Innovations Manager

In a couple of months, Matt McNamara will be celebrating his fifth year with GDT and at just 27 years old, he has quite an impressive career journey to share.

After a chance recommendation by another member of GDT staff, Matt started out as a yard hand at the St Albans depot, supporting the team in loading and un-loading, operating forklifts and breaking down turf. At this time, Covid had fully hit and the business was experiencing a huge growth in sales as people threw themselves into home improvement projects and garden design.

With only a few members of staff working in the depot, Matt had to learn fast and took on additional responsibility. In just a couple of years, he was managing the depot, looking after customers and drivers, auditing stock levels, managing stakeholder relationships and making sure everything ran smoothly. A huge part of this role involved face-to-face interactions and building rapport with customers, something he enjoyed immensely and excelled at.

Matt said, “I loved building up relationships with regular customers and meeting new ones and getting a real insight into our client’s worlds. If they had a problem, I was often in a position to fix it and provide solutions and I enjoyed looking for trends that could enable us to improve our customer journey.”

Since his early school days, Matt had always had an analytical mind and loved Maths, Science and Engineering and understanding how things worked. His time in the cadets gave him a passion for flying and he was lucky enough to take lessons with several RAF pilots.

In September 2023, Matt’s unique skills were embraced and he was promoted to Innovations Manager, a role he says was made for him.

Matt said, “Ever since I first started at GDT I would come up with new ideas and ways of looking at things and even implemented a few initiatives that helped move our systems from paper to online. I always enjoyed the data side of things and when asked if I wanted to do more I jumped at the chance.

My new role involves looking at GDT like an engine and breaking it down to see where we can make improvements and become more efficient. It’s very marketing focussed and I’ve been analysing data and doing lots of market research so far.

What’s great, is that there is a lot of cross-collaboration between teams and I’m getting to work on new and exciting projects that will hopefully make a significant impact to the business. I have lots of ideas and initiatives to take forward and so it’s making sure all the insight and research is in place to make these successful.

I’ve come from the bottom to the top, and the opportunity is second to none. I love the challenge and the fact every day is different.

Unlike the corporate world, at GDT you’re listened to, and everyone is fun to work with. George is a good boss and if you’ve got the data and idea to back it – he’ll support you all the way.

I like wearing multiple hats and facing new challenges, even when something takes a long time, I get a big high from being able to find that end solution.”

George Davies said, “We’re lucky to have an employee like Matt, he is very driven and creative and likes to see things through to the end. His problem-solving skills and analytical mind has already had a significant impact on the business and the way we think and we’re looking forward to seeing what future innovations he brings to the table.”

Outside of work, Matt keeps his mind and body active, often starting his day with a gym session. Having played lots of football over the years, Matt admits to having a competitive side and is heavily into Golf.

He loves hiking and can often be found researching his next big challenge – Skywalk Madeira is currently on the cards!

He reads regularly and is passionate about learning new skills and improving his own business knowledge and hopes to do a Eurotrip adventure this year.