The lion’s share: Ben Pointing (COO)

This blog series gives insight into the day-to-day life of LoyaltyLion’s leaders. We’ll look at managers from all teams – diving into their careers, roles and daily lives – as well as their mantras and passions.

So let’s meet Ben Pointing, LoyaltyLion’s COO.

What is your morning routine?

I usually wake up at about 7:30am. I’ll usually spend a bit of time checking my emails, Slack messages, my calendar and I skim the news. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work from our office during the pandemic so I have a lovely 15-minute walk into the office each morning. 

I’m in the office by 8:15 am. Typically I use this pre-9am time to prepare for the day’s meetings and do some work that requires uninterrupted focus.

After this, I respond to any urgent emails and Slack messages before spending the first hour of my “real day” on my key task. Then, I normally take a break around 10:30am for a late breakfast and a cup of tea.

What does a typical day look like?

Each day varies at LoyaltyLion – which is awesome! On a typical day, I’d say I spend 60% of my time in meetings but I find most of them useful and enjoyable (hopefully everyone else does too!). With the majority of my time taken by meetings, I tend to do my main “thinking” work in either the early morning or early evening.

Tell us a brief history of your roles before LoyaltyLion

Before I joined LoyaltyLion, I was the Director of Customer Success and Sales at Flock, a business based instant messaging tool. This was a very exciting role where we were building out the functions from the ground up. 

Eventually, I started thinking about moving on from Flock. However, I wasn’t actively looking, per se, when the opportunity for Head of Success at LoyaltyLion appeared. But after a few meetings with Charlie, our CEO, I was convinced and decided to go for it.

What made you choose LoyaltyLion?

The biggest thing that drew me to LoyaltyLion was the company culture; the team was hard-working, intelligent and friendly. Plus the problems they wanted me to work on at LoyaltyLion felt super interesting; I loved the idea of helping entrepreneurs fight against the “big bad” that is the monopolizing force of Amazon. 

What’s your most memorable moment at LoyaltyLion or in another role?

I’m almost exclusively forward-looking so I find these sorts of questions hard. As soon as an outcome has been achieved (or often just before) I’m thinking about what is next. So with this mindset, I’m certain that my most memorable moment at LoyaltyLion lies somewhere in the future! 

How do you spend your evening?

I leave the office between 7:00pm and 7:30pm on most days. Working extra hours is not something we promote at LoyaltyLion, however, with so much of my time taken by meetings, an extra hour here and there just helps put my mind at ease. Plus, it really doesn’t feel like work to me – I love what I do.

I’m big on exercise so almost every evening I’ll do a one-hour training session nearby, either running or swimming. After that, it used to be out to meet a friend or two but during COVID times it’s typically home for food, which is usually take-out as I really can’t stand cooking. Finally, I’ll do a little bit more work (often the “nice to do” tasks that never make the top of the to-do list during the workday) before spending some time watching a film or series. I totally switch off for bed around 12:30am – 1am.

What’s your favorite mantra or piece of advice?

A wise man (my father-in-law, Ken, who has become something of a legend at LoyaltyLion) once told me “talk doesn’t cook rice”. This mantra has stuck with me ever since and I apply it to my life wherever I can. 

It means don’t just talk about doing something, get on and do it. So now, if I find myself talking about an issue for a third time, having taken no action to deal with it, I either actively decide to stop thinking about it (perhaps putting it on a long-list for future reference) or I start solving the issue right away.

I think in the startup world, this advice is particularly useful.

What are you passionate about?

So many things! But my top three are probably:

1. I love work. Being part of a rapidly growing company with a great culture where you get to work on interesting problems is a pleasure. It’s hard not to feel passionate about it, and it certainly doesn’t feel like work to me.
2. I love sports. Exercise, fitness, whatever you want to call it, I’m there. Currently, I’m training for an Ironman that unfortunately should have already happened, but was postponed due to COVID. However, I’m still keeping up my training and aiming towards an even better time when the day finally comes.
3. And, I love politics. I’ve always been a huge politics nerd. I even worked in Westminster for a year helping run an MP’s election campaign and I loved it. Sadly, these days I don’t have as much time to follow politics as closely as I once did, but I still try.

Ben is COO at LoyaltyLion. He joined us almost two years ago as Head of Customer Success. Before long, he added Head of Partnerships to his role before taking his seat at C-level. Ben is passionate about startups and hugely dedicated to fitness. We wish him luck in his eventual Ironman!

Interested in joining LoyaltyLion? Take a look at our careers page for our current job opportunities.