Our team

ABOUT US

Urban Rhino Team

Our Team

Urban Rhino Gin, is made up of a small team whose energy and passion for both gin and rhinos are infectious (come and visit us at any of our events and you’ll see why!). Each member brings their own strengths and at the core of everyone of us are our:
Values, Beliefs, Personality\Major Urban Rhino Personalities

  1. Generous\Belief in doing good, from the cause and from the product, generosity of spirit in every way
  2. Fun\With light hearted, caring touch.
  3. Authentic\With honesty, clarity, frankness, a true link to the rhino cause.
  4. Storytellers\Listeners, empathetic, in tune with our audience, with a real story to tell.
  5. Changemakers\With the power to make a real change for the better

CEO-Pete Richardson

Pete is a proud Yorkshireman, York City supporter and rhino conservationist! A former national newspaper deputy news editor, Pete was founder of specialist leisure industry PR, marketing and sales company Azalea before moving to South Africa in 2009 to launch the mighty Legend Golf & Safari Resort to the world (Home of the Extreme 19th). While in South Africa, Pete was a co-founder of the South African Golf Tourism Association and is co-founder and a director of The Rhino Orphanage–a world first conservation project in The Waterberg. Pete returned to the UK in 2018 and has been working on a variety of projects as a consultant including as Head of Partnerships for The Slimming Clinic and driving an aesthetics business to become the leading training academy of its kind in the UK. Pete’s professional writing career began in 1991 when he joined the Yorkshire Evening Press in York eventually promoted to become the crime reporter. Stints as a reporter on radio news and as a TV news editor with Tyne Tees followed before he moved to Scotland andr ose to become deputy news editor at The Daily Record. In September 2000 Pete left The Daily Record and established Pete Richardson Communications as a PR and marketing company and a couple of years later rebranded as The Azalea Group (theazaleagroup.com). Although he sold in 2013 it remains the largest and most successful specialist golf PR, marketing and sales operation outside of the US!!Pete’s proudest achievement is co-founding The Rhino Orphanage (TRO) with the amazing Arrie van Deventer. Arrie runs TRO while Pete’s role while he was in SA was to raise the money-which he did rather successfully including signing sponsorship deals with the likes of First National Bank, Lafarge Cement, BMW and scores of others. TRO relies 100% on donations and recently relocated to a new, more secure site, and is supported by Waterberg Rhino UK–and the reason Pete is now involved. While in SA Pete rose to become chair of the exco for the wider Legend Hospitality Group, overseeing five properties with a total of some 750 beds.

CMO-Sarah Anderson

Sarah is a senior brand and demand generation marketing leader with nearly 30 years’ experience. She has a proven track record of driving demand generation, pipeline growth, and customer acquisition through integrated marketing campaigns across multiple channels and segments, leveraging best practices and methodologies such as Sirius Decisions, SaaS, and ABM in both B2B and B2C having owned a property business and now as a CMO for the Urban Rhino Gin Brand. She has a proven ability to define and deliver Go to Market strategies for multiple software companies targeting different markets such as CX and ERP, delivering multi-million-dollar results on numerous occasions.

Sarah is an expert on building a marketing strategy-based business priorities to drive growth which have often been highly complex integrated plans across all marketing channels to drive brand awareness and deliver pipeline–real, quantifiable revenues. For example, in a senior role at Epicor, her team delivered 75% of inbound leads from their global integrated campaign developed to maximise buyer engagement in both new business and customer audiences, across multiple markets, sectors, and personas. she’s also been responsible during her career for heading up: field marketing, PPC, digital programmes, ABM, partner marketing, channel enablement, nurture programmes, direct mail, telemarketing, events, PR and social media. She knows how to create and implement successful marketing strategies. While only in her role at Oracle for just 12 months she made an impact creating a new GTM strategy for the EMEA region in line with key business priorities. This resulted in her team achieving regional marketing goals in excess of 150% of a stiff target.

