Leadership
climate-friendly media plans. These rising technological practices sit alongside making sure consumers are protected from disinformation and invasive adverts, as well as ensuring clients get 100% pixel viewability on their ads. Some of these – like a Dove-partnered Snapchat campaign in Sweden to promote self-checks for breast cancer – hold important educative purposes. “To do all of this well,” Krichefski says, “I have to make sure that we have a culture in our business that isn’t toxic and make sure that our people are able to thrive.”
Chief empathy officer
Above: If people are a company’s greatest asset, it must look after their well-being.
Previous page: Josh Krichefski, EMEA and UK CEO at GroupM.
goes further still. As Josh Krichefski, GroupM’s EMEA and UK CEO, tells me in his quiet corner office – an office with a clear view of Red Lion Square, a small grassy quadrangle that gives workers space to momentarily step away from fast-paced jobs – CEOs are crucial in bolstering individual employee resilience. With GroupM overseeing over $60bn in annual media spending for clients as varied as Coca-Cola, Airbnb and L’Oréal, Krichefski speaks to the importance of spotting future opportunities so his business can continue to thrive. He believes it is also incumbent on him to clearly communicate his firm’s future direction of travel to staff, even as he gives them space to share their knowledge and experiences widely. These, he believes, are practices that will underpin individual and organisational success – especially in such a full-throttle industry, and as the global media changes at a gallop. As Krichefski puts it: “Reinvention and evolution are in the media industry’s DNA: this can provide both incredible opportunities for our people but there is also a level of uncertainty.”
“People are our greatest asset, so it’s fundamental we look after their well-being.”
15.9% GroupM 12
The percentage of its sector that GroupM billings currently accounts for.
Keen to cut through any ambiguity, Krichefski also wants to ensure that his industry consigns a prior reputation for burnout-style work to the past. His reasoning is clear. “People are our greatest asset,” he says, “so it’s fundamental we look after their well-being.” With GroupM brands such as Mindshare, Wavemaker and Mediacom all winning awards in the past year, the business needs its people fighting fit to make good on further ambitions. These include continuing to deliver cost-effectiveness for clients, further exploiting the vast potential of generative AI, and using big data to create further alignment between different GroupM agencies. That’s equally shadowed by novelties like carbon calculators, which help provide clients with
Building on a strong market share – and growth in digital advertising revenues through 2022 – Q2 2023 results saw GroupM enjoy additional revenue growth of 6%. Krichefski, who has held executive-level positions in media for over a decade, links this success to a culture that is built on well-being, inclusivity and openness. He admits that he can’t promise employees that continued business transformation won’t create challenging and tiring days – but he can work to create guardrails to ensure they are supported. “We know that change can be exhausting,” he explains, “[and we want] to create a culture where we normalise the conversation around mental health at work and show that asking for help is a sign of strength.” Unlike the industrial magnates of earlier centuries, Krichefski doesn’t have to concern himself with manufacturing safety standards – there are many challenges of working in advertising, but catching your fingers in a loom probably isn’t one of them. All the same, he is eager that any well-being discourse is then followed by practical action.
In the first instance, he explains the importance of client delivery, delegating to other leaders judiciously, and automating and cost-cutting where appropriate. While all this certainly benefits GroupM employees, allowing them to spend their time on genuinely fulfilling work, other programmes are more explicitly people-focused. There are, for instance, pathways for under-represented employee groups to gain employment at the business, even as internal mobility is championed too. Access to well-being support is also ever-present. Among other things, GroupM has ‘mental health first-aiders’, and employee resource groups focused on health. This is alongside an employee assistance programme, tailored industry support through NABS (an industry well-being charity), the creation of safe spaces and an educative series on topics ranging from men’s mental health to suicide prevention. That’s helped expand ESG focus to include health outcomes and encourages leaders to model mental health vulnerability. Regular well-being surveys allow the executive to know how the workforce is, while GroupM also uses an algorithm to distribute work
Chief Executive Officer /
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