Shaun Thomson CEO of Sandler UK
Shaun Thomson, CEO of the Sandler Training organisation in the UK, started the Sandler Training office based in Oxford in 2003. Originally Shaun trained as a Chartered Civil Engineer at the University of Birmingham, then, after completing a Masters degree at Strathclyde University in 1986, he moved into the corporate world of IT and Telecoms. Shaun has worked with Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, EDS and IBM. His last corporate post was with Fortune 500, Lucent Technologies and their spin off company, Avaya taking this from start up to a $35 million turnover.
Shaun and his team, based in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire are now coming up to their 10th year with Sandler. Shaun is also the Master Franchisor for the UK and remains passionate about helping his clients (entrepreneurial companies and the other Sandler Training Franchisees) increase their customer base and grow their business.
Dave Mattson oversees the corporate direction and strategy for the company’s global operations including sales, marketing, consulting, alliances and support. His key areas of focus are sales leadership, strategy and client satisfaction.
Under Mattson's leadership, the Sandler organisation expanded domestically and internationally to over 250 offices in 27 countries around the world. He added numerous program offerings to Sandler’s training portfolio, including Enterprise Selling, Leadership, and Customer Service programs, along with Sandler Certification, the first measurable, skills-based sales certification in the industry.
Mattson joined the Sandler organization as Vice President of Operations after meeting the company founder, David Sandler, and embracing his philosophies on sales management and training. During this time, Mattson developed programs designed to enable the success of Sandler’s franchisees and increased franchisee retention by 60 percent.
In 1990, Mattson was named Sandler’s Chief Operating Officer, and expanded company operations to serve enterprise and multinational accounts. This initiative developed into the Global Accounts Division, which quickly became the top-grossing division within Sandler's Corporate Headquarters, growing total company revenue by more than 100 percent.
Mattson was promoted to Vice President of Sales in 1992. In this position, he expanded the Sandler brand in the marketplace, secured additional large sales training clients, helped franchisees close deals with their own clients and laid the foundation for scaling Sandler’s sales, implementation and delivery processes. As part of his strategic positioning, Mattson capitalized on rapidly advancing technologies in 2001 to create an e-strategy, the central component of which is Sandler’s digital library. The library became the firm’s most profitable revenue stream, increasing earnings by over 65 percent.
Sandler named Mattson its CEO in 2007. During his years as CEO, revenue from the company’s Global Accounts Division has increased by 53 percent, international revenue by more than 145 percent and total company revenue by 35 percent. Business not only remained stable through the last recession but, in fact, experienced an increased profit margin.