Paul Delaney
Contents
Introduction
Paul Delaney is a Scottish Entrepreneur, Publisher and SEO Professional based in Valencia, Spain. Paul has a three decade long track record of generating growth for brands in the Education, Travel and Leisure sectors.
Paul has worked with and for a diverse range of clients and employers, from start-ups to PLCs, and has helped brands break £1million, £10 million, and £40 million revenue for the first time in their history. He has also helped brands with multi-million pound losses turn their fortunes around in record time. Paul also performed as a DJ for over two decades under the stage name EL dEL and has released podcast mixtapes and track-remixes under that name. He holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing from the Digital Marketing Institute, a BA in Publishing from Edinburgh Napier University, an UCLES CELTA certificate, and an Ableton Live Certificate in Music Production from Point Blank Music School.
Early Life and Education
Paul Delaney was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he displayed a keen aptitude for English, and an interest in Sport, Entrepreneurship and Music from a young age. Inspired by the success of charity fund raising initiatives they were involved in, Paul and his friends started car washing and newspaper delivery enterprises when they were just eleven years old, and continued with money making schemes throughout their secondary school education at Trinity Academy.
Paul also participated in a lot of sport in his teenage years representing both his school and also Boroughmuir Rugby Club, and in 1995 he was a key player in the team that won the 1995 Under-18 Scottish Cup. His early interest in music led to a few years of trying out different instruments and eventually gravitating towards DJing and club culture. Combining his interest in business and also music, Paul began working at seminal Edinburgh club night, (Club) Madchester in the summer of 1995. Not long after his 18th birthday Paul and his flatmate began to promote and perform as DJs at their first own regular club night events too, his partner was the now notable Scottish DJ and Promoter Astrojazz/ Chris Knight.
Paul attended Edinburgh Napier University from 1995 and earned a BA in Publishing in 1998. At university Paul excelled in particular with the commercial, design and editing aspects of his coursework, which allowed him time to pursue his businesses interests in parallel to his degree. As well as promoting and performing at his own events, Paul worked closely with Events Armoury managing, promoting and performing at events. As part of his role, Paul built up a daily nightclub publicity distribution service that stretched across 11 university and college campuses in Edinburgh. In the evening at the weekends, when not DJing, Paul led teams of up to 30 managing night club events and distributing publicity at strategic points around Edinburgh's city-centre. The organisation's activities peaked in 1996 and 1997, running over 10 in-house events and producing posters and publicity for most other nightclub and live music events in Edinburgh. At this time Edinburgh was one of the epicentres of youth culture in the UK after the success of the movie Trainspotting.
From early 1996 onwards, Paul was the main DJ at the Madchester event as it grew from strength to strength in the Edinburgh club scene and packed in massive crowds at La Belle Angele, The Music Box, The Jaffacake and other Edinburgh venues. In 1997 Mani of The Stone Roses and Primal Scream performed at the club's 5th birthday party in La Belle Angele. Paul to had gone from a fan working on the cash desk of the night to performing alongside one of his musical heroes in only a couple of years.
During this time the guerilla marketing campaigns used by Paul and his club promoter mentor Steven Cummings, gained the night it's first nationwide media attention, in International DJ Magazine and in Loaded Magazine. The coverage focussed on the inventive flyers that made use of what we now refer to "photoshoping" the heads of Shaun Ryder and Bez of Happy Mondays/Black Grape into old movie posters, or band photos and so forth. This was at least a decade before this style of meme and mashup publicity became commonplace. The inventive promoters also paid students to place a projector in the window of their flat and had it switch on/off at nighttime to project a moving image of the poster for their next event into a very prominent position on an historic building in Edinburgh, also gaining local media coverage for the stunt. The promoters of Ministry of Sound pulled off a similar stunt on Buckingham Palace and were widely recognised in the national news media as being guerilla marketing "innovators" for their one-off stunt, almost two years after the Madchester promoters had been doing it on a weekly basis in Edinburgh's city-centre.
Career
In 1998 Paul Delaney took a summer job at Basil Paterson, a notable English Language school in Edinburgh, and continued to DJ at weekends. This role gave Paul his first experiences of a multinational company as the school was acquired by the OISE Chain. A notable colleague of Paul's that summer was Alison Johnstone, now an MSP for the Scottish Green Party. When Alison left Basil Paterson to pursue her career in Politics, Paul was offered her role and a full-time contract at the school. He was very keen to explore the opportunities that the international education sector presented him and very quickly was able to put to use his sales and marketing experience promoting the school at industry marketing events and on a trip to Spain to meet agency and affiliate partners. Paul returned from this sales trip with contracts worth six figures to the company, and shortly after was offered a full-time sales & marketing position in the OISE brand's head office in Oxford, England.
Paul's career in international education took off when moving to Oxford and he began to travel internationally extensively to promote English, French, Spanish and German courses at schools in the countries they were spoken. At this time Paul's interest in technology and digital marketing also increased as he introduced the multinational to the opportunities of email marketing and using PDFs, revolutionising the sales and marketing processes of a multinational company turning over more than £10 million, before he was he was 25 years old.
In 2003 Paul decided to take a break from the commercial side of international education and studied to become an English language teacher, and moved to Valencia, Spain in 2003. Paul quickly found a teaching job, learnt to speak Spanish and was soon running his own small teaching operation as a freelancer with International companies, as well as teaching students at a school, working in a local Bar, and DJing. Paul continued to DJ at the (Club) Madchester events in Edinburgh, which at this time were running twice per year, but were as popular as ever and the night was beginning to become one of the longest running brands in the Scottish and UK scene.
