In this month's Symplicity Spotlight, we're featuring Grant McNeill, a Senior Solutions Engineer based in London who brings a decade of higher education leadership experience — and a few truly unforgettable life stories — to the Symplicity EMEA team.
Tell us a little about your background before joining Symplicity.
"I joined Symplicity in January this year, and before that I was the Head of Student Futures at London South Bank University. It was essentially a careers role, but much broader than that — it covered careers staff, employer engagement, placements, an internal recruitment agency, the alumni team, and enterprise. I had 40 staff to manage and, interestingly, I was a Symplicity customer — we had CareerHub there."
What drew you to Symplicity, and what's it been like so far?
"About two or three years ago, I jokingly approached Symplicity and said I'd love to come work for you one day. And I think it was because, unlike most suppliers — and I know this word gets thrown around — the idea of 'family' at Symplicity really felt true from the client side. It felt like there was a group of people genuinely looking after us. There's something special about the way Symplicity operates. It's small enough to be entrepreneurial but big enough to have the infrastructure to really move things forward. The team has been absolutely fantastic. I'm amazed at how many people have just dropped what they were doing to give me a hand, sit on a demo, or talk me through something — again and again — without getting frustrated. It's been a really great couple of months."
What keeps you passionate about working in higher education?
"People come into higher education because they want to become somebody. They want to change their life — to go from 'I'm not' to 'I am.' I think the university years are the most formative years of your life. It's where you make deep friendships, it's where the music you listen to is probably the music you'll want to listen to for the rest of your life. And I think when you work in higher education, you get to be that person for someone else — that sliding doors moment. If Advocate wasn't there for a particular student, their journey through higher education would have looked very different. If a student finds the right employer through CSM, that could change their whole career trajectory. It's genuinely life-changing work."
Speaking of music — what were you listening to at university?
"Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, Alanis Morissette, No Doubt. I was literally listening to Pearl Jam 10 on a run this morning and thinking, I haven't listened to this album in ages. So I've just dated myself to a very specific era of the 90s — there you go."
Outside of work, what do you get up to?
"Running is a big one. I started in lockdown just walking and jogging, built up to a 5K, thought I'd absolutely smashed it, and then kept going — 10K, half marathon, marathon, and then somehow ended up in ultra running. I've got a 100-kilometre race at the end of May where you run from London to the coast. You're not running on roads though — you're out on trails, sometimes through mountains, beautiful scenery. I'm also a long-time guitar player. I played in bands for years and toured — I'm a retired rock and roller now. I actually wrote all the music for a video project I did a while back, which I'm quite proud of."
Tell us about that video project — we heard there's quite a story there.
"So a few years ago, I was driving home after giving a careers presentation at a secondary school and had this moment of feeling like a bit of a hypocrite — talking to teenagers about their lives when I wasn't sure what I wanted from my own. I had this idea: what if, for 30 days, I did something outside my comfort zone every day, with each day getting progressively more intense? The idea was to see if you can become comfortable being uncomfortable. It started with things like a midwinter swim, a few socially embarrassing challenges — and then escalated. I got dropped in the middle of the ocean, out of sight of land, on my own, and the boat just left me for an hour. I jumped out of a plane. And then the penultimate challenge: I was buried alive in a coffin, six feet underground, with dirt on top. About 15 minutes, air tank with me — and I'll tell you, there's something you really can't put into words about lying in a box and hearing dirt raining down, and then complete silence. A national radio station ended up sponsoring the whole thing, a documentary filmmaker came on board, we were doing TV appearances and breakfast shows. The whole project got filmed and documented as it happened."
What's one piece of life or career advice you'd give?
"Live your life in the endless pursuit of awesome campfire stories. So that when you're sitting around a fire and someone says, 'there was this one time I...' — you've got something to say. Fill your life up with great experiences. Make mistakes, because those are usually the best ones."
What are you most excited about in your role at Symplicity?
"I want to have great relationships across the EMEA region, work hard, have fun, and help our clients get the most out of what Symplicity can do. That's what gets me going."
To learn more about Symplicity and how our expert team can support you and your institution, email us at info@symplicity.com.
