Blog post

3 minutes with Brendan McGreevy, Country Manager, Australia

We sat down with Brendan McGreevy, recently appointed Country Manager for Australia (2017) and discussed his viewpoints on leading the Australian team and the latest release of Custom Reports on Mediaportal.

Tell us who you are and how you came along with your Isentia journey

My name is Brendan McGreevy and I am the Country Manager for Australia [here at] Isentia. I joined the company in January 2004 as a tele-sales consultant, selling media intelligence services and data distribution. I’ve managed the tele-sales team and the Slice products over a number of years before we brought that back into the [Isentia] family, I’ve been a BDM, a Service Consultant, a Sales Manager and now I’m Country Manager. I have done many, many jobs and have always been in client facing, which is what I like, and I hope to continue my career throughout the company in a client-facing role.

What job haven’t you had at Isentia?

I haven’t been Chief Executive yet, so maybe at some point in the future! I am keeping my options open though.

What are you 100% passionate about and what gets you going every day?

Probably two things – one being the media and how it rapidly changes, the different forms and the different platforms that are popping out pretty much every month or every year. The other is clients – dealing with communicators – people in PR and Corp Comms.

It’s fast paced, and every day is a new and different day. If one client is on the news on a Monday, it’s going to be someone different on a Wednesday. [It’s] that kind of variety that keeps you getting up in the morning and keeps you coming into work. 

What are you most proud of, a moment of time of your life at Isentia?

I can’t think of one defining moment. I suppose each year when you see the achievements of the team, achievements of the clients, and you are hitting those targets – seeing the client growing every year and seeing that we’re doing all those things right that keeps the clients coming back for more and more. I would say that is probably the proudest achievement. 

Can you talk about what makes the Australian customer base unique and what is different about them?

I think what makes it unique from the rest of the company is that there are clients that have used us for many, many years. We’ve been through the evolution of their businesses and their careers and they’ve been through the evolution of our business.

From the hard copy clipping agency in the 80’s and 90’s through to the digitally media intelligence company we are now. Personally, I’ve worked with a lot of them [the clients], since the early 2000’s and it does create a bit of uniqueness within our business. We do find that a lot of people in the Account Management team and the Sales team have been here for 20 to 30 years, and they tend to stick around because they know the people that they’re working with. Whether they move from government to private sector [or elsewhere], they always move back again, so you tend to meet the same people over and over again – it gives that sense of familiarity with all of the clients. 

Looking at the new Custom Reports feature, what do you think would excite them most about it?

Probably the levels of customisation that we can now offer – like adding in the client’s logo and customising the look and feel of it. 

Even though it is our content that we’re sending to the clients, it is their work. Allowing them to personalise their work and distribute that internally in a format that actually gives them the kudos and credit for what they’ve done and what they’ve achieved. I think that is going to get on pretty well. 

What do you think makes Isentia brilliant?

What makes us brilliant is the people that are here.

I think the people that works here takes a very specific breed of person – you’ve got to love the media, you’ve got to love communications, you’ve got to love PR, you’ve got to love marketing, and you’ve got to love what we do, you’ve got to love the industry.

I think that is everybody that is here – evident in the high tenure of service across the business. People love what they do, they love that it is fast-paced, and they love that it is continually changing. And at the same time there is a level of familiarity at what we do as well. So yeah, it is definitely the people. 

What is your favorite feature within the latest Custom Reports release and why?

To be honest, that is my favourite feature – the customisable view of it. In previous reports you could only use the PDF and that was very much a standard, static document. This is the client’s document, and it is important that when we build our products and services that they are all about the client and not about us. It’s not about the media, it is not about the content, it is actually about that client and their business and what they need to use the information for, and how they can customise it for different stakeholders, and different audiences internally. So, the more it looks like their document and the more they can customise it, the better it is. 

Given your recent promotion to Country Manager, what excites you about the year ahead?

What we just completed in Australia is a slight restructure of the sales and services team. Previously we had an account management structure. We’ve [since] taken client success out and created a new division for Client Success and a new division for Sales.

These changes excite me because now we’ve got a dedicated focus on service for our clients and trying to understand what our client wants from us and how we can make that service better, and that is the dedication of that team. They don’t have to sell, or have find a new revenue stream, their job is purely to service our clients. Going back to that value and Isentia being client obsessed, this structure allows us to actually be client obsessed – to focus on our clients and their needs on a day-to-day basis, but to also have consultants from a different team to help clients with different services when the need arises. 

Watch the video here.

Gill Matthews