My Destination Team

Raheem is from Nigeria but was born in Kenya. He spent majority of his childhood living in different countries because his father is a diplomat. He has lived in Kenya, Nigeria, Germany, South Korea, and the United States. Raheem went back to the United States to begin his university studies. During such time, he was given the opportunity to study abroad in the United Kingdom for one semester. Raheem soon fell in love with the UK and wanted to travel around Europe to experience the various cultures. He ended up completing is degree in the UK and earned a bachelor's degree in Computing.

He enjoys travelling, listening to music, going out for drinks with friends, movies, and reading about politics and history. A technology geek who is obsessed with electronic gadgets, Raheem hopes to start his own technology company one day and enter into politics.

With 14 years of travel industry experience, and the last 6 in the online marketplace with names such as Laterooms.com and Moneysupermarket.com, Duncan heads up our E-Commerce. Growing up in the south of England, he graduated in European Law, but being a culture vulture, preferred to pursue a career in travel rather than do the lawyer thing. He is currently based in leafy Cheshire with his wife, his two young children and his chocolate Labradors – so he likes coming to work for a rest. Well-travelled in Europe and speaking German and French, Duncan used to live in Austria and is a fan of the Sound of Music, winter sports and anything involving mountains, or snow, or both. Most of Duncan’s plans revolve around food or travel, and his hobbies include football, cooking, teaching his children manners, and plotting his next overseas escape.

Dennis was born and raised in Bruges, Belgium. Here he quickly realised the city's popularity with tourists and their obsession with taking photographs of everything they discovered. From an early age he always wanted to travel to distant places and explore the world for himself, bringing back photographs as trophies.

Along with traveling and photography, Dennis also loves music and movies as well as horticulture - which would explain why he used to work in a garden center. During this period, he took time off to travel to places such as Mexico, Sri Lanka, India and Australia and travel quickly became a real passion. Another passion of his is being creative; painting, drawing or anything which feeds his creative mind.

Dennis took a graphic design course in Belgium and later on, a web design course at the Marbella Design Academy. He grew to love the Spanish culture, the language and the weather and decided to give life in Spain a chance. Now working as a Graphic Designer with the team at My Destination he couldn't be happier, as he gets to combine two of his greatest passions.

Giampiero is from Italy, he grew up in the beautiful and sunny Alghero, one of the most touristic places of Sardinia. After a degree in Economics and some years working as a financial consultant in 1998 he decided to follow his passion for the web, starting a web agency/hosting provider company and his career as a 'self-made' Web Developer . In 2007 he decided to leave Italy and his company to work as contract developer, looking for the most interesting ColdFusion projects in Europe. He worked in Madrid, Brussels and Barcelona. When he is not working, studying or testing new features, he enjoys photography, playing sports (above all biking and spinning) or spending time with his wife and little daughter. He hopes to find enough time to train with his mountain bike to do 'La Ruta De los Conquistadores' in Costa Rica, the world's toughest mountain bike race!

Born in Lincoln in the UK, Kirsty studied for a French and Hispanic Studies degree at the University of Sheffield where she lived & studied in Quebec, Canada for 6 months as well as spending 6 months living and studying in Seville, Spain. Upon completing her degree she moved to France and worked as an English teacher at L'Université du Maine, Le Mans for a year before returning and completing an MA in Broadcast Journalism. After a successful work placement at British Sky Broadcasting she took up a position as Assistant Producer for Sky Travel, filming in numerous locations from Portofino, Rome & Amsterdam to on a glacier in Iceland, surfboard in California & on skies in Mammoth Mountain! As well as being lucky enough to see the world through work, Kirsty has also spent time travelling through Asia & South America where she trekked the Inca Trail. Aside from travel Kirsty loves running has completed the Berlin & French Rivera Marathons as well as a gruelling 65km mountain race in Penygolosa, Spain.

Allan is from the UK, born in Preston, Lancashire and then lived for 10 years in Somerset. After finishing his course at Coventry University, he went directly to Spain and he has lived there since. He spent some time teaching English to help him get to grips with the Spanish language and culture and has been working with Coldfusion and internet application development for over 10 years. He is fully bilingual and would like to learn another language someday. Outside of work he enjoys travelling, especially hiking.