After a few years in Spain, in 2006 Paul returned to Oxford and OISE in a management position at the now sizeable multinational. His role involved not only management of all agent/affiliate relationships for the parent brand, but also promotion of 6 other brands, and training and guidance for their sales and marketing teams. In 2008, Paul moved to the prestigious Eurocentres Foundation and headed up the chain's sales and marketing efforts in Russia/CIS, North and Central America, and also in the Middle East.
In 2011 Paul was approached to join EAC Language Centres, which had been recently bought by TUI Travel PLC as it ventured into the international education industry. This was Paul's first step into senior management and in his first year heading up the struggling brand's commercial efforts, he was a key member of the team that took the company from a net £3 million loss into an operating profit for the first time in several years. Despite this achievement, in 2013 EAC was merged with sister brand ELC to create a new company, and most of the commercial team were made redundant, including Paul. TUI never again achieved the success in international education that they had with Paul and his team, and due to poor commercial performance, were forced to sell their once again loss-making brands in the sector a mere 18-months later.
Disillusioned with corporate politics, Paul moved to Zurich and began to work as a commercial contractor for education businesses. In 2014 he consulted for AEC Education Group PLC with the expansion of their services, ultimately setting them up with a new multi-million pound revenue stream.
From late 2014, Paul took a year-long career break from Education to focus on full-time care of his infant son and studied music production as he continued to DJ in Scotland, and at guest slots in Switzerland with producer DJ Groovecellar.
Returning full-time to international education in early 2016, Paul's services were sought out by the Hallmark Property Group as they constructed educational accommodation and study facilities around London as part of their £500m portfolio. Paul took their loss-making English language brand and used email and affiliate marketing tactics to turn it into a multimillion pound success in only one sales cycle. In the process of generating healthy net profit margins for Hallmark, Paul lead the commercial team that created one of the largest international summer schools the UK has ever seen, with more than 2000 students taking courses at the Colindale centre over 7 weeks in the summer of 2017. Faced once again with corporate politics in international educational, Paul parted ways with Hallmark and, again, the organisation has since failed to achieve the success they did while working with his team.
In parallel to Paul's career in education, his business interests in club and concert promotion had continued, and grown considerably, during this decade. The (Club) Madchester brand had rode the wave of renewed interest in UK guitar music from 2006 onwards and had grown to average monthly crowds in excess of 750 people at Edinburgh's Liquid Room, the owner now being a partner in the promotion of the events. Monthly events also ran in the basement of Glasgow's legendary Admiral Bar.
Many notable guests appeared at the club nights Paul and Steven organised under the Madchester brand. They gave first DJ "gigs" to Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, and Tim Burgess of The Charlatans - both events breaking attendance and revenue records for The Liquid Rooms. Their nights in Edinburgh and Glasgow played host to many other DJ sets and by stars of the UK's alternative music scene, including:
- Mani of Stone Roses - Clint Boon of Inspiral Carpets - Peter Hook of New Order - Bez of Happy Mondays - Rick Witter of Shed Seven - Andy & Jez from Doves - DJ Dave Booth - original Stone Roses DJ - Terry Hall of The Specials - Steve Craddock of Ocean Colour Scene
They also promoted live music events including performances by Northside, Stereo MCs, The La's (acoustic), Shed Seven (acoustic), Tom Hingley of Inspiral Carpets, and many more.
In what was a huge honour for Paul to promote, Peter Hook & The Light's first ever concert outside of Manchester took place at The Liquid Room in conjunction with a Madchester night in 2011, as Hooky toured the Joy Division debut album after his split from New Order. Videos of the gig can still be seen on YouTube and Facebook. At that time, Factory 251 had trademarked the Madchester brand, but gave verbal permission for it's use at the events in Central Scotland that Steven had started and later partnered with Paul in.
Paul was also booked to play guest DJ slots at other club nights, festivals, or to warm up for bands touring Edinburgh during this period, including official post gig parties for The Charlatans, Beady Eye, OCS, and at the Shiiine On Festival, Exhibit Music, Fabrika De Funk (alongside Shaka Loves You, Sammy Senior, DJ Detta) and others. In 2014 Paul had begun to DJ less in Edinburgh, and not at all from 2015 onwards, focussing more on Glasgow events.
After the Stone Roses had reformed in 2012, Paul and Steven held infamous pre/post gig parties for all their Glasgow gig dates including the final concert by the band at Hampden Stadium in 2017. At their event, they were joined by frequent DJ collaborator Clint Boon, also Dave Booth and Stone Roses tour manager Steve Adge. Feedback online from those who attended all the after-parties around Glasgow that night stated that Paul & Steven's was, again, the best one on offer.
As Paul began a second career break to care for his infant children, the (Club) Madchester events came abruptly to an end in February 2018. It was 23 years and 3 months after Steven Cummings had first started the club nights in November 1994, at Shady Lady's in the Mission, Victoria Street, Edinburgh. The last night took place in The Record Factory in Byres Road in Glasgow, and at the time neither the crowd nor crew knew it would be the last ever night. An acrimonious situation had brought the Edinburgh events to a halt in November 2017. A knock on of this led Paul and Steven to end their partnership in the Glasgow events in February 2018. Outside pressures and internal disputes similar to many situations that happen in the music industry led to the end of their long-term partnerhship. Paul later DJed at the one-off 'Official Madchester' brand event held in The Liquid Rooms in Edinburgh in late 2018, finally becoming an 'official' Madchester DJ after playing sets of that style of music for over 20 years.
Personal Life
Details about Paul Delaney’s personal life are primarily private, but it's known that he resides in Valencia, Spain with two sons.
Gallery
References
Personal Life
Details about Paul Delaney’s personal life are primarily private, but it's known that he resides in Valencia, Spain with two sons.
Gallery
