Iain Osborne

Last updated
Iain Osborne
FRSA
Born1957 (1957)
Ayr, Scotland
Alma mater University of Edinburgh
Heriot-Watt University
INSEAD
OccupationGlobal marketer
Years active1978 - present
Known forFirst Marketing Director at Yahoo! Europe
Co-founder and Managing Director of chello broadband
WiFi launch across Europe
Children4
Awards Opportunity Japan - Service Industry Success Award (1991)
Best New Media Brand (1997)
Best European ISP (1999) [1]
Internet Superstar (1999) [2]
Marketing Innovator of the Year - World Wide Groundbreaker Award (2000) [3]
FRSA (2016)
Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/helloiain/

Iain William Leonard Osborne FRSA (born 1957) is one of the world's eminent digital marketers. Osborne was the first marketing director at Yahoo! Europe, [4] where he popularised the usage of the nascent World Wide Web. Later, Osborne was co-founder and managing director at chello broadband, [5] which he grew from startup to being the leading broadband ISP outside North America, creating a new vision for and transformation of the world's digital economies. [6] Awards include Best New Media Brand, Best European ISP, Internet Superstar [2] and Ground Breaker Award - International Marketing Innovator of the year. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Osborne was born in Ayr in 1957 to Matthew and Anne Osborne and grew up in Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland. He attended Belmont Academy before going on to study Social Sciences at The University of Edinburgh receiving a B.Sc. in 1978. He studied German Commercial Law at London School of Economics on a scholarship from Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. He then went on to post-graduate studies in European Marketing and Languages at Heriot-Watt University in 1979. Later in his career, he attended INSEAD, France, on a Courtaulds Scholarship.

Career

After postgraduate, he joined the graduate training programme of Clarks in 1979. He since held various senior sales and marketing positions in Bata Retail Europe, L'Oreal, Courtaulds PLC before joining Hilton as Director of Product and Brands in 1990. [7]

Internet Years

In 1997, Osborne joined startup Yahoo! Europe management as the first Marketing Director. [8] [9] During this time and on a startup budget, Yahoo! grew to become the most popular Internet Brand and website across Europe. Osborne and Heather Killen conducted and presented the industry's first European consumer research on Internet Users that ultimately established the commercial potential of Online Advertising in Europe. [4] [10]

Osborne went on to become co-founder and managing director of Chello Broadband NV, [2] the first commercial ISP to introduce high speed Broadband Internet Access in 6 European countries. [3] Also at chello, he led some of the very early research into broadband usage and its impact on changing lifestyles in Europe. [11]

Osborne founded Innovater BV that in 2003 led the launch of WiFi across Europe on behalf of the Industry Association Wi-Fi Alliance of Redwood, CA. [12] Subsequently, in 2003, he founded VONOS, a company dedicated to Voice and Video over broadband services. He later joined XS4ALL to run the VoIP digital telephony services. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet service provider</span> Organization that provides access to the Internet

An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides myriad services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet access</span> Individual connection to the Internet


Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is offered for sale by an international hierarchy of Internet service providers (ISPs) using various networking technologies. At the retail level, many organizations, including municipal entities, also provide cost-free access to the general public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prodigy (online service)</span> Online service that operated from 1984 to 2001

Prodigy Communications Corporation was an online service from 1984 to 2001 that offered its subscribers access to a broad range of networked services. It was one of the major internet service providers of the 1990s.

