EP50 - From Marketer to CEO with Richard Kellam

What does it take to rise from your first marketing role to CEO of a major communications company? In today's episode, Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, sits down with Richard Kellam, who transformed his career from marketer to President & CEO of DATA Communications Management Corp. (DCM). Richard reveals how he leveraged transferable skills to make the jump to CPG, secured international opportunities, and how he evolved from Chief Customer Officer to CEO.

00:00:01:18 - 00:00:28:10 Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO Alison Simpson.

00:00:28:12 - 00:01:00:08 Alison In today's episode, it's my pleasure to welcome Richard Kellam, who represents one of marketing's most desirable success stories. A CMO who successfully transitioned to global and national president and CEO roles. This is still far too much of a rarity in our profession. Richard is president and CEO of Data Communications Management Corp., commonly known as DCM. His journey from brand manager to chief executive spans three decades, eight different countries and leading marketing, sales and ultimately the top job for tier one brands.

00:01:00:10 - 00:01:26:12 Alison Richard's career progression through marketing leadership roles at Molson, Wrigley, Mars and Goodyear, combined with strategic moves into sales and general management positions, provides a really wonderful blueprint for ambitious marketing professionals seeking to expand their influence beyond the marketing role. At DCM, Richard is proving that marketing-trained CEOs bring truly unique advantages to leadership roles, particularly in today's customer-centric, digitally driven business environment.

00:01:26:14 - 00:02:00:05 Alison He's leading DCM's transformation from a traditional print company to a tech enabled marketing solutions provider, demonstrating how his marketing background provides crucial insights into customer needs as well as market trends and brand positioning. His career offers inspiration and practical guidance for many talented CMOs who aspire to CEO roles, but often find the path unclear. Richard's proved that with the right experiences, mindset shifts and strategic career moves, the transition from CMO to CEO is not only possible, but can be a very natural evolution for marketing leaders.

00:02:00:07 - 00:02:03:13 Alison Richard, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you today.

00:02:03:15 - 00:02:05:15 Richard Thanks for having me, Alison. Appreciate it.

00:02:05:17 - 00:02:18:15 Alison And Richard and I first met very early in our careers. He was at Molson and I was the VP at McLaren. McCann overseeing the Molson account. So it's been a long journey together. And Richard, it's been really amazing to watch your path.

00:02:18:17 - 00:02:21:10 Richard Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah, it was a lot of fun working together many years ago.

00:02:21:12 - 00:02:30:16 Alison So I'd love you to take us to your first job in marketing and how you thought about your career. In those early days, did you ever consider the possibility of becoming a CEO?

00:02:30:18 - 00:02:54:23 Richard I'm not sure I even knew what CEO meant back then. So I guess the answer to your question is no. I never really thought it was, it was possible. My actually first job at university was in sales for a company called Playtex. Actually, I applied for the job, but I"m really gonna date myself here. But it was in a classified ad in the Globe and Mail, right?

00:02:55:02 - 00:03:13:18 Richard Who remembers that? And I applied for the job, went in and interviewed for it and successfully got the role. They actually had two divisions. They had a they called it a family products mission. They had an intimate apparel division, and I was hired for the intimate apparel division. So I'm sure people know the Playtex products in that division and started in sales. Had a combination of, key accounts.

00:03:13:18 - 00:03:33:16 Richard A lot of the accounts aren't even in the market anymore. Simpson's, Eaton's, Sears. Of course, none of those are around. Kmart, Woolworths, which Walmart acquired. And then I had a bunch of independent accounts in downtown Toronto as well. So I did that for the for the first year and thankfully ended up being quite successful. I actually won rookie of the year, which is quite fun.

00:03:33:16 - 00:03:43:16 Richard And then after one year I was moved into marketing and I was an assistant brand manager on a few brands in Playtex. So that was my start in my marketing journey, you know, quite a while ago in the mid 80s.

