Joe Pettit
Joe Pettit is a business and marketing graduate from his hometown of Lincoln! He’s been working with Bora for 10 years now, but prior to working with Bora, Joe lived in the UK and had various jobs, including working in the legionnaires’ industry. Due to his inability to handle cold temperatures, he decided to move out to Spain after he graduated from university.
Joe has a wife and two kids and is an avid football fan and cyclist. Working with Bora allows Joe to be extremely flexible with how he works. Working from home or from the office, which is located in a small Spanish village, Joe ensures his days work for him and his other commitments. Whether that is starting early to get out cycling around the beautiful mountains of the Jalon Valley or working late to accommodate client calls – having the ability to be flexible and remote at the same time is extremely valuable.
At Bora, Joe is the company director. He is responsible for many aspects of the business, including content production, operations, and managing several client relationships, including Tripwire and Fortra. Joe’s strengths are focused on communication, relationship building and consistency, which is something all clients desire. This attitude and skillset have enabled Bora to grow through tough economic times as clients continue to rely on Bora for their marketing services.
Overall, Bora is a unique place to work. The team can live and work where they want, and the whole team really does work together to ensure the job is interesting, fun, challenging, and rewarding. Having the ability to connect with different people from different places is exciting, and learning from so many people and companies of all sizes ensures that each day is totally different from the last.
David Turner
David has spent his career working in marketing for technology companies and started Bora in January 1994, back before companies had websites! David has always been a keen traveller and the inspiration for the company name came whilst visiting the island of Bora Bora on a round-the-world backpacking trip. David also started the online publication Information Security Buzz before selling it a few years later to concentrate on client content marketing projects.
David enjoys sports, especially playing football and padel tennis. He also loves exploring the world of wine and can often be found in a vineyard or bodega exploring the huge choice of wine in Spain.
The idea to move Bora from the UK to Spain came after creating the ‘Be There, Work There’ project for Intel, which combined various technology to enable remote workers to access their network from anywhere. It was incredibly slow, but a revolution in 2004! The ability to work remotely or have a digital nomad lifestyle has definitely not been an overnight success.
At Bora, David’s role is focused on business management and development, onboarding new clients, and building the teams to manage key projects. With a broad marketing background, David’s strength is bringing creativity to projects to expand campaigns beyond content marketing.
Creating an environment where work can be enjoyed as part of a healthy lifestyle has been his biggest achievement to date. The Bora team works with innovative global technology companies on interesting projects, but the work fits around their other commitments. At Bora, we always aspire to be one step ahead, and we strive to deliver great service, which can only be achieved with a happy, healthy team.
Joanna Stevens
London-born Joanna graduated with a Master’s in writing for business and film and began a ten-year stint of freelance writing and social media management in the UK. Her copywriting and research projects were varied – anything from producing university study guides, scriptwriting real estate videos, interview writing, academic research, and creating web content for clients like Becks, I-Tunes, Finisterre, DX, and the Association of Illustrators.
Prior to taking her Master’s, Joanna lived in California for 14 years and desired once more to live in a similar climate. The cold weather just does not agree with her, so she decided to move to Spain. There she met and started working with David Turner, Bora’s Company Director, eventually taking on her current position at Bora as Content Specialist three years ago.
Working remotely helps Joanna stay on top of her many other interests, including ‘peak bagging’, a term she learned in California that can basically mean getting to any high point in your local area. Reserving that activity for special occasions, hiking along the beautiful coast paths is where you’ll often find her on the weekends. When she has downtime, she plays with her chihuahua or is involved in other activities like energy work and teaching Pilates.
At Bora, Joanna works closely with David, managing content production projects from beginning to end. Daily tasks include anything from editing, writing, managing other writers, and liaison with clients, SEO and social media work, and overseeing customer advocacy programs. Joanna’s strengths lie in communication, and she is known for her patience and ability to drive and inspire others into action. As her mantra is ‘healthy lifestyle’, Bora is the perfect place for her to work, offering a flexible work-life balance, and enjoying the regular meetups with the Spanish team, when they catch up over coffee or enjoy a meal together.
Tassos Arampatzis
Tassos is a cybersecurity content writer. Before joining Bora, Tassos was an Officer for the Hellenic Air Force, responsible for deploying IT networks and systems and applying security standards for protecting classified information. Serving in the Air Force enabled Tassos to gain experience in many IT and security domains and a wider understanding of geopolitics, which proved a valuable asset for his engagement with cybersecurity.
Tassos is happily married, and their family includes five kids, aged 5 to 16. Family is his most important hobby, and Bora’s flexible and supportive culture enables Tassos to focus on his family when needed. This culture proved crucial when the whole family was required to work and learn remotely during the pandemic. Tassos enjoys listening to music, hiking in the beautiful Greek mountains, swimming in sandy and sunny beaches, and preparing barbeques for friends and family.
Tassos’ work mostly focuses on creating engaging and quality content for Bora’s clients. The goal is to create content that educates and answers the client’s problems. To achieve his goal, Tassos spends enough time educating himself on emerging trends and technologies around cybersecurity and privacy. Besides his daily work, Tassos volunteers at the Greek privacy group Homo Digitalis, whose purpose is to protect Greeks’ digital rights and educate children on security and privacy topics.
Although Tassos has never met any of the Bora team members in person, he believes that what distinguishes Bora from other companies is the sense of belonging in a family. Communication is important to achieve this mentality, and Tassos strives to communicate daily with all Bora members. The power of Bora is in our culture, where everyone is equally important, and his/her voice is always heard. Tassos wishes that he meets all Bora members in the very near future, either in Spain or in Greece.
Emma Colburn
Emma joined Bora just over 4 years ago. Prior to that, she had worked in various marketing and commercial roles for some of the world’s biggest brands, including Coca-Cola and Unilever. As her career developed she discovered her professional passion comes from trying to understand ‘purchaser’ and consumer behaviour, and she was able to bring these skills into her role at Bora.
Emma splits her time between the UK and Spain, so having the opportunity to work at Bora was perfect fit for her. Although there is a central hub in Spain, many of the team, and all of the clients, are based all over the world. The tools and process the teams use ensure that there is seamless communication when developing ideas and working on client briefs.
Music is Emma’s passion outside (and often during) work. She sings in choirs both in Spain and the UK, regularly taking part in public performances. When not attending live music gatherings, Emma enjoys learning new instruments. Her latest addition is a 150-year-old English concertina which she plays at online and in-person folk music gatherings. She lives with her (very) patient partner and their dog.
At Bora, Emma works with clients to help them develop their cybersecurity content. She enjoys being part of a team who take pride in their work and strive to deliver the best products and services to their clients. This dedication to excellence means that everyone has time and space to work, not just on getting the job done, but finding ways to exceed expectations and create their best possible work, making Bora an extremely satisfying place to work.