Ivan Massow

Ivan Massow
Born	Ivan Field (1967-09-11) 11 September 1967 Brighton, England, UK
Occupation(s)	Entrepreneur, activist

Ivan Julian Massow (born 11 September 1967) is a British entrepreneur and financial adviser. His most recent business is Massow's Limited, trading as paymemy.com, a service which pays back 'trail' commissions to policy-holders themselves, instead of the IFAs who originally set the policies up. In May 2012 he launched MassowsAngels.com, a peer-to-peer online lending community that enables small and medium size businesses to find lower interest rates on funding while giving lenders a better return on their money.

Ivan was also Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Massow is an advocate of equitable financial services and through a former business, was the one of the first people to actively market financial services to the gay community, people in HIV high-risk groups and people with mental health issues. He currently lives in London where he is involved in new business projects.

Business career

In 1990, Massow started a financial services business specialising in mortgage and insurance finance for gay people refused cover elsewhere or offered cover only on higher than normal rates. By researching how the industry's computerised 'automatic underwriting' systems operated, he was able to obtain cover for his clients.

Despite massive publicity, Massow Financial Services was not financially succesful, recording a £700,000 loss in 1998-99 and £465,777 the following year, and in 2000 it was merged with another prominent gay IFA firm, Rainbow Finance of Oxford, run by Louis Letourneau, with expectations that turnover would rise from £2M per annum to over £3M, but the merged firm went out of business within one year. Massow's salary was £245,768 in 2000 and £387,000 in 1999. Massow bought the business back from the Receiver with Letourneau claiming that the merger had happened after Massow had endured two years of heavy loses and that he had been made a scapegoat for Massow's failures.

Between 2003 and 2004 Massow was Director of another financial adviser firm, this time a tied agent of the Zurich Advice Network (previously Allied Dunbar), but that too ended in acrimony after predictable problems arose in underwriting for insurance the gay clients in which Massow specialised. Massow accepted £330,000 in order to become an agent for the firm in a move that was seen as an about-turn at the time as he had previously campaigned against what he saw as Allied Dunbar's anti-gay underwriting practices. A long legal case followed which, ultimately, Massow lost.

Alcoholism

In the aftermath of the Zurich case, Massow began to drink heavily and became an acohoolic. He has not drank since 2008 and now chairs an Alcoholics Anonymous group in Soho.

Involvement in Politics

Massow joined the Conservative Party as a teenager and was Chairman of his local Young Conservatives aged 14.

In the 1990's Massow's flatmates were for a time current Conservative Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove and MP and former head of Conservative policy Nicholas Boles, a situation Massow described as "Tory Friends". In 1999, Massow was Lady Thatcher's escort at the Conservative Party Conference. Along with his friend Nicholas Boles, Massow planned to use his newfound influence to encourage change and convince the Party to tackle prejudice and support the repeal of Section 28.

However, Massow, along with many espousing "compassionate conservatism", was frustrated by the Party's apparent reluctance to alter its stance on gay rights issues and discrimination in general. In 2000, following John Bercow MP's resignation from the front bench and the defection of Shaun Woodward MP to Labour, Massow too left the Conservative Party to join the Labour Party, where he was welcomed by Mo Mowlam. There was a large amount of press interest in Massow's defection, despite him having never held elected office or even stood for Parliament. By 2004, Massow had left the Labour Party and unsuccessfully attempted to stand as Mayor of London with his own movement "Change London".

Massow is again an active member of the Conservative Party and has been included in the Party's Approved Candidate List since early 2010.

Contemporary Art

In 1999, Massow became Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. In January 2002, he wrote an article in New Statesman magazine attacking the predominance of conceptual art in the art world. He described modern concept art as "pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat" and "the product of over-indulged, middle-class [...], bloated egos who patronise real people with fake understanding". He called the ICA a "pillar of the shock establishment". He attacked Tracey Emin saying she "couldn't think her way out of a paper bag".