00:03:43:18 - 00:04:05:01 Alison I definitely remember the days of classified ads and all of the retailers you mentioned. So we're certainly of the same vintage. I also worked in sales earlier in my career, and I think it's such a powerful view to have, especially early in your career, and can really shape your approach to marketing. So building on that, what experience or skills did you gain in that first sales and marketing role that have served you well throughout your career?

00:04:05:03 - 00:04:31:12 Richard So the biggest skill I gained on the marketing side was the importance of data analytics in business intelligence, on the sales side as well. And this was a days where computers were just being introduced to business and nobody had their own personal computer. Back to my point where I won this, this rookie of the year sales award. Actually, I got a trip to Jamaica, so my wife and I went to Jamaica, and on that trip I read a book on how to use Excel.

00:04:31:14 - 00:04:44:23 Richard So I learned Excel from a from a book because I didn't have a computer. So I was sitting on a beach for the week, just reading about how to use Excel. And when I got back to the office, they had a computer room. So you didn't have a computer at your desk. You had a computer room. And I started to apply that

00:04:44:23 - 00:05:05:08 Richard learning to learn how to use Excel, because I knew that data analytics and business intelligence was extremely important in marketing or important in business. So I, I've been kind of a numbers guy or a data guy or an analyst guy or business intelligence guy, kind of for my whole career, using data and insights to create value for a business.

00:05:05:08 - 00:05:27:10 Richard So that was really defining, I'd say, point for me in my career, and it's certainly been kind of central to my skill and capability as I've progressed. And I'd say the other key competency or attribute, I'm, my archetype is an explorer. So I like to learn new things and see new things and discover new things. So I'm a very curious business leader as well.

00:05:27:10 - 00:05:39:14 Richard So curiosity, while I was in that sales role or in that early stage entry level marketing role, was an important competency and that really contributed to my success as well. In addition to the data analytics and business intelligence.

00:05:39:16 - 00:06:00:19 Alison Curiosity and the constantly learning is such a mission critical skill and mindset for anyone in marketing. I think it's always been the case, but given how the pace of change is accelerated around us, it is absolute mission critical. So following Playtex, you moved into the first of many marketing roles in the CPG industry, starting with Robin Hood Foods and then later Wrigley.

00:06:00:21 - 00:06:03:11 Alison What made that move possible for you?

00:06:03:13 - 00:06:23:07 Richard I actually worked for a guy who came out of, Procter and Gamble. So that was my first boss at Playtex, and he talked a lot about, you know, kind of the CPG space and the learning and the development and the skill and capability that they build. And so I thought, you know, I had this opportunity come by for Robin Hood Multifoods was a recruiter, headhunter that was calling me and talk to me about this role.

00:06:23:07 - 00:06:41:22 Richard So that was kind of an interesting role and, and a good opportunity for me to kind of expand my horizon into a new category. Interesting thing about Robin Hood, again, that was kind of my entry into CPG. But if you think about it, I was the brand manager on Robin Hood Flour. So you can't get a more commoditized business, right?

00:06:41:22 - 00:07:02:12 Richard Salt, sugar, flour those are all commodities. So to really understand the category and how to create value in a highly commoditized category was huge learning for me. And, and it was a lot of fun, actually, at the same time. And we had a really good run on Robin Hood Flour. The brand had a great success and proven that marketing does, you know, deliver value, especially in a highly commoditized category like that.

00:07:02:12 - 00:07:07:11 Richard Right. Brand is everything. So learned a lot there. And then obviously applied that learning as I progressed.

00:07:07:13 - 00:07:14:09 Alison And you went on to spend the bulk of your career in CPG. So what were the keys to your advancement and success?

00:07:14:11 - 00:07:35:11 Richard Yeah. Coming back to what I said earlier, you know, my curiosity, my explorer archetype, really kind of wanted to understand and discover new opportunities to build value in a business or value in a brand. Those, I'd say, would be my key success factors as I move through my career. Also, I was known as the "just do it" guy.

