For the first time, Infectious Media will celebrate reaching a headcount of 100 employees this February. With 2016 marking our most successful year since our inception in 2008, Rosie Shimell, Head of People, speaks to Founding Partner and COO Andy Cocker, about the importance of being ‘100’.
Andy - can you tell us how it feels to head up a business with 100 employees?
Things today feel very different from when we started. Both Martin and myself have far exceeded what we ever expected to achieve when we began the business. We never thought we’d end up being this big or operating internationally. We are humbled and incredibly proud of where we are today. Its an amazing feeling. It’s really taught me that with focus, hard work and the support of a great team, it’s possible to achieve anything.
When we started out, we had become tired of the big network agency experience. We saw first hand how the media planning and buying process was broken, but couldn’t really make a change in these monolithic businesses. In starting our own business we got to decide the direction of the company. We wanted to build a new type of media agency, with data and technology at it’s core to help to fix online advertising.
At the start we were in control of everything. The flip side of that was Martin & I used to physically do everything too. I did finance and marketing and business admin. Martin used to plan, buy and optimise campaigns, not very well I hasten to add ;). Pretty much everything is different now because we are much bigger. Now more than ever there is a greater division of labour in the company. There are more people focusing on specific tasks. We now have a dedicated Finance team of three and close to 50 client service specialists who look after campaigns. We have teams of specialists now who are really really good at what they do. However, in all this there is one thing that hasn't changed, we are still passionate about fixing advertising.
We began as very much a lone voice in the industry. But buying advertising with data and tech is now widely acknowledged as a better way of doing things. This recognition is changing the media buying industry, the skills and technology needed now is totally different that of ten years ago. Our early belief and the hard work from our people has helped to place this company in a privileged position. The level of growth we are now experiencing is very rare, and this of course leads to challenges.
In terms of logistics, managing a hundred person business is a much bigger job in itself. We have had to quickly put in place formalities and processes and to evolve the structure of the agency. The global element to the business, with offices in Chicago and Singapore, presents challenges from a communication and cultural perspective; we want our offices to feel part of the Infectious Media family whilst also reflecting the cultural differences of their regions.
Both Martin and myself are incredibly proud of what the team has achieved to get us here. But most importantly, we want to ensure through this period of change, working at Infectious Media continues to offer everyone the fun, rewarding and challenging environment with great opportunities, which we always hoped it would.
When you started the Business you were a company of two employees. How has the feel of the company changed as the number of people has increased?
One of biggest changes is that we are now at a size where we don’t have a close relationship with everyone, simply because we can’t. People are the most important asset of any business, so it’s a shame that as we get bigger our personal connections with everyone becomes diluted. Even when we were 10 people we were a tight team. We don’t get that much exposure to every individual in the business, much as Martin and I would like to. However, we have to be realistic and understand that getting bigger is a sign of success.
We want to make sure that we are training our managers to be strong at creating positive relationships with our people - this is something that is so important to us. We invest time to make sure that this “people focus” is translating to our other offices by travelling frequently and working really hard to hire the right Country Managers.
As we’ve grown we’ve had to build more layers of management - so now we have a very strong global Executive team including our Country Managers in Singapore and Chicago. The next level down is our Operations Board, who are responsible for day to day running of the business. We’ve also welcomed a new Commercial Operations Director recently who has been great at focusing the teams on their objectives and putting processes in place to ensure that through all those levels of management there are still very clear reporting lines so there is transparency and everyone knows they are working on the right thing.
What advice would you give to our 100th employee? How can they make the most out of their time at Infectious Media?
I would say that we have some really fantastic talented people who work here, and that as a cutting edge digital agency, we are genuinely doing stuff that no one else is doing. We are pushing the boundaries and development of online advertising. Anyone working here should be taking advantage of that by learning from as many people as possible. I’d say that if you have quite a focussed role, don’t let it limit your exposure to other people and teams. Get involved with as many different areas of business to understand what is possible. Don’t just operate within a box. Whilst 100 employees makes quite a big company, I like to think we still have an entrepreneurial spirit – if people have good ideas we will listen to you and act on them.
Looking ahead, what will the headcount of the Business look like in a year’s time?
We will definitely grow if we continue on this trajectory, but it’s not just about increasing our headcount, it’s also about being efficient in the way that we grow, and developing tools to be more streamlined with our processes. The answer to a problem is not just hiring more people – there will be a renewed focus on efficiency to make sure we get it right.
I think that in terms of US/APAC, we are still figuring out what type of resource we need in those offices – figuring out the right balance between central vs. in-market resource. We need to make sure we have right skills distributed globally in the right time zones - that will be an important focus for us too.
But, with all this growth we mustn’t lose sight of what we are trying to do. With a focus on serving global advertisers with data and tech, we are in the process of inventing what it means to be an international programmatic agency.
No one has done this before, the processes and structure we put into place now are ones that will help define the place of the agency within a new industry. It is an incredible exciting time, and so far away from the agencies where we started out. I think that everyone in Infectious Media can play a really important role in advancing the way advertising is done.