It was pretty hard to pin Marco Frigatti down for this interview… because he seems to be everywhere all at once!
But that’s exactly the way he likes it.
As our Senior Vice President of Consultancy, Marco has travelled the globe!
He’s a very recognizable face in his native Italy, where he appears as one of the Adjudicators on our TV show Lo Show dei Record.
But for those of you who aren’t familiar with this jet-setting senior member of the Guinness World Records family, he’s kindly agreed to take us Behind the Scenes of the job that’s made him a very frequent flier.
He said: “You know, as a kid, I wanted to become a diplomat. I wanted to travel the world and get people to talk to each other, find solutions and I wanted the world to be my office.
“I never saw myself being in one place. Of course, this is very idealistic and you can't really achieve that. But I mean, you can achieve a piece of that if you work within an international office or if you work in a job that takes you to speak to different people from different places.
“A lot of people think people are similar wherever you go, but there’s so much diversity in culture and how people lead what is seemingly the same life.
“Everyone’s values are slightly different, and I love to pick up on these differences and learn as much as I can about other cultures.
“It was always my ambition to go everywhere and to learn about the world.”
And he’s pretty much seen it all over the last two decades.
Marco officially joined the ranks in 2004, although he got his foot in the door a year earlier as an assistant in our TV department while he was working for a temp agency.
Now looking forward to his 20th anniversary at GWR, Marco recalls how he began working in the records department and founded what is now known as our Records Management Team (the people who meticulously send out guidelines to applicants and go through all the evidence they send back).
Marco stayed in that area of the company until 2017, when he was handed a very unique opportunity.
The general manager in our Beijing office had left, and Marco was asked to fill in until a permanent replacement could be found.
So, he packed his suitcase and jumped straight in at the deep end, suddenly finding himself immersed in every aspect of our work in record breaking.
“I’d never looked at these other sides of the business,” Marco confessed. “I had only every worked on the records team, but now I was looking at marketing, sales, brand, and all these other things.
“It was a very big challenge. I remember saying to my boss, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’, and he told me to just let people come to me, and they did, and I learned a lot from them but also we had a lot of fun.
“From initially only being responsible for the Beijing office, I was given the chance to gradually extend my role and become responsible for Tokyo and Dubai first, and then our two consultancy offices in the west, London and New York. So now I oversee the consultancy business which has become an important part of GWR.
“I found out a lot about myself during that time in China.”
If you’re wondering what consultancy is exactly, that’s the GWR team that works with brands and businesses who want to use record breaking as part of a campaign or event.
Marco has never forgot to find the fun in everything he does and everywhere he goes.
Earlier this year, he jetted off to Italy to film the latest series of Lo Show dei Record after a bit of time away from the show.
“I’ve done about 10 series of it now. I missed a couple but I heard it wasn’t as successful without me,” he teased.
Although Marco’s day-to-day role no longer involves adjudicating, he was happy to put that famous uniform on once again for the latest series of the show, where he’s a familiar face alongside host Gerry Scotti and fellow Adjudicator Lorenzo Veltri.
And let’s face it, it really wouldn’t be the same without him.
While he was there, he saw many awe-inspiring things, including a strongman pulling a car along by his eye sockets. Yes, you read that right, his EYE SOCKETS.
“I think it's interesting that we are a company where a senior leader is given the chance to participate as an Adjudicator on a TV show,” Marco said.
“In my mind, it says a lot about this company, that we have passion across all teams about doing everything, you know, getting involved, getting ourselves on our knees and measuring the distance between the start and the end of the heaviest weight pulled with the eye sockets for example.
“Someone has to measure out the distance he has to go - and that was me, down on my hands and knees.”
Seeing so many amazing feats does have its downsides too though.
Marco said: “Sometimes after seeing all these things I go home and question what I can do.
“I mean, I can make a mean lasagne but I’m not really sure that’s going to break any records.”
Marco says he still gets goosebumps when he thinks back to some of the record-breaking moments he’s witnessed, such as the longest traditional Chinese dragon, with him personally measuring all 5,605 m (18,309 ft) of it in Hong Kong.
He’s also had the honour of meeting the world’s tallest and shortest people, and counts the shortest woman living, Jyoti Amge, as a good friend.
Marco has been lucky to find more than just a career. He’s made lifelong friends and seen more of the world than he ever dreamed he would.
Where will he go next? Well, your guess is as good as ours.
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Still not had enough? Follow the link here to buy our latest book, filled to the brim with stories about our amazing record breakers.
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