00:07:35:13 - 00:07:57:06 Richard In other words, I wasn't afraid to to do things and try things and not afraid to make mistakes. I always had a strong bias to action. Thankfully, I did more things right than wrong so that, that contributed to my success as well, but clearly made a lot of mistakes in my career as well and learned from those mistakes and then applied that learning to new, you know, to new activity moving forward.

00:07:57:08 - 00:08:13:05 Alison The "just do it" guy is so true of how I think of you. And that's a great personal brand. Is it also a part of why you went through really experience to three international assignments, starting with Malaysia, then India and then back to Malaysia? How did the initial opportunity for that arise?

00:08:13:07 - 00:08:44:21 Richard I was hired to Wrigley as a new products manager. So new brand matters, new products manager. And the first brand or product they worked on was a brand that Canadians will know. It's called Excel, right? Excel. Accelerate your breath. Excel. Okay, so that wasn't even a brand at the time. It was a concept. They had a they had a product concept, was a xylitol product that had long lasting flavour duration, but no brand at the time and really kind of no brand positioning, no concept, nothing.

00:08:44:21 - 00:09:03:22 Richard So I was hired as a new brand manager, and that got me a lot of exposure to the folks in Chicago. So the R&D team in Chicago and the development team in Chicago, as well as the marketing team obviously were sort of in North American marketing team because Canada was the first market to be considering this new product, and so we had to create a whole brand around it.

00:09:03:22 - 00:09:27:04 Richard So as a result of that, I got some exposure and I was doing a sales meeting in Huntsville and Bill Wrigley Jr., so the son of Mr. Wrigley we called him, the son of the owner was responsible for Canada. The president of Canada reported to Bill Wrigley Jr. He happened to be at this meeting, and I just happened to talk to him and said, hey, listen Bill, and I had gotten connected with him prior, obviously, given the Excel project.

00:09:27:06 - 00:09:50:14 Richard And I said, listen, if you're ever interested in or need any help international, because he was responsible for international markets, then I'd be happy to help. And literally within two weeks I was on a plane to India. I had to renew my passport and get a visa and all that stuff within two weeks. I was on a plane to India to work on a marketing and sales feasibility study.

00:09:50:14 - 00:10:09:17 Richard You know, is it a market that Wrigley should enter? And if they entered, how would they enter from a sales and from a marketing standpoint? And then that moved on to me being part of a bigger team of supply chain and procurement and HR, to get to a final point where we recommended that we should enter India and here's how we should enter.

00:10:09:17 - 00:10:29:00 Richard And then I was selected to be the managing director of India. So it's called Wrigley India Private Limited. So I was part of the team, the guy that was said to set up the business and run the business. So that's how I got into international. And again, I was a new brand new product manager. Not a lot of experience at all at general management.

00:10:29:00 - 00:10:43:09 Richard So they wanted to give me some general management experience. And that's how I ended up in Malaysia. Malaysia was a small country where I could hone my skills and be trained to be a general manager prior to going into a larger opportunity in India.

00:10:43:10 - 00:11:09:21 Alison There's so much I love about this story, including creating your own opportunities, you don't ask you don't get, and also going internationally from the culture of Canada to Malaysia. There was obviously a big change, that culture shock, and it's challenging from a professional perspective. But you also have a wife, young family. So I'd love you to share with our listeners what were some of the challenges, both personally and professionally, in making those moves?

00:11:09:23 - 00:11:30:14 Richard Professionally, there weren't a lot of challenges. You know, because you work in an international organization and, you know, you get the support from the international teams as well. I'd say personally, certainly, you know, having great support from my wife, Sheila, and she rallied around it and thought, great opportunity to experience a new culture or experience a new country and, you know, have the kids experience a new, you know, a new country as well.

