Casla Conversations... with Daniel Ward-Murphy, Marketing Director at Circular Computing

Millie Hurst, 17th September 2025

Welcome to our latest edition of Casla Conversations – where we speak to the people behind the strategies shaping B2B marketing. This time, we sat down with Daniel Ward-Murphy, Marketing Director at Circular Computing, to find out about his career journey and lessons learned along the way.

Circular Computing is the world leader in remanufacturing laptops at scale and they produce laptops that look, feel and perform like new. Making one new laptop takes 1,200kg of the earth’s resources, 190,000 litres of water, and creates 331kg of CO2, so Circular Computing are making a big impact in terms of sustainability.

Daniel’s career spans a variety of strategy and marketing roles, both agency and client-side, which means, as he says, he’s been able to ‘look under the bonnet’ of lots of different businesses.

‘I work on the premise that for every 100 things we create, someone might see four or five of them’

Circular Computing is a company with a small number of customers and a large deal size, meaning sales cycles can be anything from a few months to several years. ‘It’s a totally different journey, so we have to be quite strategic in what we do,’ says Daniel. ‘The success we get is largely through brand building, brand awareness, brand reputation, and genuinely becoming a thought leader.’

Daniel believes that a good, consistent visual style is essential to building trust. ‘I think that's the best thing we do. I think if you look into the psychology of why people use brands, a lot of it comes down to that: “Do I trust them?”

‘And if people have an inconsistent website experience or you're trying to land too many messages at once, it just doesn't work,’ Daniel says.

‘I work on the premise that for every 100 things we create, someone might see four or five of them. It needs to be consistent so that the experience of the people looking at it and consuming it gives those trust signals.’

‘I mentally divide work between “business as usual” and project-based tasks’

‘For our “business as usual” activity, we're active in certain channels the whole time, whether that's email outbound, social media, the evolution of our website or certain digital marketing. We’re always trying to get 5% to 10% better at all of those, whether that's better data, better content, topics, better execution, or better landing pages.

‘I've just had my meeting with my team this morning, so I've got about eight or nine things on my to-do list. Some of that is work to set up other people to do some work, and some of that is checking, signing off, a bit of editing, and checking creative. So that's an average day.

‘I'm also a board member at Circular Computing, so sometimes I have more project-driven work. There's so much variety, but ultimately, it's managing internal stakeholders and some external stakeholders, managing my team and getting performance and quality out of the marketing team.’

‘The sustainability aspect of my role gets me out of bed in the morning’

‘I love the sustainability aspect of this role – being able to influence CO2 emissions avoidance, water footprint avoidance, mineral usage avoidance, and then on top of that, e-waste avoidance.

‘We also help to provide clean water to families that need it for every laptop we sell, through our partner, Charity: Water. Helping shareholders to get richer is good to a point, but it doesn't necessarily give you much meaning,’ Daniel laughs.

‘I worked in research before, so I had a lot of exposure to the difference between what people say they will do or want to do and what they actually do. When politics used to be more clear-cut in this country, the polls would always overemphasise the Labour vote and underemphasise the Conservative vote because people weren't vocally saying they were going to vote in a certain way for personal taxation benefit.

‘It's the same with the environment, so people will say sustainability is their number one driver, but when it comes to a buying decision, other things take precedence. The good news is that our product is less expensive than the new product, and in many areas of sustainability, you're asking people to pay a premium to be sustainable.’

‘What you can do and what you get the chance to do are two separate things’

‘I’ve really enjoyed the variety and experiences my jobs and roles have given me. In marketing recruitment that is undervalued, though, there’s an awful chasm between, “What can I do well and what can I get the chance to do?”

‘If you're a marketing director and you've been in the same role for 20 years, I'm sure you've learned a lot about that role, but you've only learned from one place. If you've had a variety of different roles, you've been exposed to different things,’ Daniel says.

‘When I was agency-side, I was working with ten different clients, and I was having meetings about different companies, brands and businesses. You learn so much more, and quicker, and you become experienced much quicker because you get exposed to different challenges. But you'll see a job advert and it will say, “Hi, we're a luxury soap brand. We're looking for someone with five plus years of experience in the luxury soap market…” That's very niche.

