a company. Having nearly doubled our workforce over lockdown and welcoming four new team members on Monday, I spend the day eagerly interviewing more potential recruits to fill our company across several departments.
We’ve been making a real impact over the past couple of years and each time we’ve posted a position at Total Processing, we’ve been receiving more and more applications – as high as 300 to go through per role! The calibre of applicants is outstanding and it’s helping us to build the very best team in the business, as we look to recruit high-flyers that complement our existing set-up.
Following a busy day, I make the most of the sunny weather and take a trip to the Trafford Centre’s outdoor cinema on a friend’s recommendation, where they’ve got a horror experience filled with actors. While I’m new to the platform, a video I took and posted on TikTok has gone unexpectedly viral.
At the time of writing, the video has miraculously hit 25 million views and over 2.5 million likes – not how I expected my Tuesday to wrap up!
Wednesday
I take my first trip down to London since the last lockdown ended to meet with some of our new partners. Despite social distancing and a number of restrictions still in place, it’s exciting to get back down to London, and meet these new partners face-to-face. After being locked indoors for so long, I’m always keen to take a business trip these days!
Whilst much of the week is spent continuously monitoring our internal processes and looking at how we continuously innovate and deliver to best service to our clients, nurturing our partner relationships is an essential part of providing a holistic and global offering to our merchants.
With a continued network of partners, we can ensure that our clients get a service that can scale with them as they grow and meet objective after objective – and I personally like to oversee that.
Thursday
My Thursday really starts to shape up how the following week will look. I begin the day with our weekly board meeting alongside the senior team and department heads.
We’ve recently welcomed Rob Pailin as CEO and he’s making a big impact, bringing in new ideas to help the business move forward and optimise. As a team, we like to reflect on the week so far and raise any interdepartmental issues to ensure that communication within the company is as efficient as possible.
Later in the day, I take part in a few networking sessions as part of Total Processing’s involvement with the Global Growth Scale Up programme. Here, I’m on a roundtable with like-minded business owners who are going through similar growth trajectories. Here, we can share problems, best practice, successes and also take a moment to enjoy the journeys we’re all going on. It’s been a pretty crazy year for a lot of us!
Friday
With plans for next week pretty much established on Thursday, I try to make Friday as calm as possible for myself and the team at Total Processing. We begin the day with our weekly stand-up call for those in the office and those still working remotely, to wrap up on the events of the week.
Everyone at the company has become closer over the last year, and after finishing the last of this week’s client calls, I join them at the ‘TP bar’ with a cheeky (and very frequent) office Deliveroo order. For us, this is the perfect way to finish the week and tees up a great weekend of rest, as we all get to enjoy the sunshine ahead of another busy week!
