Bruce Johnston

Tell us a bit about Bruce Johnston
I grew up in a small village on the north east coast of Scotland called Portknockie. I went to high school with JC and met Mike on my first day at university. As JC was becoming a designer and Mike was studying computing, I was deep into literature, especially literary theory, romanticism, and postmodernism. We studied completely different things, but I always thought it was kind of inevitable that we’d end up working together some day.

What made you decide to come and work for Kosli?
Mike and James made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I already had some idea of what they were working on and it sounded like it had huge potential. When they set out the vision for the company and the potential scale I knew I had to be a part of it. This was the chance to apply everything I’d learned as a creative consultant in Phable. I also knew that they’d be hiring some incredibly talented people, so the opportunity to work on an exciting project with a great team was just impossible to turn down.

What were you doing before Kosli?
Like a lot of older millennials, my career plans were blown out in the 2008 financial crisis. I handed in a chunky Master’s thesis on Henry James about 10 days before Lehman Brothers collapsed 🙃 After that I spent a few years working all kinds of jobs that I really didn’t enjoy. I couldn’t find the right path, so I had to make one for myself. In 2016 JC and I started Phable, a creative studio for technology companies, and I’ve never looked back.

What do you like doing in your spare time?
Is it a cop out to say I like a bit of everything? I like sports as much as I like books. I’m as happy in a theatre as I am in a stadium. Discovering exciting new things is what really keeps me going though. That could be a song, a movie, a restaurant, a painting - anything really. It’s why I love to travel and see new places. There’s so much to see and so little time to see it.