00:11:30:14 - 00:11:46:05 Richard At the same time, thinking about the the positives of the opportunity, I think this is really important, right? Thinking about the positives of the opportunity. There's always going to be challenges, especially making, you know, physical moves like that with as a family. But there's way more positives than there are negatives, not just from a career perspective, from a family,

00:11:46:05 - 00:12:05:14 Richard And I had to move a lot of people internationally in my career, right? Hire people from Canada or move them to Germany, or hire people from Germany or move, you know, move them to the UK. And I had so many times, you present an opportunity, then they go back to their family, say, hey, listen, I have this opportunity to move to, you know, move to China.

00:12:05:15 - 00:12:20:01 Richard Are you going to be okay with it? I know it's going to be tough. I know it's going to be hard for the children to move at this age. Right? So I had to do a lot of coaching. Here's what you want to do. You want to go back and say, I have this exciting opportunity, this is going to be outstanding. You're going to meet a lot of new people.

00:12:20:01 - 00:12:40:09 Richard We're going to be able to travel to a lot of new countries. You're going to experience, you know, a lot of diversity and a lot of learning. How you present it to your family, importantly, you know, if you've got children in the family as well, it's critically important. So yeah, I've always looked at the glass half full, half full leader and look at the positives about making international moves like that.

00:12:40:11 - 00:12:49:04 Richard And they were great. I mean I think of my kids today and the experiences they had, you know, moving through multiple countries and schooling and people they've met, they've got friends kind of all over the world.

00:12:49:06 - 00:12:56:22 Alison So, Richard, a lot of your career was spent internationally. You were clearly very successful in those roles. What do you attribute your success to?

00:12:57:00 - 00:13:18:17 Richard Again, a couple of comments I made earlier? One is around my curiosity and really kind of learning and understanding the different markets and the the environments that I was working in. Culture of the environment. So being super adaptable and obviously collaborating well with teams in the local markets as well as, as well as international teams that I was working with and then really recognizing the quality of the teams that I worked with.

00:13:18:18 - 00:13:38:12 Richard And, you know, not being a guy that just came in and thought he knew everything, right. I think it's a big problem that I've seen where, you know, you're hired into a new international market, and you know it all. I walked in thinking I knew nothing and working with the team to discover and explore and work with the team effectively to create value and and build the business over time.

00:13:38:12 - 00:14:02:08 Richard So I'd say that was probably my biggest strength is kind of that cultural understanding, if you will. You know, business culture is kind of similar around the world, but understanding the people culture within a market. I had an interesting point in my career. I was the president of the European Petcare business for Mars Incorporated. I was responsible for 16 markets, we had about 4200 associates in 14 factories.

00:14:02:08 - 00:14:23:09 Richard So markets like France and Switzerland and Austria, Germany, etc.. You know, when we had leadership meetings, you've got all these different cultures in that meeting. And the French culture, of course, is very different than the German culture, than the Spanish culture, and really kind of understanding how to work in that multicultural environment and valuing, you know, those multicultural environments as well.

00:14:23:09 - 00:14:39:23 Richard I'd say that that's where I was, you know, quite successful in my career. Made a lot of mistakes of course. I remember I got some good coaching from one of my leaders at the time. We were in an annual planning meeting. We called it Connect to Grow, where all the markets came in and presented their plans. France came in and Germany came in, and Spain came in.

00:14:40:00 - 00:14:56:00 Richard I made a comment. I think it was the French, it was the French team, about look, you missed your plan the last couple of years. Why do you guys think this is a plan you're going to beat this year? And, I said it probably a little bit more directly than I just said it here. And then I got a little coaching moment after which, Richard, it's not what you say.

00:14:56:00 - 00:15:05:08 Richard It's how you say it. So I remember that today, and I think about that as I, sort of move through my career and to different, you know, different cultures and different situations.

00:15:05:10 - 00:15:28:14 Alison That's such great advice for anyone listening in. A great reminder for me as well. The other thing that really resonates for me that you've shared a few times is you're open to making mistakes. The only way you can stretch your thinking and really advance the business is recognize there's a lot you don't know, regardless of how senior you are, and that we're going to make mistakes along the way and making it safe for you and your teams to make those mistakes.