Born and raised in Marbella, Alex has the honour of being the company's first employee. Having moved through various departments, he now heads up the support team in Spain. A fan of all things tech, he enjoys problem solving and hopes to help everyone get the most out of their digital experiences!

Outside of work, he loves to play guitar, day-trade US penny stocks, tell everyone what an amazing programmer Bruno is, practice CrossFit & and learn as much about tech geekery as he can fit in to each day. He lives with his girlfriend Charlotte & 2 dogs, who try their hardest not to look embarrassed when they go running in the hills and Alex brings his snorkel along.

Jake was born in Kent, South East England and has always had a keen interest in design and sketching from a young age. Jake jumped at the opportunity when he heard there was a job available on the Multimedia team. While trying not to confuse too many people by being the third person with the surname Collins in the Marbella office (only 1 of whom he is related to), Jake's already very much enjoying both the new job role and location!

Lee was born in London and started his working life in stock broking and banking working for Chase Manhattan Bank, Credit Sussie and Kleinwort Benson. He left the city and became an Independent Financial Advisor, selling his successful business in 2002 before leaving the UK to work in Hong Kong. Another business opportunity presented itself and this lead to Lee travelling between the UK and Marbella. Lee fell in love with Marbella and decided that's where he wanted to live and work. Lee introduced the first virtual tours & videos to the mymarbellainfo site, which worked so well, My Destination decided to incorporate them on all other sites, so he has now joined the My Destination team as head of multi media guiding and training destinations in making virtual tours & videos. The only thing he misses about England are his two sons - Karl (24) and Jake (21).

Zoe was born in Cheshire, UK. After a degree in mathematics and business which she studied in London decided to move to Spain for a couple of years to experience a different culture and gain work experience. Here she spent several years working in real estate for a family company and making a great network of friends. In 2008 she decided to move to Manchester to become a PA/ Events Co-ordinator as she has always had a great passion for organizing events. After a 3 year stint in the UK Zoe decided that Marbella was the place she wanted to be so packed up and headed back to where she now calls home. Zoe spends her free time out with friends, at the beach, enjoying a nice meal, walking, dancing, going to concerts, playing the odd game of poker and the gym. She is also determined to learn snowboarding this year in Sierra Nevada.

Fariana is from Venezuela, after a degree in graphics design she decided to follow her passion for digital photography. With more than 10 years’ experience as a digital creative designer she has worked for many famous wedding photographers in Latin America. Fariana moved to Spain 3 years ago and worked as a freelance photographer and graphics designer in Madrid and Barcelona. She is now based in Marbella and is really excited to work with My Destination, discovering the world through the thousands of beautiful pictures and virtual tours that get taken. Outside of work Fariana is a fully dedicated mother of a 3 year old daughter, who’s also the main model for her photographs.

Omar was born and raised in Marbella, Spain but has Sri Lankan origins. At an early age he showed a keen interest in creative activities, like drawing and painting. These interests grew throughout his time at school and eventually led him to London to find inspiration and further develop, and experiment with, his skills.

Omar then discovered his passion and primary focus in the creative arts - animation - and did his degree for a Bachelors Honors in Computer Animation at London Metropolitan University.

After his course, he was introduced to My Destination by a colleague to begin his career as a Graphic Designer. Omar’s main interests are playing music (guitar and drums), painting and drawing (digital and traditional) and his friends. He is also involved with making décor for various parties, events and festivals; pieces such as UV backdrops and organic 3D design.

Marianna was born in Hungary and raised in the tourism industry due to family business. At an early age she already discovered her passion for languages and different cultures, so at 19 she moved to Germany to study and started to work as an event manager. Later on she was travelling across Europe, looking for new adventures and gained exciting work experiences. At one point she found herself living "la vida loca" in Marbella in Spain where she prior attended a language course and fell in love with the city. Marianna than started her 4 successful years as an event and marketing manager at the most exclusive beach club on the Costa del Sol, Ocean Club Marbella. Thanks to her job she got in touch with the team of My Destination which now joins taking the newly created role of Franchisee Support Manager. Outside of work she loves cooking, skiing and beach volleyball.

