Taggstar EMEA account executive Byron Rodrigues has been with Taggstar since December 2022, but his role today is quite different from his original childhood ambitions. “Since I was a child, I wanted to become a doctor and was obsessed with the idea of med school,” he says.
In 2011, at the age of 17, he moved from his Brazilian homeland to Argentina to start med school, but after two years decided it wasn’t for him. “I wanted to be able to explore and travel and didn’t want to lose my youth and the possibilities I had to six or seven years of training.”
Instead, he signed up for international business school. Since he loves travel, speaks Spanish and French and was also learning English at the time, he hoped to work in the embassy field or for the UN. A year or so into the course, however, he was invited to do an internship with Google. “I went into the tech field and sales and fell in love with it. I was always really fascinated by technology but also realised I was good at communicating with people and at creating connections and relationships.”
In 2017 he moved to London to do a Masters in Marketing at Greenwich University, the idea being he would return to Argentina after his studies. But he fell in love with the capital. “I remember my first weeks in London walking around feeling I wanted to move here,” he says. He will apply for his British citizenship next year.
Despite only being at Taggstar for a few months, Byron says he has been impressed at the autonomy he’s been allowed. “I felt so welcome. They were like, ‘Bring your ideas, and we will try to make those ideas come true’. I love that I can be creative, and I felt really good about the trust and ownership I’ve been given, too,” he says.
He was also impressed by the diversity of the company during his interview process. “I was doing some research for one of my interviews and saw a picture on Twitter of one of the charity events Taggstar had taken part in and saw the diversity of people that were part of the business. It was something I was looking for.”
And it was only mid-interview that he realised he’d been influenced by Argos’ use of Taggstar’s social proof messaging a few years before. “I was looking for a TV and knew I wanted a specific make and size, but was still overwhelmed by the choice. I remember seeing a message saying this particular model was popular and that 100 people were viewing it right at that moment, and it helped me make my decision!
Citizen of the world
Outside of work. Byron loves to travel, having first lived abroad in France when he was a teenager. “At primary school, you had the chance to learn a language, and I chose French. I got fascinated by the language and started learning over the weekends too, and taking extra classes. When I was 14, I got accepted to do an interchange in Millau in the south of France and lived there for six months with a lovely French family. Then I stayed another six months in a student house, finished high school in France, and then moved back to Brazil.”
“Today, I consider myself a citizen of the world,” he says. While he enjoys exploring the parks and cafes of London in the summer, in the winter, he prefers to escape. He’s already visited various parts of South America and Europe and, in January, travelled to India for the first time. “It was incredible. It was very cultural, and I loved the food and the people,” he says. He has Japan, New Zealand and South Africa on his wish list next, as well as a more modest UK road trip – though he admits as he doesn’t drive, he needs to find a driving partner first.
Byron also loves to write, having started putting his emotions through journalling as a form of therapy five years ago. “I love writing poems and stories, and it’s now become a hobby and an idea for a book(s).”
He’s rightly proud of the moment he’ll become a UK national in 2024. “Sometimes I have to take a deep breath and think ‘I live in London’. I didn’t come from a wealthy family, so I was always working hard. I’m really proud to think I’m living the dream I never dreamed of,” he says.
Related blog: Mira Ebrahim Full-stack Engineer at Taggstar
