Monday Interview: Rob Shaw, CEO at Jaywing
The increasingly competitive digital industry in Yorkshire is something that the CEO of listed firm Jaywing feels cements the firm’s regional desire to succeed and deliver further growth; especially in uncertain times when the business has to be “laser sharp” to weather the storm.
Rob Shaw, CEO of digital marketing agency Jaywing, said it was great to be based in a region which has a thriving and booming digital sector. “We should be disrupting and be the architects of change in the industry,” he explained.
Shaw joined search marketing agency Epiphany just over ten years ago. The firm was sold into Jaywing in 2014 and has now been integrated fully. Jaywing, which has completed several acquisitions over the years and last reported annual revenues of £47m, employs around 225 people in its Leeds office and 120 at its Sheffield base.
Speaking to TheBusinessDesk.com, Shaw – who has been CEO at the listed company for three years – said the firm had a strong desire to “keep the business northern.” It sold its contact centre in Swindon, HSM, late last year to Bidco in a £500,000 deal to focus on its core functions.
That said, Jaywing has expanded into the Australian market with good success and plans to continue its expansion down under too. Around 50 people are employed at its Sydney site, around ten of which re-located from the UK.
Shaw said that talent was in demand in Yorkshire because of the boom of digital firms. “It just means that we have to spread our net a bit wider and we invest in the team heavily to retain talent. It’s about doing things smarter,” he added.
“But there is a great pool for talent. We work closely with the universities to grow that next level of talent. We have graduate schemes with universities and we have never failed to find a graduate a permanent job here.
“We are also finding that skilled, experienced people are starting to make that move back north.”
And of being in an ever crowded digital marketplace, Shaw said: “We have some very big national an international clients. But it’s not normally the regional agencies that we pitch against for work.
“It doesn’t just have to be in this bubble. It’s all about getting the pitch and the pricing right.”
Shaw’s view is that Jaywing is still able to operate in a start-up manner, because of the personal way it conducts business.
Talking of the acquisitive nature of Jaywing, Shaw said: “We have only ever acquired other businesses for complimentary services, never for scale. Each division has its own managing director and we have an effective leadership team across the business.
“It has been like a jigsaw puzzle, integrating businesses and making Jaywing into a rounded operation.” He said that businesses that have sold to Jaywing had been “turbo charged” by its ability to add value to grow the business; adding something different because “nobody survives by being generalists.”
While he wouldn’t speculate on upcoming acquisitions because the firm is looking to secure growth in its current divisions, Shaw said: “We have always got a a view on acquisitions. It has to be a smart process and it’s about making the most of the divisions we have already got.”
Shaw said that it was exciting to lead a listed firm which had to be at the forefront of change in a fast-paced environment. One area that he named as being at the height of leading technology was AI and the way this can be used for business clients to succeed.
He said the team of between 60 and 70 data scientists that Jaywing employs were crucial to the way in which the firm deals with and uses data for clients. “We are coming up with prototypes using that data. The mechanisms to explain some of the data for clients are extremely complicated and so we have set up VR in offices which can explain that. It is about finding different, innovate ways of working.
“It is exciting to see and understand the changes that have happened in the sector over the years.”
Shaw said that the economic environment had been tough for the firm. Last year, it narrowed its pre-tax losses to £1.1m but had been impacted generally by the tough trading environment. He said: “Economic uncertainty is tough for us. The biggest impact has been waiting for our clients to make decisions.
“But we have a laser focus in the next 18 months to be efficient and sharp, in order to weather the storm. It is a careful balance. But we are not exposed to supply chain issues; the biggest issue for us is the general uncertainty because the sectors that we work with are very diverse. That’s very deliberate because we wanted breadth and less reliance on one particular sector.”
Finally, Shaw said that Channel Four’s decision to move to Leeds – which will likely bring even more digital businesses to the region – was “a great endorsement” for the region.
