Breakthrough with Matthew Mee - Transform. Influence. Embrace.

In this series, we ask our people to define what 'Breakthrough' means to them, both from a career standpoint and a personal note.

Our next issue features Matthew Mee, Global Chief Strategy Officer.

What does ‘breakthrough’ mean to you?

It means constantly looking at the changes that effect our clients’ businesses – whether that’s changes in people’s behaviour, the business context, or the media ecosystem and figuring out how to turn them into opportunities and solutions that help them grow and give them an advantage.

What’s been the most inspiring personal breakthrough in your life?

Personal breakthroughs are also about being open to change and new directions. I guess coming to London at the age of 18 was one of those changes. Nothing that has happened to me subsequently would have happened without making that decision to change.

What was the breakthrough moment in your career?

Sue Unerman asking me to join her fledgling strategy team: one of the first in the business.

Tell us about a piece of work you were involved with that you would define as a breakthrough.

A long time ago I was working on Mars Galaxy when we developed a partnership with Richard Madely and Judy Finnegan’s book club. Women were driving a massive uptick in book sales and they became, essentially the most powerful influencers in books. In the end, the Galaxy logo (‘recommended by…) was on tens of millions of books, creating a new communications ‘nudge’ at just the right time for a bit of chocolate, before you settle down for a read. So it was about seeing that change and building a whole new opportunity out of it.

What breakthrough in this industry - achieved by someone else - do you really admire? What do you admire about it?

I really admire what our fellow WPP stablemates Hogarth have done. They have embraced technology and transformed Hogarth from a pretty functional production/transcreation business to an industry leader in terms of use of AI and content.