Pedestrian Group reposted this
Exactly 8 years ago I was employee number 5 on a wild ride to reinvent Fairfax Media led by Chris Janz. ‘Project Blue’ sounded so crazily ambitious - rebooting a 180 year old publisher in secret and then taking over the business - that I asked Chris for proof that the board knew he was doing it! Two years later we had returned the business to revenue growth in both print and digital and made it insanely profitable. I have never been so proud of a professional accomplishment - we had ‘solved publishing’. Then 5 years ago I came to Pedestrian Group after the Nine merger. We had to find a way to integrate the Allure brands and build on the success of Chris and Oscar with PEDESTRIAN.TV. As a result we won Publishing Company, Publish Leader, Brand, Sales Team, Studio team of the year and many other awards multiple times along the way to financial success. We launched VICE, Refinery29, The Chainsaw and our own television channel PEDESTRIAN TELEVISION. I have never had so much fun in a job and I thank everyone who helped achieve all of that, especially Rachel Tikey, James McManus, William Sutton, Sarah Michael, Vanessa Lawrence and John-Paul MacCormick. The stage is now set for a new team with Mason to reinvent Pedestrian Group for its next success. In leaving Nine I’ll also be finishing up my second stint as Chair of IAB Australia. I want to thank Gai Le Roy and her team as well as the rest of the board for doing such great, important work as the United Nations of digital advertising. A tough gig! Thank you all for the friendship and lols, may they continue through what’s next. LYB for now