Meet The Growth
Genie Team
Find out all the info about our team and who we are. We look forward to getting to know you too.
Michael Hanson – CEO/Founder
Weird fact: Lived and worked in Berlin, Johannesburg, Madrid and Medellin before settling back down in his hometown London
About: After working in a variety of revenue roles for 8 years from account management to marketing to sales, Michael realized that the hardest role is to turn cold leads and prospects into warm sales opportunities, yet we often give that responsibility to the most junior people in the company. Michael thus set up Growth Genie in 2019 to help empower them.
Previously, Michael was VP Growth at CloudTask, where he worked side by side with the CEO and COO to scale them from 10 to over 200 employees in just 3 years.
Growth Genie Role: A bit of everything! As CEO, Michael practices what he preaches with sales to win new business, but most importantly he oversees operations to ensure our clients are happy with the quality of training, playbooks and cadences. He is also a regular speaker at events, podcasts and webinars about B2B sales and marketing.
Interests and hobbies: Running, hiking, tennis, techno and football (it’s called football, not soccer 😉
About: From legacy sales to telemarketing, the BPO world to tech, Lawrence has a rich sales background covering almost every vertical. His specialty is the phone but he’s also honed his skills across LinkedIn, email, video and more over the last few years.
Now wearing a much more strategic hat at Growth Genie, he’s focused on bringing in clients who we can really benefit from our work and then supporting them on their journey to achieve success.
Growth Genie Role: Director of Outbound – generate qualified opportunities for Growth Genie that turn into pipeline and closed deals. Also support our clients and partners to achieve the same through coaching
Interests and Hobbies: Cycling, relaxing by the beach and travel
Lawrence Jackman – Director of Outbound
Weird Fact: Lived like a rolling stone for nearly 30 years until growing roots in Nicaragua
Lindsey Ward – Graphic Designer
Weird Fact: My first job was as a blueberry raker in eastern Canada.
About: Journalist, meets graphic designer, meets marketer, meets sales pro, meets master of operations, and communication. Lindsey has worn many hats in her career thus far, and has many, many more to try on. She’s spent the last 5 years with a focus in SaaS partnerships, and sales but has always married the two with graphic design.
Now a contributing designer, and sometimes sales writer at Growth Genie, Lindsey creates graphic content that speaks to the Growth Genie ethos.
Growth Genie Role: Graphic designer, with a side of sales writing.
Interests and Hobbies: I’m never without a pile of books, or travel plans in the works. I also enjoy interior design, painting, and swimming every chance I get.
About: Tom has 10 years experience working across the sales and marketing world in the tech, outsourcing and non-profit sectors.
He began his sales career at a digital mapping consultancy back in 2011 and before joining Growth Genie in 2020, worked for 3 years at CloudTask alongside Michael, Michael and Lawrence, spending the last of those years as VP of marketing, and was instrumental in aligning the sales and marketing teams
Growth Genie Role: All things client content – email templates, LinkedIn cadences, call talk tracks, voice note guides and video examples…
Interests and Hobbies: Natural medicine, growing food and football
Tom Jenkins – Client Content
Weird Fact: Spent a year touring bars in London as a stand-up comedian
Michael Sanchez – Client Trainer
Weird Fact: Took a 6 month vacation in Medellin, Colombia, that turned into a 5 year stay and counting…
About: From door to door sales to retail, SDR to AE, Director to VP, Mike has worn almost every hat in the sales book. At CloudTask he joined as an SDR and was instrumental in the growth of the company, joining as employee 15 and growing it to over 200 people. As top salesperson he rose up the ranks across 4 years from SDR to VP.
Not every great salesperson makes a great Manager or VP but CloudTask’s growth only accelerated as he took on more responsibility. With Growth Genie since early 2020, his role is to help other sales people see the same success.
Growth Genie Role: As Client Trainer, Mike’s focus is on supporting all our clients in active training and coaching.
He offers best practice advice across every sales channel, especially the phone, and listens to live calls and reviews reps work to offer practical advice for improvements
Interests and Hobbies: Traveling with my 2 kids and wife. They love the beach, I’m more of a cabin and lake man. Huge New York Jets fan, anime and board games with the kids.
About: Katarina has almost 10 years of sales experience, having worked across a variety of different SaaS start-ups and scale-ups.
She’s worn many hats: SDR, AE, Sales Onboarding Trainer, AE Manager, and Head of Sales Development.
An American raised in a German-immigrant family, Katarina has lived and worked in New York, London, and Zurich (but please don’t expect her German skills to be on par with her SDR-ing skills!)
When it comes to sales, Katarina is particularly passionate about outbound prospecting, and how it balances strategy, creativity, discipline, and common sense. She believes that prospecting is the most valuable sales skill, and is thus always excited to coach best practices. (After all, she’s never met a talented prospector who didn’t go on to have great career success.)
Growth Genie Role: Client Training and Content Creation.
Interests and Hobbies: Reading, baking, embroidery, sewing, board games, and tending to her plants.
She loves being outside, and is happiest walking, paddle boarding, or volunteering with the Scouts.
She also enjoys antagonising her English colleagues by calling football by its correct name, ‘soccer’ 🙂
Katarina McKeever – Sales Enablement
Weird Fact: Kat worked in a German bar as a teenager, but didn’t know anything about beer. She got fired for scooping the foam out of the steins, because she thought people would want more ‘drink.’
Charles Myers – Head Of Client Content
Weird Fact: I’ve been struck by lightning twice – once in a car and once on a plane…the exception that proves the rule!
About: Having started off his professional life as a lawyer, Charlie then spent 4 years as a full-cycle AE for a legal technology company before reconnecting with our CEO, Michael Hanson, an old friend from their university days.
Charlie had found success using Growth Genie sales tips in his prospecting, and a short LinkedIn message to thank Michael led to deeper conversations around the “why” behind it all. It quickly became clear that it was written in the stars, and it made too much sense for him not to come aboard!
Growth Genie Role:
Charlie draws on his varied professional background and interests to create content for our clients – whether it’s email templates, LinkedIn, cadences, call talk tracks, voice note guides or video examples…he’s able to digest large amounts of information and produce credible, compelling content to support our clients’ outreach.
Interests and Hobbies: Cooking; various sports – football, cricket, NFL, rugby; exercise, nutrition and self-improvement; music/record collecting, and most importantly spending quality time with my wife, Colette and young son, Gabriel.