In February 2002, Massow was fired as Chairman of the ICA with one board member describing him as "a little bit of a pillock" and speculation that Massow had deliberately been as provocative as possible in order to engineer his own sacking. He has described the art world as "bitchy and superficial", although he claims to actually like much conceptual art and claims he spoke out in order to redress the imbalance between the promotion of conceptual and more traditional art in the British art scene.

Relationship with the Media

Massow's relationship with the media started at the age of 21, when he took the role of Financial Adviser at the launch of Channel 4's The Big Breakfast.

He often writes in the UK press, from articles in broadsheet newspapers, including features in The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the 'Thunderer' column in The Times, to being an occasional comment writer for magazines ranging from New Statesman and The Spectator to FHM and GQ. He also makes regular appearances on national television, having been the 'Entrepreneurial Expert' on Richard & Judy and a panelist on the BBC's Question Time and Newsnight.

He was the subject of Mind of a Millionaire, a 2003 BBC documentary about entrepreneurship. In November 2005, Massow was the winning mentor on Channel 4's Make Me a Million, a competition between three teams led by prominent entrepreneurs to make £1 million within a year from a start-up company.

In October 2011, Massow starred as part of Channel 4's The Secret Millionaire, where he worked undercover in run-down parts of Edinburgh. He gave away £91,500 to various local charities and people.

Charity work

Massow has been involved with a number of charity initiatives since starting his business in 1990. This includes becoming the first mainstream business to sponsor London's Gay Pride festival at a time when it was largely shunned by commercial enterprises.

Charity involvements and initiatives include founder/sponsor of ‘Insurance for Survivors’, a coalition of four major charities whose aim is to increase awareness within the financial services industry of the problems encountered by those with mental health issues and survivors of cancer and major transplants. Massow was Chairman of Mind's inquiry into mental health and social exclusion and the coordinator of a pre-release scheme helping prisoners to start businesses for The Prince’s Trust. This led to Massow giving lectures at HM Prison Feltham to young offenders interested in entrepreneurship. Massow was a patron of REGARD, a charity and support group helping gay people with physical disabilities. He founded the April Bombing Appeal for victims of the April 1999 nail-bombings in Soho, Brixton and Brick Lane in London, raising funds to provide wheelchair access in homes and financial support for people unable to work as a result of their injuries.

As part of an episode of Channel 4's The Secret Millionaire, Massow gave away £91,500 to a variety of local Edinburgh charities and people.

Affiliations

Massow was a founder member of the ‘Me Too’ anti-violence campaign with Elizabeth Vallance, Rabbi Julia Neuberger and Lord Saatchi. He was a former member of Samaritans' central marketing and fundraising team working on the Ambassador’s Project and is a trained Samaritan.

Massow is a consultant to charities such as Stonewall (UK) and Galop. He is patron of the Salon des Arts, a gallery devoted to giving unknown artists a forum to showcase their work. He was the main sponsor for the 2001 Stonewall Equality Dinner at the Savoy Hotel in London.

Massow recently set up Compare for Good, a charity fundraising price comparison website in partnership with Oxfam.

Current projects

From 2006 to 2008 Massow lived in Barcelona and then Los Angeles where he produced, wrote and directed the film Banksy's Coming For Dinner starring Joan Collins.

Massow is CEO of the Jake Network, a global online social network for LGBT professionals with over 30,000 members. Jake holds regular events in London.

Personal life

Massow was born in Brighton as Ivan Field, the son of a policeman, John Field, whom Massow has described as "abusive". His mother left the relationship and remarried, before giving Ivan up for adoption at the age of 12, aiming to give him a better life. He was adopted by a bachelor businessman, John Massow, taking his surname. Later, after Massow had come out as gay, his adoptive father broke off contact.

External links

• PayMeMy.com/mission founded by Massow in 2011, rebating trail commissions to IFA clients.
• Banksy's Coming for Dinner, Massow's film, which premiered at Marbella International Film Festival 2009.
• Jake, the online LGBT professional social network of which Massow is CEO.
• Compare for Good, a charity fundraising price comparison website founded by Massow in partnership with Oxfam.