00:15:28:14 - 00:15:46:06 Alison Learn quickly and then ensure that the same mistakes aren't happening again. Now, I'm sure we've got listeners who are very interested in following in your international pathway, would be very open to working in global roles. So what advice would you give anyone that's listening in pursuing those roles?

00:15:46:08 - 00:16:07:22 Richard Well, look, I think first of all, Canadians are really well positioned to be successful internationally. We're really well positioned, because as a Canadian marketer, you've got to be really adaptable. You got to understand how to collaborate. You're working with a lot of cultures, even in your organization. Think of, Canada's grown through immigration, right? So think of the teams that you're working with.

00:16:08:00 - 00:16:38:20 Richard You're already working with international teams. And you know, the fact that the market is relatively small forces us to be resourceful at stretching budgets and really understanding precision and finding new creative ways to be successful or punch above your weight. So Canadians can be very, very, very successful. In fact, you know, when I was at Mars Incorporated, we had a lot of Canadians in international markets and extreme success, like really easy to move a Canadian into a new market.

00:16:39:01 - 00:17:07:16 Richard So I would say, look, if you're interested, then pursue that interest, right? Pursue the interest, find the right people to talk to you, to have the right conversations, either in your company or in companies that could be interesting to you. And there'll be opportunities there. I can tell you that there are so many large CPG companies that are looking for international people to help them fill opportunities in their global markets, whether they're in you know, the European markets or their Asian markets or any of their markets globally.

00:17:07:19 - 00:17:22:03 Richard A lot of the growth is coming from international expansion for these large CPGs or even outside of CPG. Right? So go after it. So there's a ton of opportunity just, you know, getting connected to the right people and having the right conversations, either in your organization or in other organizations.

00:17:22:04 - 00:17:43:06 Alison That's great. It goes back to your Bill Wrigley Jr. conversation. If you hadn't taken a couple minutes to let him know your interest, you never would have had the opportunity. So you started your career in Canada. Then you worked internationally for several decades, and now you've come back home. It gives you a really unique lens on marketers and marketing in Canada, so I'd love you to share in your experience

00:17:43:08 - 00:17:54:04 Alison how do you think Canadian marketers compare to our global peers? You've talked a bit about some of our unique strengths, so I'd love to hear if there's any others. And then do you see any gaps or opportunities where we should be improving?

00:17:54:06 - 00:18:17:20 Richard Canadian arketers generally are far more adaptable, little scrappier, I'd say, you know, given the smaller size of the marketplace, having to work with lower budgets and be able to stretch those budgets to be more resourceful. I think a lot more connected obviously, into the trade as well. Certainly on the CPG side, I think we breed efficient and instinctive marketers that have a lot of curiosity and agility.

00:18:17:22 - 00:18:33:21 Richard I mean, there's other markets that are very similar. I think Australia has kind of a similar market as well, and I'd say some of the skills and capabilities and attributes of an Australian marketer would be very similar to Canadian, but again, very different say, than the U.S. market given the size and scale and have a much, you know, deeper and narrow skill set.

00:18:33:23 - 00:18:43:08 Alison When I was working on an international brand we used to, and working with the U.S. in particular, we would always joke, it's like, there were three people in the U.S. doing a third of the job that we had in Canada.

00:18:43:13 - 00:18:44:05 Richard Yeah, exactly.

00:18:44:09 - 00:18:47:11 Alison Which creates some opportunities for us for sure.

00:18:47:13 - 00:18:48:04 Richard Yeah.

00:18:48:06 - 00:19:10:23 Alison Now I want to go back to your non-linear career path. So in moving to Mars, where you spent nearly half your career, you transitioned from marketing director in Canada through a series of leadership roles at the country, regional levels in Europe, and then to a global role as the Chief Customer Officer. So what transferable skills contributed to your success and ability to step into that Chief Customer Officer role?

