18/04/2008

Three Wise Men

John Bartle and Dare

Before starting up Dare Digital in 2000, the managing partner, Mark Collier, invited his friend and former boss John Bartle to be the agency’s non-executive chairman. Bartle chairs the monthly board meeting, mentors Collier one morning a month and talks to him around three times a week on the phone. “Many of our conversations are extremely brief,” Bartle reveals, “but Mark knows that he can always bounce something off me.”
    Bartle, who describes the difference between executive and non-executive in terms of the public face of the agency versus the internal, private one, admits that he wasn’t appointed owing to his digital knowhow: “Mark didn’t want me for my digital knowledge; he wanted me because I know about the industry, clients and how to build a business.”
    Asked what he gets from his chairmanship, he says: “I get something fresh out of it because I’m learning about a new sector. I actually think that keeps your brain working and keeps you young. I also get tremendous pleasure and satisfaction from their success.”
    And, according to Collier, even though Bartle has nothing to do with the agency’s new-business machine, clients like the clout of prestigious non-executives: “They look at Bob [Willott, Dare’s other non-executive director] and John and see knowledge, experience and wisdom. In our view, that can only be a good thing.”
    As for Bartle, he is modest about what he brings to Dare. “I don’t think my contribution is more than marginal,” he says. “It’s sailing along, and I’m just helping it to adjust the tiller slightly.”

What Bartle brings to Dare

‘You might expect a non-executive to be quite cautious, yet he’s often pushing us to be more radical in terms of recruitment, expansion or investment.’ - Mark Collier, managing partner

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David Pattison and i-level

In April 2007, David Pattison left his position as chief executive, PHD Worldwide, a network that he co-founded, to join ILG Group, i-level’s parent company. John Bartle, also i-level’s non-executive chairman, was instrumental in Pattison’s appointment.
    As its chief executive, Pattison’s official remit is to broaden i-level’s UK proposition and to look into expanding the company internationally, but ripening it for a sale is also central. I-level’s sale has been mooted in the press, but Pattison doesn’t reveal any immediate intention: “Never say never, but it’s not on our agenda at the moment.”
    What drew him to digital? “I wanted to learn something new, and moving into the digital space definitely gave me that opportunity,” he says. “I thought I understood digital before because I thought it was another media channel, but it’s not; it’s a different language. In the traditional space, you forever measure costs in terms of media pricing. In digital agencies, you talk about lifetime customer value, return on investment or how much business something will generate for clients. So you talk the language of commerce rather than the language of media.”
    Pattison is also clear about what the benefits are for i-level. “By its very nature, the digital space is an immature industry, but I don’t mean it’s badly behaved. It’s young and fresh and full of people who have only ever seen 40, 50 or 60 per cent growth and they think that’s the norm. The industry needs people like me and Paul Bainsfair because we understand the effect that we can have on clients’ business. Digital agencies need people who have been around the block around a few times.”

What Pattison brings to i-level

‘David has done everything from starting a company to running a network, so we couldn’t dip into a broader base of experience if we tried.’ - Faith Carthy, group managing director

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Lord Puttnam and Profero

Lord David Puttnam worked at Collett Dickenson Pearce in its 60s heyday with the likes of Sir Alan Parker and Charles Saatchi before moving into film and producing features including Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express and Bugsy Malone. In April 2007, he became the non-executive chairman of the full-service digital agency Profero, a role to which he commits between three and four days a month.
    Asked what he contributes, Lord Puttnam jokes: “I’m at least twice the age of the next oldest person, so I bring up the average age of the company quite significantly!”
    He compares Profero to CDP in the 60s, commenting: “Profero has the same energy and commitment to learning on the job in which I’ve always believed, as well as the same core belief in creativity. At Colletts, we were always trained to believe that a really great idea could help sell a product, so it was always led by ideas and so is Profero; it’s not tied up in some vast management structure.”
    Puttnam chairs Profero’s strategic board, a senior decision-making group, and also acts as an advisor to top-tier managers.
    Nick Blunden, Profero’s UK managing director, adds that Puttnam inspires the whole agency – in fact, it was through a speaker series that Puttnam first visited the agency. “He spoke for an hour to the agency and it was amazingly positive and inspirational,” Blunden says. “He speaks very passionately about communication and the positive role it can play.”
    Profero’s client base includes COI and the Learning Skills Council, and Lord Puttnam reflects that “Profero appreciates the impact made by that kind of work”.

What Puttnam bings to Profero

‘He fits very closely with our vision of where digital communication is going, in that it all hinges on creating compelling content. That’s what David’s career has been all about.’ - Nick Blunden, UK managing director