Danny O’Gorman leads the charge for FREENOW across the UK and Ireland, bringing a strong blend of hands-on leadership and extensive marketplace experience. We spoke with him to learn more about his career journey, the unique challenges and opportunities in his role, and what makes working at FREENOW so rewarding today.
Hi Danny! We like to kick things off with a fun fact to get to know you a bit better. What’s something unexpected about you?
I was a very adventurous and accident-prone kid. I managed to break all my limbs at least once by the age of 25. Football, skiing, mountain biking, skateboarding. My poor parents spent a lot of time waiting for X-rays.
Tell us a bit about your professional journey. What’s your career background, when did you join and what do you do here?
I joined FREENOW last August as the Irish GM, before taking on the UK and Ireland role in March. It's absolutely flown by. My background has always been in marketplaces, but mainly on the e-commerce side. I like to say I have swapped "buyer and seller" for "passenger and driver."
I professionally “grew up” at Amazon and spent six and a half really formative years there. I started with new seller recruitment, helping UK sellers sell on the Marketplace throughout Europe, and finished by heading up that programme for the UK. In between I got to work on many exciting projects such as Amazon's COVID response, multiple charity partnerships, and opening the first Amazon warehouse in Ireland. The scale was just vast. I then spent two years as a Sales Director at Catawiki, a Dutch scale-up trying to bring the old-school auction world online.
What are some of the unique challenges or exciting aspects of your role?
The most exciting part is the breadth of work I’m involved in. I need to be up to speed and able to contribute my input on everything that is happening in the UK and Ireland, which is a lot. Some of those topics I was experienced in before, some I’ve learned on the job. I’ve particularly loved working on public affairs and PR, and have fantastic colleagues to support me with this. Appearing on the local radio station I grew up knowing in Wexford was a very surreal moment.
This breadth also brings challenges, such as where to focus and how much detail to go into. There are so many teams working on exciting passenger and driver features, I need to ruthlessly prioritise.
What’s your favourite aspect of working at FREENOW?
The company culture is fantastic. People are always willing to help get things over the line, even if it is not in their remit. It seems to have reached that sweet spot in terms of size. There are the right people in place to do very specific things, but you know how to find them and can interact one-on-one easily. If I have a question on a feature rollout, you'll always know not only who is owning it at the product level, but quite often the engineers behind the scenes. That is rare.
We are also big into testing as passengers. I very often get feedback from colleagues' personal experiences with small improvements that we can make to our service.
What advice would you give to someone considering joining the FREENOW team?
Just do it! It's a really exciting time to join. The Lyft acquisition is going to further grow our business. On a more practical note, get ready to move fast. Considering our drivers try to get you from A to B as fast as possible, we apply that principle to our work. Also, be vocal with your ideas. The company is very open and willing to try new things.