From building a telecoms business to pulling Portsmouth FC back from the brink, our Global Sports & Entertainment Director has built a career on instinct, grit, and backing the right people. Here, he shares his wisdom and learnings.

How did you get started?

On reflection, I’ve always been – and I don’t like to use this word too often – an entrepreneur.

With a lot of hard work, and the help of some great people, I built two relatively large independent companies – one in retail and the other in telecoms.

I exited both after many years, but from the 1980s to the late ’90s in retail, and the early 2000s to 2022 in telecoms, both were very successful in their own way.

I started the latter in Spain in the early 2000s. At the time, a lot of Brits were moving to Spain, and Telefónica wasn’t installing landlines at the new estates being built to accommodate the influx of new residents. So, my company, Telitec, which was already supplying cheap calls back to the UK, started installing wireless technology into these urbanizations and giving people internet access.

That doesn’t sound groundbreaking now, but back then it was huge. Early pre-3G wireless technology just wasn’t strong enough, and the ever-growing expat community was used to having the internet back in the UK. By then, it wasn’t just a nice thing to have – for many, it was a necessity.

The business was demand-led – so many expats but no infrastructure. No one was installing landlines. So we came in with an early wireless internet solution and plugged that gap. 

So how did this lead you to the world of sport?

The love and passion of my life has always been sport, specifically football. I’ll sit and watch anything that takes my fancy, but football is my real passion.

In 2012/2013, Portsmouth FC was in danger of disappearing. I had some experience helping clubs in Spain and the UK, and a Pompey-supporting friend of mine asked whether I – given my business background – would try and help, which I did.

The administrator, Trevor Birch – who’s now the CEO of the EFL, and someone I have so much respect for – helped guide us through a really difficult period.

But with the fans and high-net-worth individuals, we managed to take the club out of administration and save it from liquidation.

I agreed to stay on as CEO and during the next four years we turned the club around, returned it to profit, cleared all outstanding debts, achieved promotion, and became one of the only debt-free clubs in the league.

I was then introduced to Michael Eisner, the former Disney CEO and chairman. Knowing his background, I instinctively knew that he was the right person to take the club into the next stage of its journey if we wanted to compete in the Championship and beyond, and continue meeting the huge financial requirements at a then-decaying Fratton Park stadium.

I like to think that we became not just business associates but friends. To this day, I have so much respect for him, his family, and his former right-hand man, Andy Redman.

You then moved to Topps International, is that right?

Correct. Four years into Michael’s stewardship, Covid hit. Leading up to that, he had been speaking to me about a business he owned – Topps International.

As a whole, it wasn’t failing, but the international arm was. The US side was turning over and earning huge sums of money, but the international side was struggling. Turnover was minuscule, the brand hadn’t gained traction, and it was incurring substantial losses.

I went to Topps International specifically for Michael. We built an incredible team that turned that business around during my time as General Manager. It was a really exciting period, and I was privileged to work with some of the biggest football clubs in the world, UEFA, and the biggest leagues, sports, and entertainment brands in the world.

Helping to take the business from where it was to where it is now was probably the most rewarding and biggest achievement of my business career to date.

Michael Eisner once said you were one of the best businessmen he has known throughout his career. That’s quite a compliment!

Yes – coming from him, with all that he’s achieved in business and entertainment, it meant a huge amount. As I said, I have always respected Michael and his career, even before I met him, so to hear that from him is definitely the greatest business compliment I’ve had.

You joined SmartFrame earlier this year. What does your role involve on a day-to-day basis? And what are the biggest challenges?

My title is Head of Global Sports and Entertainment – and it’s a huge, overarching role.

It’s about bringing together sports clubs, entertainers, athletes, and organizations not just to protect their assets but to help them generate incremental revenue from those assets.

For many people, it takes time to wrap their heads around it; they are just so used to JPEGs. They’re used to how things have always worked. So it’s hard to get them to think differently.

The easiest way I can explain it is: “All we need is your content (images) – not only do we protect them, we monetize them for you.” No restrictions. No complicated terms. It’s that easy.

It sounds like your role is as much about education as it is execution.

Exactly.

A lot of my role is about helping clubs and entities understand that SmartFrame is very different from anything that currently exists.

It’s about making the unfamiliar familiar – and showing them just how easy and impactful SmartFrame will be for them. I honestly can’t see any downside. It truly is a win–win for clubs and leagues.

