Sarah Keith is the group managing director at Active International and Involved Media, where she has played a major role in building and scaling the independent media agency. She brings a highly structured leadership style shaped by more than two decades of experience across publishers, hold cos and independents.
At Involved Media, Keith has helped to establish the agency brand as a standout independent challenger in just five short years, blending the agility of an indie with capability and scale of a hold co.
In this week’s Fast 10, B&T’s very own Greg ‘Sparrow’ Graham and Sarah Keith chatted all things building independent brands and why disciplined leadership is the key to juggling two companies.
1. You’ve had a brilliant career, from your early days at Channel 4 in the UK to leadership roles both on the publisher side & agencies, Hold Cos & indies, to now Group MD Active International & Involved Media. If you had to pick only one, what would be your career highlight so far?
Sarah Keith: I have to say it’s absolutely establishing the Involved Media brand as one of Australia’s leading competitive independent media agency brands and of course driving results for clients in “just” five years.
The reality is we have been around longer but the Involved brand just celebrated five years in this market and I think what’s different about us is we are independent but also offer the best of both worlds – through out network.
Linked to this we also have Active International, a leader in its space, that helps businesses improve financial performance by converting assets (think excess inventory, real estate, or equipment) into media value. We see a lot of brands for whom the value is often locked on the balance sheet but isn’t being fully utilised – Active’s exists to unlock that.
Running these two businesses in this market and helping grow them has been my most exciting challenge.
2. I love your breadth of experience and the diversity of skills, plus you currently juggle two businesses, how in the hell do you manage that?
SK: The good thing is that they are very different businesses and some clients will use both but many others might just use one or the other.
I also have a non negotiable weekly time strategy which is:
40:40:10:10
40 per cent New business activity
40 per cent Annual strategy execution
10 per cent specific people/team related L&D time
10 per cent random incoming
But yeah without this time discipline the random incoming becomes all consuming and it’s easy to get sidetracked.
3. You sit on the MFA Board, what’s a recent initiative that is delivering industry transformation and you are proud of?
SK: The cross-industry delivery of the Psychosocial Safety Code of Conduct was a big important moment that was years in the making. It matters because it determines whether people operate in defensive mode or growth mode. In defensive mode, they protect themselves. In growth mode, they contribute, learn, and create.
4. As a young girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?
SK: I was the original slashy: which suggests I had no idea.
All of these things were linked to my favourite activities and reflecting that I was reading way too much 19th century literature.
Writer/painter/English teacher/librarian/gardener
5. Can you simply explain the service & benefit of Active International?
SK: Not the first time I’ve had this question… simply put we exist to help companies fund growth.
We do that by trading under utilised or excess assets for goods and services they need. We use a mix of barter and cash to maximize value and improve companies’ return on investment.
What a lot of brands and also their CFOs or procurement don’t realise is that corporate trade can actually be a really powerful mechanism for derisking your media or product development. The smart brands are increasingly using it, especially in overseas markets but I think there’s still a way to go in this market for brands to fully capitalise on it.
6. As an industry, in media/marketing, what’s one thing you would change to make us all better?
SK: Normalising honest performance reporting across campaigns. If agencies and brands simply made it standard to share one clear failure and what was learned in every campaign report, it would gradually build a culture of transparency, better decision-making, and more effective strategies over time.
7. It’s tough times, how are you driving business success & client growth for clients?
SK: Making sure we hold our collective nerve and not go all in on short term results. Maintaining brand activity, even if spend needs to be rebalanced
8. What’s the best career advice you’ve been given?
SK: Simple: Stay adaptable. The pace of change was starting to accelerate in the early to mid nineties when I was starting out. Those who were comfortable evolving rather than clinging to “how it’s always been done” thrived long term.
9. What’s one thing that’s not on your LinkedIn profile?
SK: I’m super proud of being a mental health first aider and supporting an ongoing initiative to keep people trained in our business. It’s an important building block of a culture where we reduce stigma just by how we show up
10. Important last question: Do your parents really know what you do?
SK: Not a clue. But they know I love it and have a lot of fun!
