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About

Why work with Markwick Consulting

 

I founded Markwick Consulting because I wanted to make a difference to the commercial performance of creative businesses

 
 

A creative at heart, having studied sculpture and fine arts at university, I was drawn to working in the creative space. My experience in finance and business operations combined with my unusual ability to see both the micro and macro detail gives me a unique skillset within the creative industry.

Optimistic, energetic, and inspiring, I enable leaders and their high-performance teams to achieve ambitious goals. I am curious about the process of making and running businesses and enjoy making sense of complex organizational dynamics and cultures. My open and honest approach is central to my belief that dealing in reality is the first step in building an actionable business transformation plan.

I have long held the view that commercial creativity is critical to running and building successful creative businesses.  However, many people thought that focusing on commercial would kill creativity.  I saw commercial results radically improve and confidence grow after I showed leadership my innovative approach to reporting commercial performance. As CFO at Grey London, I introduced new tools and techniques to enable other people to see and achieve my vision. Over four years, profit increased by over 1400%, and the margin quadrupled. My methodology has continued to evolve and every organization I have worked with has seen increased revenue, profit, and margin.

Over the last twenty years I have been on several industry boards including the UK Council for the IPA. Currently, I am Non-Executive Director on the board of Creative UK and am Chairman of The Effectiveness Partnership. In 2016 I was awarded the IPA Fellowship in recognition of my services to the Industry.   

I regularly contribute as a subject matter expert for industry. I write papers and develop training for bodies such as the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) and APA (Association of Production Agencies) and speak at conferences and summits including Campaign and ProcureCon.

As Chairman and Trustee of a charity I spearheaded a campaign to raise over £800,000. This enabled the charity to replace a leased WW1 Nissan Hut with a state-of-the-art village hall on its own land, providing a valuable and much used resource to the wider community.

Janet was integral to our success at Grey and was an indispensable part of our executive leadership team. As well as helping direct the overall agency strategy, she led the development of new capabilities and sources of revenue. During that time the agency nearly doubled in size, (tripled margin in 3 years) and transformed creatively. The Grey London project was not a cost cutting exercise!
— CHRIS HIRST, GLOBAL CEO, BESTSELLING AUTHOR 'NO BULLSH*T LEADERSHIP' AND 'NO BULLSH*T CHANGE'
 
 

Roles

Janet has held senior financial, marketing and commercial roles at Coca-Cola and Sony, where she was Director of Marketing Communications Investment EMEA. She was CFO at Grey London (WPP) until 2012 when she became Chief Commercial Officer across Grey EMEA. Following this Janet became Global EVP of Commercial Operations and Production at Y&R (WPP).

From 2016-19 Janet was the IPA’s Honorary Treasurer and has served on various IPA committees. She is currently a member of the IPA Finance Committee.