00:19:12:22 - 00:19:29:06 Richard So, you know, as a marketer, obviously, you know, in Canada you've got to be well-connected to the trade. You know, I started in sales, of course, and then sales was always a key part of my responsibility, even as a marketer. Has to be in any market, but especially the Canadian market. And my commercial experience was pretty robust.

00:19:29:06 - 00:19:50:22 Richard I'd say, you know, always had that kind of interest in sales and been connected to sales all the way through my career. How I ended up becoming the Global Chief Customer Officer for Mars Incorporated was Mars bought Wrigley, and it was a $23 billion acquisition, and there were about 22 or 23 people doing their due diligence. And I was the most senior of the 23.

00:19:51:00 - 00:20:15:16 Richard I was the President of the European Petcare business for Mars Incorporated. So how I ended up in that role was they wanted to have somebody that had experience from both companies, understood the Wrigley culture, understood the Mars culture, so that we could help bring the two companies together. And the toughest is bringing the two companies together on the sales side, right, because you're competitors

00:20:15:16 - 00:20:40:18 Richard And now you've got to be collaborators. Literally, Mars and Wrigley were direct competitors, so now they've got to be collaborators and you've got teams that are coming together. So that's why I was put into that role, to help on the post-merger integration, especially on the commercial side, on the sales side, and work with sales teams around the world to design a new org structure and then culturally, you know, move from competitors to collaborators.

00:20:40:18 - 00:20:43:17 Richard It was quite a great role. I did it for five years.

00:20:43:19 - 00:20:56:12 Alison So in many ways, and clearly I have a bias that CMOs are really ideally suited to the CEO role, yet surprisingly few achieve it. So what do you credit your success in earning the CEO title to?

00:20:56:14 - 00:21:32:01 Richard The key success for me is really kind of, aside from curiosity, which I already discussed, and adaptability and versatility in my career, is really understanding the key drivers of value, I'd say. Whether that's pricing or channel strategy or operational efficiency or innovation, you know, I've always been a growth guy, been a growth leader. So understanding those key drivers of how to drive growth and how to drive, you know, efficiency and productivity at same time, that's what contributed to my success to, you know, get into that CEO role through my career.

00:21:32:03 - 00:21:47:00 Alison So let's fast forward to today. In your first CEO role at DCM, you are leading a significant transformation from a primarily print to a very tech-enabled digital solution. What were your priorities and taking on the CEO role at the public company?

00:21:47:01 - 00:22:13:13 Richard Well, my first priority is to figure out what we did as a company, right? So like, data communication management, when I arrived in the organization, I'll put it in a marketing context for a second because I think it's kind of a fun story. They had a brand tagline that said DCM, the brand behind the brand. Okay? Sso as a marketer, I thought, what is the brand behind the brand, like what's DCM all about?

00:22:13:13 - 00:22:37:19 Richard So I asked a question of the marketing team, of the sales team of, you know, senior leaders. I said, okay, what is the brand behind the brand? What is, what is it that DCM does? And nobody could give me an answer. Okay, I couldn't get a clear answer. I'd ask ten people, I'd get ten different answers. So really didn't understand what DCM's unique selling proposition or what their value to their clients was at the time.

00:22:37:19 - 00:23:00:20 Richard So went through a whole discovery phase and actually what we discovered was, it was staring us in the face. We create a lot of value to large, highly complex enterprises , right? The more complexity an enterprise has in their marketing operations or their marketing communications or their marketing workflows, the more value we can bring to that client. We play at the enterprise level.

00:23:00:23 - 00:23:17:08 Richard If it's a little simple project, there's no value we can add. There's lots of guys that can do that. So that was a big part of our discovery and you know, again, I used my marketing skills I developed over the years to help go through this discovery phase. And we ended up with a very simple copy line.

00:23:17:08 - 00:23:41:07 Richard And now when we go to market and we talk to clients, we talk about where we can help, which is helping take waste out, simplify complexity, drive value. So that was the first and most important thing that I did when I joined DCM was just to understand who we are, what we were, what's our unique selling proposition? What's our go to market strategy. Now on that part of a big part of simplifying complexity,

00:23:41:07 - 00:24:01:02 Richard I think this is the second part of your question, means you need automation, right? You need digital solutions to be able to automate workflow, to take waste out. And that's where the whole kind of digital transformation came in. But it came in from really understanding our brand, the value we bring and what we needed to be able to deliver against that value.