Victor was born in Bergen, Norway. His father is Norwegian and his mother is Polish. He has lived half his life in Norway and the other half in Poland, as well as 2 years in Berlin, and 1 year in Monda, Spain, where he went to the "Marbella Design Academy" and studied graphic design. Because of all this moving in his life, Victor loves to travel, visit new places and experience other cultures. He is fluent in Polish, Norwegian and English and is keen to learn Spanish! Victor enjoys snowboarding, listening to loud music, beaches, and generally enjoying life to the fullest. He is now happily moving back to the Costa del Sol from rainy Norway and is very excited to join the My Destination team.

Richard was born and bred in the South East of England and moved to Spain 18 months ago. After an intense road trip through Europe, he decided Spain was the place to live. Richard worked for 6 years as a Web Developer in the tourism industry, spending any spare time snowboarding, playing tennis and topping up the tan on the beach. With a passion for anything motorised Richard is a huge car and motorbike lover and has wasted 50% of his earnings on this hobby. In the true British style Richard speaks next to no Spanish but is determined to learn.

Miles was born and brought up in the UK. Having spent a year in Brussels prior to going to university, he returned there after his studies, where he spent a further 5 years trying to work out what on earth the European Union was all about. Deciding that this was a thankless task, he moved down to Spain in 2000 where he got into web development and database-driven web applications in particular. Initially linked to the property sector, this work has more recently revolved around the travel industry. As the father of two young children, Miles isn't allowed any outside interests.

John was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa but know bases himself in Marbella where he has been living for a year and a half. Before Marbella he had lived in London for ten years working as a web designer and a part time DJ. He’s passionate about art and design and has a geeky love of technology. John’s addicted to motorbikes and spends most of his spare either exploring the Spanish country or doing superbike track days at various tracks around Spain. In the winter you will find him in Sierra Nevada where he spends all his spare time snowboarding. John lives in Nueva Andalucia with his girlfriend and their crazy little dog and tries to do as much travelling as possible.

Fay was originally from the UK and moved to the south of Spain 8 years ago having already undertaken a fair share of travelling around the globe and with her studies in Politics, Economics and Modern languages (French, Spanish and Portuguese) under her belt. She began her Spanish journey in the relatively sleepy town of Nerja and Marbella became Fay's home just 2 years later where she has lived ever since with her young daughter, Jazmin. Before joining My Destination Fay has enjoyed a successful career in the glossy and glamorous world of magazine publishing, working with the many prestigious businesses in the Marbella area. Fay joined My Destination in Oct 2010 and is now loving bringing her years of print experience to the digital world in her role as Manager at My Destination Marbella. Fay's passions in life outside of her work include Cooking & Entertaining, Fitness, and of course Travel!

Since sliding down the chute in 1986, Will has been fascinated by the world and everything in it. Renowned for his inability to tell good stories down the pub and his alarming knee-shakes when giving a presentation, he quickly turned his attention to writing. After finishing a History Degree at Winchester, he took a course in Journalism, following which he worked on various publications, including the Independent's 'Traveller' supplement and Lonely Planet magazine.

His greatest achievement is making it to a snowbound England for his My Destination job interview. The journey took ten months and four days, and included a 10,000 mile road trip through Australia, a series of challenging bus rides across Vietnam, a trek in the Nepali hillside, a foray into the utter chaos that calls itself India, an overnight bus from Frankfurt to London and a short ride on the Tube – one change, no delays.