A big part of what I do is creating awareness. Sports clubs are used to a system that’s been around for years. So we’re essentially saying: “This is a new way. This is how we protect your images. This is how you can make money from them.” It’s a completely different approach to where we are now in that JPEGs have lost all value.

And honestly, most people are surprised. Their first question is almost always, “What’s the catch?” Because it just seems too good to be true!

What was the biggest lesson you learned during your time leading Portsmouth FC?

That success is always about the people and the team that you build.

Yes, you need a good product, but ultimately how well you commercialize that product comes down to the people involved. You’re only ever as good as the team around you.

It takes a different kind of person to commercialize an idea, a different specialist to build the product, someone with a different skill set to lead. To be the best you have to have the best that you can attract in each individual area of the business.

This is especially true in football. Each aspect of the club functions as an important independent strand that forms part of the whole: players, coaches (and specialists that exist within that area), operations, security, logistics, legal, matchday, hospitality, marketing, media, commercial – the list goes on!

People see football as a relatively simple business – just get the players on a pitch and play. But I can assure you that it’s not simple!

Most clubs now have goalkeeping coaches, set-piece specialists, strength and conditioning trainers, data analysts, recruitment analysts, and so on, all working to find those extra percentages in their unique part of the business.

That’s what gives clubs their edge. It’s those marginal gains – and it may only be very small percentage gains – that can be the difference between qualifying for Europe or not, relegation or promotion, ultimately defining whether you have what is deemed a successful or disappointing season.

People online love to play at being a football manager. Everyone thinks they know what they’d do. But when you’re inside a club, the same as running any business, you quickly learn that the best thing you can do is get the best person you can for a particular role, and then support, assist, and let them get on with what they do best.

Did your experience in telecoms shape that mindset?

Massively.

I am definitely not a techie, but I didn’t need to know how to build the infrastructure myself; we employed the best specialists we could to do that. I just needed to understand how it worked, what the market needed, and how to then deliver it commercially.

Tech people are brilliant, but they’ll often tell you what’s possible, not what’s viable. That’s where a commercial head is needed – balancing innovation with practicality, speed, and scalability.

Can you give an example of something that seems simple to fans but is far more complicated behind the scenes?

Wages and contracts are a great example.

Fans often ask, “Why didn’t the club just give that player what they wanted?” But it’s never just about one player.

Let’s say the top earner at club X is on £2,000 a week, and another player – maybe one with two years left – says, “I want to stay, but I’ll only sign if you give me £3,000 a week.” If you agree, you’ve now set a new benchmark.

Agents talk and players talk. Many agents represent more than one player at the same club. Suddenly, every other player wants a raise. You’ve raised the bar for one, but effectively for everyone, including future signings.

So while fans have the luxury of seeing one decision in isolation, when running a club you have to constantly think five steps ahead and consider the bigger picture.

If you could go back and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?

To have learned the venture capital and equity investment market.

I’ve always grown my own businesses organically. I come from a working-class background, so for many years of my life the idea of taking external investment never sat right with me.

I always wanted to own the whole thing. But what I’ve learned is that if you want to run a village, that’s fine. If you want to build a city, you need investment.

When I was offered investment in past ventures, I turned it down because I wanted to stay in control. But that mindset almost definitely slowed growth. If I’d accepted equity or investment funding earlier, on reflection I believe that I could have taken my businesses way beyond the size that they were, and much quicker. Sometimes, owning a smaller slice of something much bigger is better than owning 100% of something small.

I also think that it’s not just about the money; with the right investment group, the network and support it brings can be equally, if not more, important.

That’s what I’d tell my younger self: don’t be afraid of giving up a piece of the business to grow something much bigger.

Finally, outside of SmartFrame, how do you unwind?

Football is still a massive part of my life. I remain a director at Portsmouth, and if I’m not at one of our games, I’m watching my son-in-law play for West Bromwich Albion. He’s married to my daughter Abbie, and he’s like an adopted son to me.

I’ve been married for almost 40 years, and we’ve got a grown-up son and daughter. My son, James, is expecting his first child in November, and we already have three young grandchildren – all boys, aged seven, six, and two. Abbie also just got a new puppy, so it’s always busy at their place!

We still love Spain and love to travel generally – when I was at Topps, I was lucky enough to visit places like Japan, India, Brazil, and Australia. Those were always bucket-list destinations for me.

I’m not sure this qualifies as unwinding, but if you love what you do – and I always have – then I’m not big into the need for unwinding!

CCO Alan Capel discusses his beginnings as a freelance cartoonist, the way people value images today, and what commercial photographers should be thinking about.

