Feb 11 2020 44 mins 5
This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing Rachel Pendered, managing director of Media Zoo. Media Zoo has a fee income of circa £13m and approximately 130 employees. It’s an independent PR firm in London. It was co-founded by Rachel and Mark Killick in 2003. Before she co-founded Media Zoo, Rachel worked for the BBC and Channel 4 as a TV producer. Here’s a summary of what Rachel and I discuss: [00:01:30 ] Why have we seen so many women leave their agency CEO jobs in the last 12 months. [00:06:51 ] Why Rachel believes it's much harder to become a successful female entrepreneur than a male entrepreneur. [00:07:22 ] How just 8% of start-up funding goes to women. [00:10:08 ] How can we encourage more female entrepreneurs? [00:12:21 ] Why entrepreneurship is all about imagination. [00:13:28 ] Rachel talks to us through some stats from The Rose Review, a piece of research looking at why there are fewer female entrepreneurs in the UK. [00:13:34 ] How, if we were to close the entrepreneurial gender gap, we would potentially add £250 billion to the UK economy in the next 10 years. [00:16:27 ] Where women can find out more information about becoming entrepreneurs. [00:19:03 ] Why Rachel set up Media Zoo in 2003. [00:20:23 ] Why Rachel didn't enjoy being employed. [00:21:08 ] How, originally, the plan for Media Zoo was for it to be a network of production freelancers – but things soon changed… [00:25:16 ] How Rachel has built the Media Zoo to become a £13m firm alongside Mark Killick. [00:26:50 ] How did Rachel create a culture of entrepreneurship at Media Zoo? [00:27:27 ] How has Media Zoo grown to a £13m fee income when lots of its independent agency peers have not? [00:29:11 ] Why Media Zoo has brought all its production services in-house. [00:29:35 ] Why Media Zoo has never made any acquisitions. [00:32:20 ] Rachel talks about her working relationship with Mark Killick. [00:37:27 ] How Media Zoo has diversified through its content engine proposition. [00:38:46 ] Rachel talks about Media Zoo’s embedded client team strategy of six to 12-person teams typically on one- to three-year contracts. [00:40:12 ] Rachel talks about Media Zoo’s expansion plans into Scotland, Switzerland and the US next year. [00:43:54 ] With many economic forecasters predicting a recession is on the way – Rachel recalls what she did after the 2008 financial crash that helped her business to survive.
