Mediatel CEO Derek Jones steps down to become chairman
As he outlines some big changes for the company he helped found 38 years ago, Derek Jones looks back on what the business has achieved, and what the future has in store
On 7 October 1981 – quite probably before many of you were born – Mediatel was launched.
At the time, my job was to gather and input media data and I wrote a few Newsline stories (usually lifted straight out of the printed media). There was just myself and two colleagues, initially. When they later moved on to other things I bought out many of the other shareholders with my tech boss of the time, Tom, and started to run the business.
Mediatel came from an idea the founders of monthly magazine, Media World, had – a section in the back of the mag called Encyclomedia (Nick Manning has been made aware of the irony). So it was down to my dad, Bob Jones – who did several other notable things around the industry, including co-founding BMP – and Mike Sainsbury, now running asi conferences, that a few pages of data evolved into a new online service, Mediatel.
Like any SME, Mediatel has strived to survive when it had to, but has also ticked up growth pretty much every year, and especially so over the last few years when we have also diversified from our core and loyal base of media owners and media agencies to service creative agencies via Audiotrack – and brands with events. We have done all this whilst remaining independently owned (directors and some senior staff).
1981-2019. That’s a %$£& of a long time, as Dominic Mills would say (he’d spell it out of course!) and I’ve enjoyed (nearly) all of it.
But from 1 July I’m going to step back from my CEO role, take up a more leisurely Executive Chairman position and let my new CEO (to be announced on Wednesday) take on the next stage of growth – which I hope will include launching more of our products outside the UK as well as some new developments on these shores too.
Incidentally, we have our first Media Leaders Lunch on 4 July – so that’s now my first outing as Chairman. It should be great fun and I do hope you will be joining us there.
I am very proud of the influence and reputation Mediatel has built within and across the industry – I think that comes from a real desire to provide quality delivery and great service and from all our hard-working, clever people.
But it is also down to the culture of the business. As clients you may best see that at our annual The Year Ahead event, which has become a real must-get, fun New Year invitation for many. For the people who work here every day, and have done in the past (many of those I’m pleased to say are doing great things at other businesses these days, and are still in touch with us) it’s also seen in the office vibe – often remarked on by visitors – and the respect with which everyone treats each other. It started like that in 1981 and we have made it a priority to retain this.
Whilst I’m still CEO for a few weeks a word of thanks to all our clients who continue to support us; to my chairman, Mike Kirkham, who is now stepping down after 12 years; and to Nicola, Sue and Mike on the board and all my colleagues here at Mediatel today and over the years.
As founder/owner I will remain very interested, as you can imagine, but do my best to step back far enough to let our new CEO and excellent (and soon to be growing) management team get on with it. Some of them might well suggest there’s no change there – they already do all the work!