How did you get into the imaging industry?

I did a completely unrelated degree – leisure studies – and quickly realized I didn’t want to work in that industry. I spent most of my time drawing doodles and cartoons, so I decided to make a go of being a freelance cartoonist.

I used to send these cartoons off to Private Eye to try and get them published. At the time, when the big newspapers used to pay £5 or £10 per cartoon, Private Eye paid £96. I used to get really nice notes from Ian Hislop saying “not this time” and so on. But then I got a message that just said “taken one” – and a cheque in the post. I had to buy Private Eye for weeks to finally find it, as I wasn’t told when it would be published. Years later, it was reprinted in the 25th anniversary edition, so I got paid again – which was nice!

I worked as a cartoonist for a year, and it was brilliant and I loved it, but it was ultimately very hard to make money. As a result of that, I got to understand how magazines and newspapers worked, and I realized I wanted to do something different but still in the creative world.

I saw an ad for a job as a picture researcher, and I had no idea what that was, but it sounded interesting from the description. That was with a company called Tony Stone Worldwide, which became Tony Stone Images. My job was to match images to a brief supplied by a customer and go off and find those actual physical images in the collection – and I loved it. 

That business ultimately became Getty Images. The people who started Getty identified photography as an area they wanted to build a business around, and Tony Stone Images was the best business they could have bought.

You’ve held several senior roles at the likes of Getty Images, Alamy, and now SmartFrame. Outside of the shift from analog to digital, what’s been the biggest change in that time?

The shift from analog to digital, while it brought lots of efficiencies – chiefly, serving the product digitally – also led to the problems we have with mass image theft, lack of control, and a driving down of the price of images as the number of good photographs increased phenomenally.

You’d have thought that with the move to digital, photographers and the picture industry as a whole would have made a lot of money because people could distribute and find images more quickly. But it didn’t necessarily mean people wanted to use more images – although I guess the internet allowed for deeper content repositories.

The other thing is that it’s quite an incestuous industry in that everyone seems to sell everyone else’s images. There are very few businesses that retain true exclusivity over the images they have. 

So, the pie that’s available can end up being sliced four or five times. That’s an interesting evolution – there aren’t many other industries that operate with that much collaboration across competitors.

Do you think people value images differently to how they used to?

People still value great photography. A fantastic picture still wows. It’s no coincidence that there are still those “pictures of the year” that come out in December and everyone’s fascinated by them. Sometimes it’s the moment that’s captured – and sometimes it’s just visually stunning. 

So I do think people still value imagery, but economic pressures, the sheer ubiquity of photography, and the squeeze on publishing and advertising have meant that over time, the cost to play in the market has come down. So at least in monetary terms, the value of images has eroded massively.

It wasn’t uncommon in the early days of Tony Stone Images for images to be sold, daily, for hundreds or thousands of pounds. Fast-forward to today, and photographers would be doing cartwheels if they managed to get three figures. That said, you could argue that the incremental unit price to view or use almost anything – music, videos, and so on – has gone down over time anyway. So there is a perception that photography has lost its “value” but it’s down to the advancement of technology, rather than people not valuing, for example, beautiful or evocative images.

Outside of AI, what do you think commercial photographers need to prepare for?

They should be looking at where and how revenue’s going to be generated in the future. 

In the stock and editorial press photography world, the current model just isn’t sustainable. If I was talking to someone thinking about becoming a photographer, I wouldn’t say “don’t do it” – it infuriates me when people in our world say that. That’s just going to kill photography. I’d say: embrace the art form, learn your craft, stay bang-up-to-date with technology, and be aware of AI and how you might want to use it or avoid it! 

If you want to pursue more authentic photography, you’ll need to figure out how to make money – possibly in four or five different ways.

SmartFrame offers a unique alternative to the conventional market. You can still create images the way you want, but we provide a platform to market them and present them to publishers — and we believe our approach will outperform the current model.

But you should look for all commercial outlets. Some photographers start off thinking it’s all about the “art” and being in a gallery, but then realize they don’t have to sell out and compromise their creativity or integrity. Instead, they can build a business licensing images at a high rate here and a lower rate there. 

Your photography might work beautifully as prints – so consider looking at limited edition runs with a gallery, if you think your work warrants it. Alternatively, find a print site that makes your work available affordably so people can have it on their walls, while also making sure you’ve got your bread-and-butter route through sites that are really good at licensing and marketing photography. Having all your eggs in one basket is too risky.

What does your role look like?