Korean-born Carl was running amok in kindergarten and primary school in Buenos Aires before the city became a fashionable destination for steak hungry tourists and side stepping tango lovers. In Australia he discovered the East Coast, began high school, completed university with degrees in Commerce and in Electronic Arts, but before you could ask “where the bloody hell are you?� he landed in London where he still finds himself and unable to comprehend the chip butty. Having worked in various financial companies (in retail banking, investment banking and asset management), online publishing, usability consultancy (for leading brands such as Sky, Ladbrokes, Virgin Media, and Nokia) in places such as India, Singapore, Sydney, Dublin, Helsinki, Frankfurt and Stockholm Carl is finally combining his experience in digital media with his interest in travel. When travelling he is taking photographs and when he is not he is looking at travel photography. He looks forward to the day when computers come without keyboards and networks are ubiquitous.

Bruno was the first application developer to join the team in early 2009. In his time with the My Destination team he has helped implement some huge changes which have drastically changed and improved the business as a whole. Dealing with thousands of lines of codes, researching for JavaScript tricks, building complex SQL sentences, configuring the server settings is all in a day's work for our super techy. Bruno, from Peru, is now settled full time in Marbella with his wife Isabel. He loves everything related to computers and technology, as well as going to the cinema and whenever possible eating Spanish churros con chocolate or pescaito frito.

David was born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. At the age of six he had his first videogame, a small version of pacman and soon he realized that he wanted to create his own games. He studied at UMA computer engineering and started his developer career creating routines for the Nintendo Gameboy console. After that he has been developing Flash games and RIAs for top entertaining companies and has become an expert in data mining, artificial intelligence and augmented reality. While not writing the next "experiment" he enjoys videogames, magic, maths, cooking and fitness.

Alex was born and grew up in Telford, Shropshire, before leaving to study Music at The University of Manchester. After graduating in 2009 he took the opportunity to spend six months travelling around the globe, covering fourteen countries across Asia, Australasia and South America. It was a seminal experience which reached its zenith when Alex was named a winner in the 2010 Guardian Readers' Travel Writing Competition, encouraging him to pursue a career that combines his love of culture and travel with his passion for words and the ways in which they can be crafted and combined.

Alex is also a keen musician who enjoys performing with a diverse range of musical ensembles, and is passionate about sport in all its glorious forms, especially skiing, football and motorsport. In addition, he regards his stomach dearly, and enjoys all things gastronomic. Travel remains central to Alex's interests, and he is ever keen to explore new cultures and embark upon an adventure.

Roland spent a lot of time in front of the camera before spending the last 13 years behind it. Trained in performance arts he was a much travelled performer, director and teacher before moving to Spain in 1999. Having decided that the life of a traveling thespian was not conducive to bringing up a little girl in London, he took the opportunity to join a film production service company in Fuengirola, effectively becoming part of the family business. This involved the high pressure high stress work of managing large TV commercial shoots in difficult and dramatic locations. It got him to most corners of Spain, and also got him a birds eye view of some of the world's greatest cameramen and directors at work. As the crisis hit the film industry in Spain, he jumped ship to one of the world's first internet video start-ups, Videojug in 2006, where he built up the production team and product model. Once Videojug moved operations to the US, he stayed in web video developing his own company and client base on the Costa del Sol, while continuing to work for TV companies on documentaries and reality shows. He has collaborated with Lee Collins for a number of years and it was this relationship that has lead him to develop most of the video formats in use by My Destination. So it seems like a natural progression to be coming on board full time, to push this to the max.

Roland enjoys mountain biking, fishing, photography, playing percussion and cooking, and is a passionate Manchester United fan. He lives in Mijas Costa, Malaga with his wife and two daughters.

Nick was born in Cape Town, South Africa, but moved to southern Spain at an early age along with his family. Having lived here for just over 11 years and having finished schooling in Marbella, Nick is practically fluent in Spanish and is comfortable to call this great place home. His interests are in sports, such as tennis, padel, skiing and wakeboarding, and socialising, but mainly anything to do with computers. Towards the end of his study years, still unsure of where he was going career-wise, Nick was introduced to graphic design through a colleague and found an interest straight away. He has now been with My Destination since February '09 after completing a 3-year graphic design course in Marbella Design Academy and enjoys working with the team as a graphic designer.

