Hear from Dave on his recent retirement 🍻

Looking back 19 plus years with Dave Cunningham

Dave recently retired from EIP as Head of Client Services. Throughout his time with us, Dave wore many hats—including party ones. Hear from Dave first-hand about his career inside and outside of EIP in this Q&A.

Can you tell us about your career before EIP and how you started at EIP?

My first job after leaving school at 17 was at The Patent Office (now known as the UKIPO) as a Clerical Officer. I was taught how to do Formalities examinations on patent applications. Whilst there I was subject to ‘positive vetting’ by the government (checking I had no skeletons in the cupboard – I hadn’t started my collection yet 😊 ) and received clearance to work in what they called the Secret Section, where all the patent applications with high sensitivity (national security) were handled.

After 4 years there I moved on to private practice and did 10 years at Marks & Clerk in their Formalities team. Wonderful experience and lots of fun during the ‘80s.

Next, I got a job working for an IP firm in Monte Carlo, doing their renewals work. Armed with only a few hundred quid and my Del Boy French, I realised after a while that I needed to have a couple more zeros at the end of my salary to survive out there so returned to the UK and then did 7 years at Jenkins. It was during that time that I became friends with Jerome who was a young Partner there at the time. He left there soon after me to start up his own firm; EIP!

I left Jenkins to take up my first managerial position as Records Manager at Keltie and did a further 7 years there (7-year itch?) before meeting Jerome in the street one day and going for some pints. That is when the plan was hatched for me to come to EIP as Records Manager. The rest is history.

What project or achievement are you most proud of from your time at EIP?

I did a lot of work alongside Jerome and Heather creating our ‘Inprotech Rules’ which help to keep the firm safe and was heavily involved in some massive client take-ons (of which Unwired Planet was the largest). The transfer out of our TM work to Stobbs was another big project but I think the achievement I am most proud of is being chosen to be Head Of Client Services when the notion of having ‘Heads Of’ at EIP first came to be.

What is your most memorable moment at EIP?

There are so many, and again my promotion to Head Of ranks highly. One of the events that stands out was when we used to have ‘EIP Days Out’ and the whole firm went to Lille for the day on Eurostar. It had a bit of everything, and we spent the journey back drowning in champagne and chocolate contraband. This carried on well into the small hours once back in London.

In truth I loved all those EIP Days Out. Trips to Bath, Cardiff, Oxford. The infamous boating trip to the pub that led to the sinking boat and casualties only just avoided. 😊Only possible when the firm was fairly small in numbers, but great days for sure.

Can you share a funny or unexpected incident that happened during your time here?

Probably the most unexpected was me accidentally setting fire to Heather’s kitchen after a boozy birthday night out.

Who has been the most influential person you worked with at EIP and why?

Heather was the person I collaborated the most with on all the big projects and all the development of our systems and processes over the years.

If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice at the start of your career, what would it be?

I have very few regrets about the start of my career or how things have panned out. The advice I would give to others starting out on their careers is to be yourself, let people see what you are good at, don’t stress too much about the things you are not so good at, and be kind and supportive to everyone around you. You get back what you give.

What changes have you seen at EIP over the years that you found impactful?

Without doubt it would be the rapid growth of the firm and how that affects everything. When I joined, I think there were 20 of us, max. We socialised as one group, shared all sorts of responsibilities between us and all worked together in one small area. The second meeting room was the pub downstairs. We developed from that into the multi-office, multi-national firm we are now where there are some people that you may rarely, if ever, meet in person.

Despite this we have managed to keep a great feeling of togetherness as a company and that is down to the amount of thought that has gone into to keeping things that way.

Do you have any favourite traditions or events at EIP that you always looked forward to?

Everyone knows that I love an Annual Review and a Christmas Party. Getting everyone together to have fun without work being top of the agenda is hugely important and I have always loved having the opportunity to spend some quality social time with friends here that I don’t get to see that often, especially from the other offices.

What will you miss the most about working at EIP?

I expect I will miss that sense of having an important role to play and a set purpose each day when I stop work, as lots of people probably do. But by far the biggest miss will be my friends I have here. I spend more time with the people I sit with here than almost anyone else in my world and it will take some getting used to not seeing everyone as I do now. I will miss the camaraderie and the laughs for sure.

What are your plans for retirement? Any exciting hobbies or adventures lined up?

I timed things so that my retirement would coincide with the start of the summer and for the first few months I intend to do all the things that having to work gets in the way of. 😊I have a few ideas about possible projects to keep me out of trouble and if I do feel the need to do work of some description further down the line, it will be something completely different to what I have done for the last 47 years.

I plan to spend lots of time with my wider family and I am lucky enough to never really feel bored at all. Always something that I want to crack on with. I’ll carry on going to watch Spurs (for my sins) and my older brother and I have a racehorse which means I will spend a ton of my time going up to Newmarket (about an hour away from me) to visit the stables and watch the horses doing their early morning exercise. That is something I would do most days if I could. I’ll be going to race meetings whenever I can and it’s the kind of thing I have dreamt about having the freedom to do more often.

If you could describe your career at EIP in three words, what would they be?

Fun. Rewarding. Uplifting.

What advice would you give to people starting their career journey?

Speak up with your ideas, work hard for yourself and your colleagues, respect the culture, be kind and most importantly, keep smiling. 😊