I wear a number of different hats and I have a few different teams reporting to me. I’ve got a team that deals directly with publishers to get new ones on board; a team that does the same for advertising and campaigns; and a content team that’s focused on the images we have and how they’re displayed on the upcoming SmartFrame Images platform (below).

We’ve identified a sweet spot with sports images. Not only are they extremely popular, but it was interesting for us to find that a lot of sports brands don’t own their own images and don’t know how to monetize them. We help them do that, and that’s another of our teams. 

The rest of my role is working with the senior leadership team to help lead the business, build the strategy, and make sure we’re heading in the right direction – and to respond quickly to whatever challenges come up.

How have you found working at SmartFrame?

It reminds me a lot of the early days of my career, both at Tony Stone Images and at Alamy. Tony Stone Images was pretty well established when I joined, but it was still relatively small. But I joined Alamy when it was really small; I was one of the first employees. And a lot of what I learned there, I’ve brought to SmartFrame.

There’s a collective will and spirit at SmartFrame that I see in bucketloads, and that’s one of the reasons I joined. I didn’t want to join a company doing the same thing I’d been doing for the last 30 years as I could have stayed where I was. I needed a new challenge – and this is definitely a challenge, because it’s breaking new ground. That makes the atmosphere really exciting. There was a warmth in the business that I felt before I joined, and that’s continued. It’s a solid team, there’s a lot of honesty, and there are some really smart people driving it forward.

What do you wish you knew at the start of your career?

Even when things haven’t worked out, I’ve learned something from them. That might sound like a cliché, but it’s better to go through something and learn from it than to know everything at the start. Maybe it sounds arrogant to say in answer to your question “there is nothing I wish I knew” – but part of the challenge is working out how to make things better and grow. If you always knew how to do everything, you’d just sail through and it would be very boring!

Is there something that we’re not talking about that we should be talking about?

While it’s not been totally overlooked, nobody’s really cracked the issue of copyright awareness. Every kid grows up knowing they can just steal images. There still isn’t a strong enough reason for the superpowers – be they economic or governmental – to do something about it. The government doesn’t do enough to enforce copyright protection, and a lot of the current conversation around AI is shining a light on that. People are talking about it, but it’s still never important enough.

How do you switch off when you’re not at SmartFrame?

I’ve got four kids – two little ones and two bigger ones! – so I spend a lot of time with them. We’ve got a house full of pets and a garden that needs looking after, so I’m often out there chasing chickens, dogs, cats, and horses, which is a bit mad!

I’m a huge Leicester City fan, so I go and watch them too. I’m also really into music, and I try to get to gigs and festivals when I can. But mainly, I spend time with my wife and kids. We live just on the edge of the Cotswolds, so there are lots of nice places nearby. I love a good dog walk and pub lunch!

As he approaches a decade at SmartFrame, CEO Rob Sewell tells us how he got to where he is today and explains what traits those looking to head in a similar direction should prioritize

How did you get started?

Due to family circumstances, I lived on my own from a very young age. Having to fend for myself so early on in life instilled a strong drive and ambition to get ahead and create a better life, making me quite entrepreneurial.

At 18, I was a DJ and quickly realized that I could earn more money as a promoter, so I started booking DJs and running my own monthly clubs.

By 21, I had become quite successful, and my club regularly appeared in magazines and on the radio. But when my younger half brother also found himself homeless and needing care, I reassessed my life and decided to become his foster parent.

Wanting to be a good role model to my brother, I then decided to retrain as a holistic personal trainer and launched a personal training business. I also achieved two black belts in martial arts and became a qualified yoga instructor, Reiki master, and Thai masseur.

Before long, I was working with many high-net-worth clients. My network was growing and I learned a great deal from the people I was training, and this inspired me to create a well-being holiday experience for high-net-worth individuals.

During this time, I met someone who became a role model, a serial entrepreneur who recognized my drive and ambition. We ended up going into business together in the well-being sector.

With a broader network and extensive experience, I then went on to start my own membership business called My Phone Club. Nearly 20 years ago, mobile phones were offered on long-term contracts with fluctuating bills and poor customer service. Our approach introduced fixed-cost, flexible contracts, with the ability to change handsets, upgrade, downgrade or even cancel with just 30 days’ notice, along with many additional benefits such as discounts and offers at restaurants, cinemas and gyms nationwide, and a dedicated UK-based customer service team. Today, 20 years later, fixed-cost, flexible contracts with benefits are commonplace within the industry!

