What’s in a name?

When our Managing Director, Andy Pieroux, was setting up Walpole Partnership eleven years ago, he wanted to give it a feeling of history and long-standing. Obviously it was a new company, but the Configure Price Quote (CPQ) experience that he and the other founding employees brought with them was significant, and he was keen that this was reflected in the name.

So why Walpole? Andy wanted a name that conjured up a feeling of an organisation that was well established and carried authority. Sir Robert Walpole lived in the 17th and 18th centuries and is generally considered to be the first prime minister of Great Britain. Using his surname gave the right tone for the company’s name that Andy was after. Andy also happened to be regularly jogging around one of his local parks with the same name, and despite the fact that Walpole was set-up as a remote working business, its spiritual home was always going to be in London.

And why Partnership? We’re not a legally set up partnership, but partnerships are in our blood and form the very basis for all the work that we do, whether that’s with tech vendor partners, project partners or customers. We’re always collaborating and continually improving our approach to how we implement CPQ, and everything else around that too, so adding Partnership onto the end of Walpole just seemed to really work.

After Andy had confirmed and registered ‘Walpole Partnership’ as the company name, then the logo and compass imagery was created. The compass’s main aim was to position Walpole as their customers’ guide through the implementation and improvement of everything CPQ-related. And so the name and our brand was born.

So what’s in a name? Jamaican-American author, Nicola Yoon puts it so well, “Names are powerful things. They act as an identity marker and a kind of map, locating you in time and geography. More than that, they can be a compass.” We certainly think that Walpole Partnership’s name does all those things, and more.

The entire Walpole Partnership branding process was led by Andy’s wife, Sapna Pieroux, who owns her own branding agency, InnerVisions ID Brand Consultancy. If you are looking to build your business brand and/or rebrand, then book a call with Sapna today.