00:24:01:04 - 00:24:23:07 Richard And we actually had some very good digital solutions we're building for years in the company. But we were thinking like a printing company, not like a digital company, not like a company to help simplify complexity. So those now came to the forefront as part of our unique selling proposition. We've got these incredible digital solutions to help you solve your complexity in your workflow, in your marketing operations, whatever.

00:24:23:09 - 00:24:28:04 Richard And that's how we, you know, kind of lean in hard to the, to the Martech side, to the digital side.

00:24:28:06 - 00:24:40:17 Alison Now, another thing that you've done is successfully completed a major acquisition two years ago. So what steps did you take to bring together two companies again, who were competitors with different cultures and histories?

00:24:40:18 - 00:25:07:07 Richard Yeah. So we we purchased our biggest competitor. We went from, I think, at the time when I joined, 235 million in revenue, up to 480 last year. So a sizeable transaction that we did. And, I remember again, my experience back from my Mars days when Mars acquired Wrigley. How do you move from competitors to collaborators? And on day one, we had a full program and we called it Bigger and Better Together, moving from competitors to collaborators.

00:25:07:08 - 00:25:32:11 Richard And we had every team across the country together for 9:00 in the morning to start our Better Together programming. So that was, I'd say, a key marker right from day one that we are going to be better together, we are moving from competitors to collaborators, and we had a whole program around that cultural immersion and understanding the values of DCM, the values obviously, of the company we acquired.

00:25:32:13 - 00:25:52:11 Richard Yeah, that kind of, that started the program was kind of a funny story. We had everybody together and we hadn't announced it to the public markets yet because we were waiting for the money to arrive, I don't know, it was going through international, you know, transfer somewhere and we had everybody together 9:00, ready to kick this thing off. Nobody knew why they were together.

00:25:52:11 - 00:26:12:18 Richard And it was like a high school dance. You had the R.R. Donnelley guys on one side. You had the DCM people on the other side and not really talking to each other because they didn't know why they were there. And finally at about 9:10, we got confirmation that the the money had arrived in their bank account and we could announce a deal publicly.

00:26:12:22 - 00:26:30:03 Richard We needed to announce it publicly first before we actually kicked off the internal session. So, it was a little stressful moment there of time, by the way, we were supposed to close the night before and have this event the next morning, but the money got stuck in time zones, right?

00:26:30:05 - 00:26:34:05 Alison Best laid plans. That would have been, that ten minutes must have felt like two hours.

00:26:34:07 - 00:26:47:07 Richard But back to your question, we had we had a very intentional and, you know, Better Together, moving from competitors to collaborators and a whole program around that kind of a couple of years in. But, we've got a very good team.

00:26:47:09 - 00:26:56:22 Alison It's also amazing. Like, you didn't leave them any time to, to fret and worry. It was like, as soon as it was public, they were in a room together. They were working together. They were part of making it work together. Now you're also leveraging AI to evolve and accelerate the more traditional business, which certainly is a challenge that many of our listeners are also grappling with. So can you share a couple of ways that AI is impacting your offering?

00:27:12:05 - 00:27:32:13 Richard We're all in on AI. I mean, we've, we're super active, obviously. Back to the discussion we had earlier about the importance of Martech and simplifying complexity. If we're not using it ourselves, how can we add value to our clients? But, so we're using our ourselves for new business development. A lot of lead gen and script writing, RFP optimization, a big part of our business, especially government, comes from through RFPs.

00:27:32:13 - 00:27:57:11 Richard So we can now optimize and look at RFPs that we won in the past and what's worked and what hasn't. We can use automation or AI to help us script write and improve our capability to win. We use a lot for file management. This is a service we bring to clients as well. We've got a platform called Assemble, which is a fully AI-enabled digital asset management solution. A big problem that we had and a big problem a lot of our clients have is actually finding files, right.