Jeff was born and raised in Zürich, Switzerland. He is fluent in French, German and English with a strong knowledge of Spanish. He went to an international school in Zürich to learn English; his parents having the intention to move to the United States someday. This never happened but at the age of 16 he moved down to sunny Marbella. Jeff's main interests have always revolved around sports, computers, art and languages which were elements that he was constantly surrounded by in international schools. Although focusing initially on graphic design, working at My Destination has sparked many further intersts leading him into web design which is now his main role.

Anna was born and raised in London, but has always been one for travel. She lived in Kenya during her gap year before returning to study Management Science at Loughborough University. After 4 years of intense maths and business training, Anna got itchy feet so hitch-hiked around France with some old friends to sample all the culture, wine and cheese the country had to offer!

Anna's passion for digital marketing has led to the completion of a few internships after University within the field before realising she wanted to work in SEO and Social Media. Anna's interests include dancing, going to gigs and festivals and reading - preferably enjoying all three in hotter climates!

Peter was born in a small town just north of London. Before moving to Spain with his wife in 2010, he worked for Cambridge University Press and Save the Children UK. With a wide range of interests, Peter has also worked on TV and film projects, and is an author, illustrator and animator. Always looking for new ways to be creative, he is looking into how Flash games are developed, and animating with techniques including Rotoscoping. With much of the world still to see, he is eager to do more travelling, beginning with exploring every corner of Spain.

Daniel was born in Aalborg, Denmark, and moved to Spain at an early age with his parents and older brother. After finishing school Dan quickly started working in an IT shop in Marbella where he focused primarily on websites and graphic design which soon became a passion of his. It was a great learning experience for him but he wanted to move up and onwards - and so joined My Destination in June 2010. His interests are making music, going to the gym, playing football, computers and socialising.

Having travelled extensively to different parts of the world, Emily combined her key interests in culture, language, travel and the arts with her love of writing by studying History of Art and Italian at the University of Bristol, graduating in 2009. Realising her passions early on, Emily participated in 'Art History Abroad', a six week gap-year program that involved widespread travel around Italy exploring the art, culture and cuisine of the country particularly in the historical centres of Rome, Florence, Venice, Verona, Naples and Siena. After working for several leading contemporary art galleries in London, Emily has returned to develop her passion for writing, love of culture and thirst for adventure.

Originally from a village just outside London, Jessica has visited many places around the world and immediately fell in love with Marbella when she moved there in 2007 with her partner. Having studied Media at London College of Communication, part of University of the Arts, she always knew she wanted to write and be involved in a business where she could be interacting with people.

She began her career on the Coast writing for one of the most successful magazines which gave Jessica knowledge of its attractions and local hotspots. Joining My Destination in October 2010 Jessica brings her experience and local expertise to the Marbella portal and she loves writing the most-up-to-the-minute information about the area. Outside of work Jessica's interests include reading, horse-riding, spending time with family and friends and skiing.

Mark has over 14 years of working as a senior technical consultant\solution designer for a major Worldwide Mobile Operator from when the mobile internet was first born (remember WAP?) and involved in cutting edge projects such as the first MMS platform, Mobile Video streaming and the launch of the iPhone in the UK.. With experience also from his own technology start-up company, Mark brings enthusiasm, passion and real determination to make things happen with everything mobile. The mobile world and technology is changing very fast and Marks fulltime responsibility will be focused on taking advantage of these new developments to really push the mobile travel experience. A keen traveller, Mark ended up in Marbella after timeout traveling Europe in a campervan in the attempt to run from the English weather to live life in the sun, spending his spare time dancing salsa, sailing and drinking mojitos.

John was brought up in Leeds and after attending University in Preston and meeting the future Mrs Williams he moved down to London to see what the bright lights and the big city had to offer. After discovering he had a passion for programming and designing websites he later became part of the team that won a Bafta for the ground-breaking MTV2.co.uk website. His portfolio includes many large scale websites such as Nickelodeon, Football 365, Farmers Weekly, Easynet and Dialog. He later moved to Spain in 2002 and since then has concentrated on creating database driven websites in the Travel and Property sector. Most of his spare time is now taken up with entertaining his energetic children and introducing them to his favourite things such as music, dancing badly and football.