Hi. My name is Nicholas Soper. I am a surfer (water baby), lifelong learner and currently living in Cape Town, South Africa.

Professional Profile

I’ve been a factory worker, barman, student, designer, web developer, strategist, marketer, manager and business owner.

Instead of maintaining multiple sets of professional profiles my work history is available on LinkedIn. If you can’t see my LinkedIn Profile because we are not connected, please send me a message through this website’s contact page or connect on twitter (I don’t tend to accept LinkedIn invitations from people I don’t know). You can visit my LinkedIn profile with this link: Visit my LinkedIn Profile.

Personal background

As an unwilling captive often referred to as ‘childhood’, my parents, and by association I, moved around a lot. Growing up I was given the unique perspective to have lived in England, Kenya, America, South Africa and Cyprus – all before leaving home.

The day after I finished my last A-Level exam at school in the county of Wiltshire, England,  I started working nights in factories (12-18 hours a night, 6 nights a week) to save money to do a ‘gap year’ before university.  The long hours at night and working with the people in the factory gave me an early and jarring perspective into the lives of those who don’t have the choice to have to do that kind of work.

My gap year was just that – a gap year. It wasn’t volunteer travel, TEFL year or anything like that. It was a surf trip that was a full-on epic adventure! Being 18 years old planning and surviving on during a 9 month global trip back in 2000, with all the people and pitfalls along the way, I had a tremendous amount of personal growth.

I passed through L.A, Hawaii, Fiji, Australia, South Africa and Kenya. I started the trip as an 18 year old school leaver and went back to England to start university more independent, better at cooking and a much better surfer. I would recommend traveling and following your dream before and after university, if you can.

At university I studied an Engineering foundation course at The University of Plymouth for a year, before switching to what was know then as Media Lab Arts (now Digital Art and Technology). At the time is was cited as one of the UK’s top digital/design course by Computer Arts Magazine. I also was treasurer of the surf club for 2 years helping to organise surf trips, socials and the surf clubs finances. I also worked in a cocktail bar on Mutley Plain.

I am lucky enough to hold a permanent residency permit for South Africa. This is how I am able to choose to live and work in the wonderful city of Cape Town.

In a world where profiles are locked behind registration screens and privacy settings, questionable data ownership and copyright theft, I thought I’d share 2c about me. Perhaps it will start a conversation, or perhaps not. My social profile links are on the little icons if you’re into that sort of thing.