Monty Munford

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Monty Munford (born 4 June 1961) is an English-born tech journalist,^[1] emcee, panellist, moderator and a popular speaker around the world in cities such as London, San Francisco, Beirut, Helsinki, Moscow, Dubai, Lagos, Austin and Dublin at events such as SXSW,^[2] The Europas,^[3] Slush,^[4] STEP,^[5] Startup Village, ZEST,^[6] BDL Accelerate,^[7] Mobile Web Africa^[8] and others.

Early life

Munford was born in Twickenham, SW London and attended Hampton School before doing a number of jobs including working on building sites and managing betting shops in 'tough' districts of London. He left the country to join a kibbutz in 1983 and then travelled the world for the next 15 years.

To fund this travelling, Munford worked for several years (and winters) as a motorbike despatch-rider in London despite breaking his knee, nose, left arm, ribs and nearly having his left foot amputated, before retraining as a journalist at the London College of Printing in 1998.^[9]

Career

Speaker

Munford has recently focused on his career as a professional speaker and conference interviewer of influential tech personalities, highlighted by an hour-long interview with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in Beirut in November 2016.^[10]

Columnist

Munford has been active for 20 years in the mobile and digital sectors, and is a tech columnist for Forbes^[11] in New York and The Telegraph^[12] in London. He writes monthly for the BBC^[13] and regularly for The Economist. He also contributes to TechCrunch,^[14] Mashable, Fast Company,^[15] The Huffington Post and Wired,^[16] MIT Technology Review^[17] and among others. He has a well-trafficked and Google News-verified tech blog, Mob76 Outlook.^[18]

Journalist

As a journalist, Munford has written for The Independent,^[19] The Inquirer, and several games through companies. After resurrecting his journalist career in 2009 while in India, he wrote for The Telegraph, The Guardian,^[20] The Observer, Financial Times,^[21] and The Times of India.^[22]

Munford has also written and self-published The Dust Bowls of Maturity.^[23] He is also a sought-after panellist, moderator and keynote speaker at global events including South By South West in Austin^[24] and The Europas in London.^[25]

Actor

Leaving Player X in 2009, still writing for Times of India, Munford began part-time acting in Bollywood films.^[21] His first role was as a 1930s British officer for the Ashutosh Gowariker film Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey.^[26] His second role was as a Russian gangster name Alexis in the Rohan Sippy film Dum Maro Dum.^[27]

Business

In 2005 Munford joined mobile media games publisher and distributor Player X having previously worked for mobile game testing house Babel Media. In May 2008 it was announced that Player X had made a deal with Paramount Pictures and would be providing feature films for "the 4th screen". After Player X acquired Gaelco Moviles and announced its splitting itself into two companies, and upon the subsequent acquisition of Player X by European mobile content giant Zed in October 2009,^[28] Munford left Player X to devote his time to connecting UK and Indian mobile content providers^[29] working with in Paramount and FC Liverpool, as well as to pursue acting in Bollywood.^[30]

In 2011 after spending two years in India with his young family and consulting for various brands, he returned to the UK and set up his own consultancy Mob76 (a brand name after his graffito tag in the 1980s). Mob76 works with a personalised and select portfolio of companies to help them raise money, raise their profile, connect with the right network and eventually exit via acquisition. Recent successes have seen one company rise in value from $10 million to $400 million, a design company sold for $40 million and a games-based chat platform being recently valued at up to $100 million.^[31]

References

External links

• Mob76 Outlook
• *Monty Munford on Twitter