Clare Gillbanks
Clare Gillbanks – connector, creator and former matchmaker with entrepreneurial tendencies and an appetite for life.
Hi, thanks for visiting my website. Feel free to browse the pages & resources and visit the links I’ve added. I decided a personal website would be useful for connecting people I meet all the time and to make it easy for people to find links to things I personally recommend. I have a new personal blog which I will try to update from time to time and of course all the usual accounts on social media websites and business networking communities. What did we all do before all this online action?
About Me
I live in central London, currently single and having a great time 
I enjoy all the usual things city life has to offer from socialising and dancing to exploring the sites, sometimes I like nothing more than wandering around Hyde Park, people watching. When I do get some decent free time I like to catch up with good friends and make new ones, perhaps discover a great new restaurant or grab a movie.
I have a 13 year old cat called Muffin who has been with my through thick and thicker, she’s more of a house cat since we moved to Paddington and we rub along very well together.
My family are all over the place but most important are my sisters Ruth and Lucy and big brother Matt. Lucy (married to Gareth) has a wonderful family of her own – my Godson Thomas and little Emily. Ruth is not too far away in North London and is a professional dog walker. Matt (married to Gail) runs the family business in Liverpool and they have 3 huge dogs and a boat.
My passions in life include (other than work) dancing of most kinds – Ceroc (still at intermediate level), salsa (badly) or just whatever goes at weddings and parties and travelling. If I had more opportunity I’d visit the rest of the world that I’ve not made it to yet. I’ve been lucky to have visited many countries but South America is the next destination on my list.
Work Life
I have recently been appointed Chief Operating Officer at My Work Search Ltd. I wrote a blog about it here
My Work Search is a comprehensive online jobseekers tool kit for individuals available through Job Centre Plus or on a subscription model. There is also a B2B product called My New Job.me which is available to employers who are making staff redundant. It has been designed to operate as a single coherent easy to use process that hand-holds the job-seeker and guides them to do all the right things to increase their chances of finding a job.
Before this exciting new opportunity, I was running my own business and very involved in the organisation of various networks and events helping people get groups together and generate business and contacts. I founded Gemini Innovations Ltd in 2006 as a freelance marketing and events consultancy working with SMEs weren’t in a position to commit to full time resource or staff.
The business developed with the addition of a Managed Virtual Assistants (VA) service offering remote PA and marketing support virtually. This is in the process of being rebranded as The vA Team and is now managed by my friend Emma who is doing a great job.
Before I started Gemini, I organised singles events started my first company Meet at Last in 2003 as a hobby. With over a dozen weddings and countless success stories it’s been a great legacy helping people find lasting relationships and one I am proud of. The website is still going strong and I am also known as The Dating Angel a nickname given to me after some media attention several years ago.
In my corporate life I was a direct marketing manager for Sainsbury’s for a few years (friends will remember the wonderful Pet Club I used to run) and have also worked agency side in various interactive marketing agencies.
Feel free to get in touch.