Chello was the brand of internet service provider-activities of Liberty Global Europe, a provider of broadband internet access via cable in Europe, with estimated 1.3 million customers across its markets. LGE operates in 15 European, 4 Latin American and 2 Asian/Pacific countries. The Chello branded internet service were available in seven of these: Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Slovakia. The Chello brand was introduced in the European market in 1998 and was awarded the best Consumer ISP award in 1999

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plusnet</span> British internet service provider

Plusnet plc is a British triple play internet service provider (ISP) providing broadband, landline and mobile services. The company was founded in 1997 in Sheffield, England, and became a public limited company (plc) in July 2004 when it was floated on the Alternative Investment Market. On 30 January 2007, Plusnet was acquired by BT Group, but it continues to operate as a separate business. By December 2013, it had over 750,000 customers across the UK.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boingo Wireless</span> American wireless network company

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet in Africa</span> Internet access and usage in Africa

The Internet in Africa is limited by a lower penetration rate when compared to the rest of the world. Measurable parameters such as the number of ISP subscriptions, overall number of hosts, IXP-traffic, and overall available bandwidth are indicators that Africa is far behind the "digital divide.". Moreover, Africa itself exhibits an inner digital divide, with most Internet activity and infrastructure concentrated in South Africa, Morocco, and Egypt, as well as smaller economies like Mauritius and the Seychelles. In general, only 43% of the African population has access to the Internet as of 2021. Only 0.4% of the African population has a fixed-broadband subscription. The majority of internet users use it through mobile broadband.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MEO (telecommunication company)</span> Portuguese telecommunications company

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet in Moldova</span>

Internet in Moldova is one of the fastest and least expensive in the world. The country ranks 3rd in the world by gigabit coverage with around 90% of the population having the option to subscribe to a gigabit plan. The overall infrastructure is well developed which allows many users to experience good quality services throughout the country. However, despite high speeds and cheap prices, the penetration level is quite low when compared with many EU or CIS countries. In 2018, 49% of Moldovan households had broadband access. In 2015, there were 80 registered Internet Service Provider's (ISP's) in the country, with the majority being local or regional with only a few offering their services throughout the country. Moldtelecom and StarNet are the country's leading providers sharing around 88% of the market. The remaining 12% are shared between other ISPS, like SunCommunications, Arax Communications and others. Almost all ISPs that offer their services across the country have their headquarters located in the capital-city of Chişinău.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quantcast</span> American technology company

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt B. Britton</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atria Convergence Technologies</span> Indian telecommunications company

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Satjiv Singh Chahil is an India-born American global inter-cultural and inter-disciplinary innovator and business executive. He has been described as a "mission-critical" leader whose "life's work has been to make technology essential to the creative, moral, and fun-loving continuum of human existence."

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References

  1. ↑ "CHELLO BROADBAND WINS BEST CONSUMER ISP AWARD 1999". Response Source. Archived from the original on 6 February 2017. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 Koranteng, Juliana (July 2000). "Chello's marketing chief spreds broadband belief". Advertising Age International. Advertising Age.
  3. 1 2 3 "Chello Broadband Wins World-Wide Ground Breaker Award For Marketing From Multichannel News International". Streaming Media. 9 May 2000. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  4. 1 2 "NTERACTIVE: BEHIND THE HYPE/PROFILING INTERNET USERS: Yahoo's findings prove surfers have a life outside the Net - A survey by Yahoo Europe shows that Netties use the medium to get away from the screen". Campaignlive. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  5. ↑ "Hello, Chello". Forbes. Archived from the original on 8 May 1999. Retrieved 6 February 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  6. ↑ "Breaking the internet's shackles". No. 356, 549. The Financial Times. 9 November 1998.
  7. 1 2 "Iain Osborne (linkedin)" . Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  8. ↑ Press Release. "FIRST EUROPEAN BROADBAND PORTAL COMPANY ANNOUNCES EXECUTIVE TEAM & MARKET ENTRY STRATEGY". prnewswire. PR Newswire. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  9. ↑ Rogers, Danny (12 March 1998). "Yahoo! launches first Euro ads". Campaign. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  10. ↑ Sutherland, Fritha (April 2000). "Chello broadband tunes up UK". Cable and Satellite Europe.
  11. ↑ Osborne, Iain (May 2000). "Horses for Courses". Telecommunications (International Edition). 34 (5): 53–55.
  12. ↑ "About Us". innovater.com (internet archive). Archived from the original on 6 April 2003. Retrieved 8 February 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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