Beating Heart & Co-founder of Here Be Dragons
Here Be Dragons is a PR agency which runs clients such as Beavertown and giffgaff, as well as working on pro bono clients such as Justice4Grenfell, NHS Charities Together and the Equality and Diversity Forum. With Beating Heart, Toto directed and wrote a short film called ‘Two Angry Men’ for the BBC, as well as directing a music video and working with clients as diverse as Robbie Williams, Above & Beyond and the Levi’s Music Project.
Outside of work, Toto volunteers with St John Ambulance, is a Board Member of ThickSkin (a charitable theatre company) and became a qualified yoga teacher (teaching voluntarily for charities and other mental health organisations). He’s also a keen sailor, motorbiker, runner and piano/flute player.
In 2022, Toto was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder and also found out that he’d been living with undiagnosed ADHD since childhood. During the pandemic, Toto suffered from the equivalent of a mental health crisis, including turning to harmful behaviours in an attempt to deal with the overwhelm from these undiagnosed disorders and the continued traumas which hadn’t been fully addressed from earlier parts of his life – this included the loss of both of his brothers (to a murder and a suicide) and his father. Today, he’s very grateful to be benefiting from therapy, support communities and other great tools such as meditation and journalling.
Today, Toto is incredibly passionate about not only working on his own mental health and spiritual journey, but also in trying to find ways to share any learnings or skills he could pass on to others. That’s what brought him to Revival, which is doing vital and incredible work in the Whitstable community which he calls home. It’s a huge honour to be invited to speak and hopefully soon to be teaching yoga with my friend Tara for anyone who’d like to try it out.