Unfortunately, one of our main backers let us down terribly, which forced us into administration. I then moved on to do some consultancy work for a Portuguese manufacturer. Its UK business was turning over £13 million a year and we took it to £14 million and growing in 12 months.

While it was a stable job, it didn’t satisfy my entrepreneurial drive. So when the founders of SmartFrame’s precursor [Pixelrights] approached me, I saw an opportunity where my commercial experience and network could help bring this product to market.

How has your role evolved since you started at SmartFrame?

In the very early days, my main focus was on the business plan, vision, and strategy to get the business investment ready. Once we received an initial investment, we started to deploy the strategy, validating the model, gathering market feedback, and signing our early adopting customers.

Once this foundation was in place and the model was being proven, the focus shifted to attracting and onboarding great talent. This meant getting everyone to personally buy into the vision and creating a culture where we highly incentivized staff through sales incentives, profit-sharing, and option schemes. The goal was to create an entrepreneurial company where everyone had a sense of ownership and are personally invested in the business and its strategy.

As the team and the right level of senior management were in place, that culture continued organically. I then focused more on the larger-scale investment requirements, managing investor relations, strategy, forecasting, and investment cash flow.

What’s been the biggest change during this time? And what has surprised you the most?

We’ve seen a lot of innovations come and go that promised to change the industry. These included blockchain technology and NFTs, which didn’t really have any meaningful application.

And now, of course, there’s the explosion of AI. Ironically, as the photography industry is in terminal decline, it initially looked to prevent images from being used to train AI models. And now, these companies are actually opening up their collections and being paid by AI companies, allowing their models to train on their content, which can further undermine the industry’s value. 

For SmartFrame, the most important aspect of AI is ensuring that end users can distinguish between what is real and what is AI-generated. With the increasing amount of synthetic media being published online, authenticating assets has become crucial, allowing consumers to trust what they see and easily identify its origins.

There’s no harm in AI-generated images, as long as consumers are aware they are AI images and can trace their origins. So, for us, this is a tailwind. With so much synthetic media, authenticating assets has only become more important, helping consumers to trust what they see. And SmartFrame does exactly that.

How important is it to take risks?

As the saying goes, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. I would always encourage people to take risks. You have to live outside of your comfort zone as that’s where the magic happens.

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got. If you want something different, you need to do something different – and that inevitably means taking risks.

I’ve become comfortable living outside my comfort zone and actively seek to challenge myself further whenever I get too comfortable. If you think you can, you can, and the opposite is also true. I’ve dreamt big from humble beginnings and pushed myself to take risks and expand my horizon every step of the way, and I would encourage anyone else to do the same.

What traits do you believe are essential in order to lead a company like SmartFrame?

Honesty, integrity, and a strong moral compass. Ultimately, the leaders of the company set the company’s culture and its brand values. It’s important to lead with passion, purpose, and integrity.

Be fearless and don’t be afraid of failure – fail fast, learn quickly, and adapt. You should inspire others around you to share the same values and philosophies in life so they can push themselves and experience the exhilaration that this brings.

What advice would you give someone looking to step into a CEO role?

There’s never a right time. I didn’t follow the traditional academic or corporate path, and I believe real-world experience is the most valuable qualification you can have.

Listen to and learn from others with empathy and lead by example. The rest you can learn.

How do you switch off when you’re not at SmartFrame?

My children are the most important part of my life, so spending quality time with them is the best nourishment for my soul.

Outside of that, I still regularly go to the gym, a habit from my personal training days. Boxing is still a key part of my life, along with running, weight training, and keeping healthy. Yoga and meditation occasionally, too.

Walking the dog in the countryside, taking in the views and fresh air, is another way I switch off.

You have something of a milestone birthday celebration later this year. Do you have any reflections or aspirations for the next chapter in life?

This April will mark my tenth anniversary at SmartFrame. As Jeff Bezos says, it takes about ten years to become an overnight success! So I would encourage that tenacity to keep going because it does take time to build an overnight success that’s a global disruptor.

In the next three to five years, having transformed the photography industry, I would like to think that we will exit. I aim to create financial freedom for all SmartFrame employees and a better internet for everyone.

In the next stage of life, I’d like to tell my story. I’d like to inspire others from disadvantaged backgrounds – those who may not have had the family support, the opportunity to go to university, or to have financial backing – and create a fund to help them get started. If they have a good heart, vision, drive, grit, and a strong moral compass, I’d like to inspire, mentor, and support them to make their dreams come true too.