With a career spanning continents and some of the industry’s biggest names, Ian Perrin is no stranger to reinvention. From his early days as media director at Ogilvy North America to leading roles at Mindshare, Naked, and Zenith, Perrin has always been a strategic force in media.
Now, as founder and managing partner of the fast-rising indie agency SPEED, he’s rewriting the rules on what modern media agencies should be—and how they should move.
In this candid Fast 10, Perrin opens up about career-defining moments, the frustrations that led to launching SPEED and the importance of mental health in the industry.
1. You’ve had an outstanding global career both here & in New York mainly for big holdcos & now the founder of a hot indie, you can only choose one career highlight what would it be?
Perrin: Landing a job at Ogilvy in New York was life changing for me, both professionally and personally. As it’s where I met the love of my life.
2. When you set up Speed why & why Speed the name?
Perrin: I was frustrated that traditional legacy media agency models were outdated. Focused on annual deals, set and forget planning and chronically lacking in analytics skills. Unfortunately, in many cases, that’s still the case. I wanted to build an agency that relied on analytics to make fast effective decisions. And to do that SPEED is the operative word.
3. It’s a tough time for clients what’s the one thing Speed delivers for their future business growth?
Perrin: We go further into understanding business metrics than any agency I have ever worked at.
4. How would your clients describe your leadership style?
Perrin: I have always been a reluctant leader and feel uncomfortable selling. So, I would hope they would describe me as trustworthy. But that’s one hell of a difficult question to answer!!
5. Your agency culture is vital to your success; how does the Speed Wheel work?
Perrin: The SPEED Wheel is simply a fun way to reward people who have been committed to SPEED. You can win anything from overseas trips to an all-day AI immersion session with my business partner, Duncan. Needless to say, you can spin again if you land on that!
6. As an industry what’s one thing you would change to make us all better?
Perrin: Change our measurement of success from vanity metrics to commercial metrics.
7. I love your recent raw honestly about losing your father to suicide & your Keep Talking initiative, what’s been the response?
Perrin: Inspiring. It is truly amazing how much our industry cares. I get very emotionally just thinking about it.
8. What more can B&T readers do to support your Keep Talking cause?
Perrin: Go here and read the monthly articles online!
9. What’s one thing that’s not on your LinkedIn profile?
Perrin: We all use LinkedIn to talk up our successes. So the one thing it misses is all the fuck-ups I have had!
10. Important last question, does your Mum know what you actually do?
Perrin: Not really. But she was a nurse for 40 years, so her career was far more valuable than mine.