Becky Holland, (CEO, BH&P), White Rhino Gin Company Board Member

Becky is CEO of BH&P a creative marketing agency as well as sitting on the board of Urban Rhino. Becky has worked in marketing and advertising for more than thirty years. Beginning her career supporting Microsoft and TI Information Engineering, she moved to global agency network TBWA\in her mid-twenties, going on to run the advertising and marketing accounts for brands such as Marks & Spencer, English Heritage, Unicef and NatWest. Becky is a qualified growth coach, and spent three years working “client-side” as marketing director for a small leadership training business, before setting up her own agency, BH&P, eight years ago. As leader of BH&P, she has spearheaded a range of client accounts-from Crimestoppers and the British Business Bank, to Sea Change Wines and Purition, as well as training, inducting and supporting the team. Becky sits on the board of REDA, Reading’s Economic and Destination Agency, where she runs the subcommittees for marketing and inwards investment, with a particular interest in supporting ESG initiatives, improving the lives and wellbeing of residents, and encouraging talent to move to the area. Personnel Profile: Becky is passionate about work that makes a real difference to peoples’ lives. She is a champion for sustainable change and hosts the No Bull Marketing Idea cast.

The founders

Billy James

Billy started his career with First Chicago Bank where he was accepted on an overseas student sponsorship program, completing his Bachelors’ degree at Robert Morris University, Illinois. Following an internship, Billy went on to become a Technology Business Analyst with First Chicago Bank with an integral role in supporting the FCB’s Treasury’s infrastructure needs during the 1993 acquisition of Lake Shore Bancorp, and again in the 1995 $5 billion merger with the Nation Bank of Detroit. Subsequently Billy was promoted to Senior Technology Business Analyst with both First Chicago Bank and then Bank One Corporation in Columbus, Ohio. His responsibilities included identifying the differences in the two businesses’ processes and recommending infrastructure changes to harmonise their technology infrastructures to facilitate a seamless merger of the two companies’ procedures. Working closely with technology partners on system designs, Billy worked with a team that created test plans and test scenarios and was often charged with presenting and reporting their findings to the Treasury’s Group Finance Director .In 2006 Billy used his knowledge and experience in technology infrastructure to set up his own company, initially a marketing company but quickly identified a Client Relationship Management system that could be adapted to provide a marketing solution for most online businesses. The system was further developed so that it could be bespoke and adapted at end user level and the business grew into a 20-strong team. In 2015 the company was acquired by The Publishing Group based in London, and Billy stayed on in an advisory role for a further 12 months. Billy’s expertise provided White Rhino with the ability to maximise the use of modern technology in developing on-line sales systems combined with optimum use of social media.

John Heeds

Having started work in the City of London for a major UK insurance company and subsequently for two independent stockbrokers, John Heeds spent over 30 years with The Bank of Nova Scotia, a leading Canadian bank with a significant international presence. A spart of Scotiabank’s Corporate Banking division in London, John was responsible for producing new, credit worthy, corporate business and managing the subsequent relationships. As a result of leading the Bank’s first corporate syndicated loan and arranging the debt for the management buyout of the UK’s largest vehicle auction business, as Managing Director, John formed the Bank’s Corporate Finance & Syndicated Loan Group. In addition to being involved at various significant levels with senior debt for leveraged buyouts and investment grade corporates, John also created a successful secondary debt trading group to widen the Bank’s distribution capability and spread risk. John has a wealth of experience, within a leading financial institution with a strong credit culture and brings with him expansive knowledge gained through lending to and distributing corporate debt.

Michael Hall

Michael Hall has held senior board level positions with some of the UK’s leading insurance and fund management companies. In a career spanning more than 30 years Michael has worked both in the UK and more latterly specialised in international markets. As Sales Director of Scottish Life International (a joint venture company between RCM Global Asset Management, a Dresdner Bank company, and Scottish Life Assurance Company of the UK) Michael sat on the main board and was responsible for world-wide sales. Reporting directly to the Managing Director he was also charged with advising the board on which territories to establish branch offices and the costings involved in addition to recommending new product developments. Michael subsequently became Director of International Sales, Scottish International Fund Managers and Director of Scottish Capital Protected Funds plc. This company won many industry awards and Michael was successful in overseeing cost effective product distribution via a network of internationally based financial intermediaries and other institutions such as banks and stock brokers. Michael brought to the company a wealth of sales, distribution and business development expertise.