Tom Van Hoof joined Mediabrands ten years ago, the last four of which he has worked as Chief Growth Officer.
Tom has been in the business for 30 years. With his background in marketing, communication, advertising and media, he is one of the great generalists within the company. That view of the broader picture and of pursuing expansion comes in handy when growing a company from 80 to 180 employees: “When you are working on growth, you have the ambition to grow alongside your clients. You really want to look for the right way to build partnerships and ecosystems in line with their challenges.”
He’s the right person in the right place, because Tom’s inspiration comes more from outside the four walls of the company than inside: “I look to the outside world. Personally, I get more energy from it and as a result, I achieve more success for the company.”
Tom is not alone in this: “I have been lucky enough to be able to tap into that strength of mine because at Mediabrands we focus so much on that. I am convinced that Mediabrands is the company that has the greatest respect for its people within our sector, in the broadest sense of the word. We try to be very humane and to listen carefully to our people, to guide them in their careers, in their personalities and in the way they develop as people and as professionals. It’s all about further development, being happy in your job, feeling good about yourself and as a result, doing great things for the company and conveying this to customers, colleagues, business partners and beyond. In other words, learn and develop. In complete freedom and at all levels, because we also do ‘reversed mentoring’, for example. And I’m convinced that this is bearing fruit. People stay with us for a long time and enjoy working with us. Together, we have ensured that we are virtually the market leader, even in these difficult times. We can rightly be proud of that.”
Pit stop specialists
Tom does not hide his appreciation and respect for all the individuals who make up Mediabrands. Their task has not exactly become easier. In a globalized media world, which comes with its own challenges, our ‘Mediabrandies’ as we like to call them, have an incredibly difficult task. “In the current context, we as a media company must constantly broaden our horizons, reinvent ourselves, switch faster and faster, and look for more profiles. Sometimes that is a shock to our system. At the same time, we operate in a global context in which we have to attract our clients locally – that is a very large scope. Still, we manage to keep innovating together, through our ‘collective power’. The responsibility of our people is absolutely not to be underestimated. It is sometimes a matter of making a radical shift, while joining forces and ensuring that your unit runs smoothly and that your client’s business does well, because substantial amounts of money are involved. You don’t always see them, but they are there, the people who are working late into the night to get that latest Facebook or YouTube campaign live and to follow it up. They don’t work on their own, it really is a team effort. Actually, you could compare our work with Formula 1. Our client is the pilot. That car is the creative campaign and we are in the pit stop. Even when the campaign is finished and the client has left, together we have to make sure that the car gets back on that track as soon as possible, with the right fuel, technically in order, monitored and once again ready to race at crazy speeds. That perfectly captures the spirit of our complex profession. What we do is fascinating and stimulating, but it remains a fragile business. Things can go wrong and there is a lot of pressure involved. Our people move mountains day in, day out, and they do so conscientiously, with a great sense of responsibility. Thankfully, we often see this translated into a good, steady relationship with the client. Here, too, we are working on that human side of things. It is fantastic to be able to say that you have been able to support a client for years. It goes without saying that this is incredibly satisfying.”
Long-distance support
Sometimes, however, things go wrong. Tom knows that only too well. As a ‘first-mover’ company that always looks a little further and tests out new things, you are not always in a comfortable position: “We want to innovate, but we are judged too quickly for that. I think we should not be afraid to fight for our ideas and give them time to mature. A quarter is not a long timeframe. In the past, we tried a few things around content and we messed up a few times. But that happens. I am convinced that we learn from those mistakes. We would now approach that content and concept outside the advertising space differently and as an organization we would take a big leap with it.”
Tom is indeed not the kind of man to sit back and do nothing: “I am doing my thing reasonably steadily and I continue to enjoy it. I am quite proud of that. ‘If talent doesn’t work hard, hard work can beat talent’ – that best describes my philosophy. I also see this mentality in our company. We keep calm even in the most stressful of situations – and that is a great credit to us. We are all hard workers, without the need for excessive praise. I like to push for results and believe in the principle ‘first things first’. If you go for something, it has to be done quickly and well. I think that is precisely why I manage to get people to jump on board, to bring teams together and complete projects successfully. At the same time, I realize that you cannot go on forever at that pace and that you have to take the pressure off before it’s too late. That’s something I need to keep in mind, both as a person and as a colleague.”
His motto is ‘work hard, play hard’. For twelve years now, Tom has been committed to running marathons, not fanatically, but just as a hobby. Given his relatively busy job, he sees running as an ideal outlet: “It’s easy to organize and time-efficient; just put on your trainers and go. It’s a practical sport but one in which you get a lot of support from unexpected quarters. When you run one of those marathons – wherever it may be, Rotterdam, New York… – I’m always amazed by the people who are there to support you. That’s spectacular to me. They are not just my friends, you know. No, there are hundreds of thousands of strangers along the route, cheering on runners they don’t even know. For four long hours. Why do they do that? I ask myself that time and again.”
Tom remains humble: “I am actually just an ordinary, kind, hard-working guy, with a family of three children and a dog. So, I have no special gift or superpower.” Or maybe he does?
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