Paul Tomes

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

Paul Tomes

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

In 1983, I was approached by New York based Advertising Agency BBDO, to set up Ideadata ... the first computer generated graphics bureau in South Africa.

We produced 35mm presentation slides, video and overhead transparencies (remember those?).

It was an extraordinary period in my life … my first real taste of creating presentations, operating a 24 hour service, with a group of exceptionally talented people, ready to convert a client’s hand-written notes into slides … literally overnight.

A gap evolved

With technology, presentation slides had become world-class, however presenters were still stuck in an ‘old school’ presentation paradigm. Nervous, long-winded and delivered too slowly for a world that had been flung into the fast-lane. At the time, presentation skills training wasn’t considered an essential business skill. This was soon to change.

In 1986, we founded Business Presentation Skills, the first training company of it’s kind in South Africa. It’s still going strong today.

Adding more spark

In 2008, I made a decision to get even closer to the presentation coal-face, determined to add more spark and creativity to business pitches, roadshows, conferences, and corporate videos.

Whilst Pitch is essentially just two full-time people, we are surrounded by a group of exceptionally talented people. Each person works independently and joins us, when his or her specialist skills are needed.

In between consulting and production, I enjoy presenting at conferences. My latest talk is titled “Bottling the Sauce” looking at how companies often overlook a built in strategic advantage, not fully understanding the value of communication skills, in their organisation. Bottling the Sauce offers practical ways to fix this.

The only way out is up

We live in Hout Bay, Cape Town. If you know the place, you’ll know there are only three roads that come over the mountains and down into our village. This means anytime you get on a bicycle for exercise ... every route starts with a long uphill! Consequently, cycling is restricted to days when we have a tail wind!

I play drums in a ‘big band’ jazz band that only does gigs for charity, and sail anything I can lay my hands on.

  • Work
    • Pitch
  • Education
    • Sullivan Upper School, ( same school as Rory McIlroy), Northern Ireland