‘I understand they might want to learn a little bit from their competitors, but if you're a marketeer, it's all about audience first and working back and understanding your products and services and understanding people’s behaviour. It's not about knowing soap.’

‘When you manage people, you need to be comfortable being uncomfortable’

‘Things will always take a different turn – you feel like you're getting somewhere, and then someone may need to leave. Something will happen, and you think, “Things were just getting smoother, and the waves had calmed down.”

‘You’ve got to accept that and see people as people. Everyone's on their own journey. Hopefully, the people I work with will appreciate the empathy that I have for that. And just trying to get performances out of people and trying to keep them motivated.

‘All of those things are really important. My style is the opposite of micromanagement – I want an adult-to-adult relationship. I want to explain why we're doing it. I want to give the strategy part to them and then empower them to catch that ball and run with it as far as they can.

‘And it sounds clichéd, but you hear sports and football managers say, “You need to manage some people differently. Some people need an arm around them, some people need a little bit of tough love.” It's just understanding that and being emotionally intelligent and aware of what's going on.

‘I think empathy is the best human quality. I think a lot of the problems in our world are because people have less empathy. Being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes and understand things from their point of view should be a starting point.

‘And I think good marketeers should have that because that's what being market-focused and customer-focused is, rather than just projecting out, “This is what I want you to do. This is what our brand does. We're great. Follow us, believe in us, buy our products.” I often say it's like the “first date syndrome” – if someone sits there and just brags about how great they are, it doesn't often go well.

‘Give the recruitment and onboarding journey the respect it deserves’

‘Your people are the most important thing. So my best tip is to give that recruitment and onboarding journey the respect it deserves. Don't try to do anything quickly. Don't make snap judgments. You can't always see what's around the corner, but you can mitigate and minimise the number of things you get wrong.

If you recruit 10 people, you've got to get at least six, seven, eight, nine of those right, or your working week is going to be a nightmare. I think it's important to be clear and set expectations in the interview process. See that interview process as a two-way street.

‘And then once they're in the company, try and set them up to succeed, give them the time, the onboarding, the “why” – don't try and shortcut that.’

Best piece of B2B content you last saw?

‘I like Rory Sutherland for short, sharp soundbites that keep me on track, and some of Simon Sinek’s thinking is embedded in me,’ says Daniel. ‘That keeps me on course, but the detail and the “how” always needs to be worked out.

‘My friend and ex-colleague, Katie Street, runs an agency called Street Agency, which is an agency for agencies. What they do is great in terms of producing content to cover key topics, making themselves thought leaders and very visible in that space.

‘The activity they do is really good, whether that's podcasts or short videos. I saw her the other night, and I was joking that every time I open LinkedIn or other socials, their content is the first thing I see. I can’t escape it…’

What’s a tool you can’t live without?

‘I think using Microsoft Teams, or something similar, well is such a superpower. I manage a team remotely, and Microsoft Teams empowers so many things for me. It gives me choice and effectiveness in how the department is run.’

Favourite marketing buzzword (you secretly love)?

‘"Content is king." That’s the only buzzword that feels part of my DNA.

'I was in a meeting once, and rather than “brainstorm,” someone said, “Let’s ‘mindwok.’” That made me laugh. Then I used it a couple of times, but people thought I was serious and probably went away thinking I was an absolute idiot.’

Biggest marketing myth

‘For me, it’s overvaluing same industry experience. Just recruiting from your same industry is such a lazy approach, especially for marketing, because marketing is about being a good marketeer first, and then a good marketeer can get to know their audience and industry really well. Sadly, it's a myth that's perpetuated by internal recruitment folk and maybe some self-protectionist thinking as well.’

‘When I interview people, I find some people focus on the wrong metrics – they’re obsessed with job title, salary, and they're not thinking, “Is this company growing? Will that growth deliver opportunities? Do I believe in my manager? Do I think that my manager will look out for me? Do I think I will learn things from the people I'm working with?”

‘People undervalue those things, and they focus on the nuts and bolts.’