Q: What is your main business challenge?
A: At a macro short term level, a softening economy and the implied possible recession means that clients' top-line growth in the immediate future faces headwinds. If sales don't realise, managing P&L's by cutting advertising spend will follow. This obviously has a negative impact on our industry, which is a hard one to overcome.
However a greater business challenge is trying to remain ahead of a dramatically changing industry with the proliferation of technology driven by a start-up generation, that rightly so, have a complete disregard for the status quo. Finding brilliant people that can adapt and reinvent the way they think about communication is difficult, as they either lack the overall experience and context or they think only within a digital environment.
Q: What is your core strategy as the new Group MD?
A: Any MD's core strategy should be about people, our business is about people - finding the best people and building out a liquid structure by reinventing our service model that delivers business outcomes. The secret however will be how to deliver a sustainable model that is adaptive to geographical differences, capabilities and funding requirements.
Q: The biggest trend to note in your industry?
A: The hunger for data must be it: "To data or not to data" seems to be the question. Recently we have seen a disruption of sorts - no longer do we rely on survey based data. Is it necessary that experts should ask someone about their behaviour when it can now be screened online? Surely, observing behaviour online is more prognostic in comparison to a large sample size of respondents.
Doug Ray, CEO & Global President for Carat United States offered this view on data: "The logical conclusion would be to amass as much behavioural data as possible, such as data from ad networks, social media, digital content owners, third-party data providers, and so on. The fundamental issue with this approach is that while this may allow us to know what people do, all the behavioural data in the world will not allow us to understand why they do."
We believe that the discussion must centre on finding equilibrium between behavioural and attitudinal data by connecting them. In doing so, we will be able to gain an enhanced interpretation of people and gain the in-depth insights that are vital to gaining the marketing results required to harness the change required for business progress. Credit must be given to marketers who foresee the worth in harnessing traditional methods of data collection with new methods.
Q: Most important attribute needed to do your job?
A: The ability to work with and influence people is the centre of gravity - add good common sense, a great sense of humour, resilience and the willingness to continually look for a different and better solution in a world of constrained resource - is critical.
Q: What qualities do you look for in your key people?
A: I look for people that want to take accountability and are not scared of making mistakes. I value diverse teams and with that in mind, I will always look to build teams that offer different perspectives based on experience, culture and functional capability.
Q: What are you currently reading for work?
A: 'Good to Great by James C Collins.
Q: Tell us something about yourself not generally known?
A: I don't eat vegetables. The reason is simple. I spent three years of my life in Iran and would go to the fresh produce market with my mom at age four. The smell of rotting vegetables in the Tehran markets put me off for life. I do however eat chicken - does that count?
Q: At the top of my 'bucket list' is...
A: Making memories every day with my friends and family.