00:27:57:13 - 00:28:21:20 Richard And then sharing files as well. So we built a solution that's fully AI-enabled that takes, you know, all that meta tagging, that manual tagging out, makes discovering and finding super efficient. We also use it for social media optimization. We've got a platform called Zavvi and it will look at your social campaign, what's working, what's not working, make recommendations to improve, or when to post and all that stuff. So we're all in on AI across our business.

00:28:21:20 - 00:28:41:11 Richard And I mean, it's not a single day we're not talking about it and learning from it. And I'll give you one other example. We just built a new website for ourselves, not for a client. And historically, to build a website, you'd hire a company, whether you'd hire us or another company, and you'd probably spend 100, maybe 200 grand, depending on how extensive you want it to go.

00:28:41:11 - 00:29:05:20 Richard And you'd probably use WordPress and the images on that website you'd either create original photography or you would use an image bank and license. We just built a new site and won't say what it is, but you'll see it soon. And we actually used a freelancer in Berlin. We used protocol framers. When you use WordPress, it gives you a lot more capability to be able to make changes on your own.

00:29:06:02 - 00:29:25:13 Richard And the imagery that we used, which is super powerful and crazy, impactful imagery, is all AI-generated imagery. And, you know, that's imagery that you'd have to photograph yourself or use an image bank. And it's all, you know, best in class AI-generated. So there's an example. And we did it for kind of a third of what you typically pay for a website.

00:29:25:15 - 00:29:32:01 Richard So there's a whole new, you know, skill that we've learned as well as we've continued down our AI discovery path.

00:29:32:03 - 00:29:51:08 Alison Those are great examples. Finding a file seems like such a simple thing, but it's amazing, especially in a bigger organization, how much time you waste and how much frustration you create. So leveraging AI through DCM from an efficiency play, those are all great examples. So this has been a wonderful conversation. I know you're super busy and I appreciate you making the time. Before I let you go,

00:29:51:08 - 00:29:58:09 Alison for our listeners who are considering a non-linear versus traditional career path, what's one piece of advice that you would leave?

00:29:58:11 - 00:30:22:20 Richard I've got one piece of advice and I want to give you a little piece of information I discovered when I was researching for this podcast today. But, be curious in your career, certainly embrace versatility and adaptability as well. I'd say those are the key and core competencies to think about as you think about progressing your career. And I do want to read you this and I found this on, it was a Forbes article, came up when I put it in ChatGPT actually to ask about non-linear career.

00:30:22:20 - 00:30:49:19 Richard I didn't even know people talked about non-linear careers, which is interesting. So very topical. And here's what it reads. I think this is important. Non-linear careers in the future. The evidence suggests non-linear careers will become increasingly common and necessary in the coming decades. In a world of rapid change, think AI, the ability to adapt, pivot and reinvent your professional identity isn't just beneficial, it will be essential.

00:30:49:21 - 00:30:57:12 Richard I think that sums up nicely about, you know, the importance of how to be successful and how to, you know, why non-linear careers are the future.

00:30:57:14 - 00:31:19:19 Alison I absolutely agree, I also love the skills that you talked about. They're not technical hard skills. They're all around mindset and adaptability and those, you may call them soft skills, they're really power skills. And when we think about how quickly the world and our profession is changing, it will be those power skills, more than any technical skills that will set you up for a long term and successful career.

00:31:19:21 - 00:31:21:15 Richard You know, excellent point. Yeah.

00:31:21:17 - 00:31:26:19 Alison So Richard thoroughly loved the conversation. And thank you again. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

00:31:27:01 - 00:31:33:04 Richard Thanks for the opportunity, Alison. Appreciate it.

00:31:33:06 - 00:31:45:19 Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the CMA.ca and sign up for your free My CMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news, and industry trends.