A few of us Irish folk based in the UK received a little coverage in the Sunday Tribune yesterday. Actually, it was quite a spread. I’m particularly proud of this feature as the Tribune is a very respectable paper amongst the business community. The ’5 marketing elite (their words, not mine!) include

• Lorraine Twohill, Head of Google, EMEA
• Rory Godson, Partner and Co-founder, Powerscourt Media
• Kevin Brown, Head of Engagement Planning, Bartle Bogle Hegarty
• Paul Walsh, CEO and Co-founder, Segala (me!)
• Dee Forbes, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Turner Broadcasting System, UK and Ireland

So, for the sake of promoting a great article about 4 professionals and me, I’ve published the entire piece here. The original article can be found on the Sunday Tribune Web site.

As the Tribune put it

Irish scale the heights of UK adland

When Lorraine Twohill arrived in London in 1999 to head marketing for the internet travel company, Dreamticket. com, she intended to stay for two years. The Carlow native was keen to get on the dotcom bandwagon and was prepared to leave her job in the Netherlands to do so.

London at the time was the epicentre of European internet activity and so I had to go there, ” she says.

Fast forward six years and Twohill is still in London, but now as director of European marketing for internet giant Google. She is one of a new generation of influential Irishborn marketers scaling the heights of London’s cut-throat advertising, PR and internet scenes. While much has been made of how the Irish dominate the London property sector and ‘own’ Bond Street, it seems marketers hailing from these shores are cutting it in Soho’s adland too.

Chances are that Lorraine Twohill will have come across her compatriot, Kevin Brown, a director of Google’s ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty.

The name Rory Godson is on many lips too, as the Dublinborn former deputy editor of the Sunday Tribune develops a power base in the Square Mile as a financial PR guru.

Meanwhile, Britain’s internet trade association, BIMA, is chaired by another Dubliner, Paul Walsh, whose day job involves running web accessibility and mobile testing company Segala.

[Minor corrections. BIMA actually standards for British Interactive Media Assocation. I'd be proud to be a Dubliner if I was from Dublin, but I am in fact, very proud to be a Wexford man.]

And these are just the highprofile players. The Ireland Fund of Great Britain, the fundraising charity that doubles as a business and social network for Irish professionals in London, says it has “at least 200″ Irish marketing directors and managers on its database of donors and event-goers.

They are drawn to a city that Godson describes as “one of the two great international cities in the world” and the opportunities it provides.

Many blue-chip companies have their headquarters in London, where marketing strategy is set and then executed by ad agencies based in Soho or Farringdon.

So why have these bright marketers eschewed the booming Irish economy while members of other professions – notably lawyers and accountants – have returned from London in droves?

The fact is that while it’s not exactly a marketing backwater, Dublin’s smaller scene cannot hope to compete with London’s scale and creative opportunities. The marketing strategies of multinational companies tend to be generated at headquarter level, in offices based usually in the larger markets of the US, Britain and Europe. They attract the best marketing talent including, it seems, some of Ireland’s finest.

Heavy-hitting marketers are not motivated by localising global marketing plans but rather by the extent of their influence over brand strategy and a large marketing budget at their disposal, says Samus Farrelly, commercial director of headhunters HRM Recruitment Group.

“It’s not that such jobs don’t exist here in Ireland but there aren’t as many opportunities, and when they do come up, they are heavily sought-after, ” he says.

While technology makes business increasingly borderless, proximity to London’s ad agencies and culture is vital for British-based marketers. Powerscourt Media, the financial PR company co founded by Rory Godson, delivers media nous to both Irish and international brands and gets them coverage in the financial press. To achieve that, Godson feels he must nurture his book of City contacts face-to-face.

“Every company that’s serious about international business has to tell their story in London, ” he says. “To have the relationships with the key editors here, you have to be on the ground, and by osmosis, taking in the same influences as them such as listening to the BBC in the morning.”

Powerscourt’s work advising Aer Lingus on its IPO last year could not have been done effectively from Ireland, Godson says.

For those Irish marketers arriving in Heathrow from the mid-1990s onwards, it helped that the Irish ‘brand’ had never been so highly valued.

“The Celtic Tiger didn’t just change the nation, it changed the perception of Irish people and their abilities, ” says Adrian Brady, who in 1996 founded Eulogy, which claims to be the biggest Irishowned PR agency in the UK working for such clients as Virgin Mobile and Royal Mail.

Hugh Burkitt, chief executive of The Marketing Society, attributes the success of Irish marketers in the UK to several characteristics.

“The Irish have some advantages on the British scene, ” he says. “There’s no question that the Irish verbal ability is very great. The Irish accent is classless, whereas English voices can convey status. And as we increasingly work in team situations requiring consensus, the natural conviviality of the Irish comes into play.”

Beyond this, London’s most influential Irish marketers share certain traits, not least an impressive CV and early experience of big campaigns or brands. Many are aged between 35 and 40 and have passed personal thresholds such as starting a family that make returning to Ireland more difficult.

One feature that LondonIrish marketers lack is a formal professional network, similar to that for Irish solicitors and accountants in Britain. The absence of such a forum is a missed opportunity for doing business, says Eulogy’s Adrian Brady. His PR agency is exploiting its advantage to “understand both British and Irish cultures” by helping overseas brands launch in Ireland and vice-versa. The company is currently working on Brazilian drinks brand Sagatiba’s Irish debut.

There is, of course, an informal network for Irish marketers and other professionals through events run by The Ireland Fund of Great Britain. What aspiring marketer would not want to rub shoulders with Peter Sutherland, chairman of the fund and former chairman of BP and Goldman Sachs International, at the fund’s annual London City Luncheon powerfest?

Aileen Ross, director of the fund, denies that its purpose is a business network, stressing that the primary aim is to raise money for projects to help the Irish community in Great Britain. To do so, however, the fund must encourage affluent Irish professionals to attend its parties and golf days.

“It’s become obvious that they do us to network, to meet like-minded people to do business with and socialise, ” she says.

Nearly 20 years ago, the writer Maeve Binchy observed London-based Irish professionals at play at another London Irish ball and coined the acronym Nipples (‘new Irish professional paddies living in England’). Now it seems we may have to invent a new one. That’s because today’s Simpils (‘successful Irish marketing people in London’) are determined to influence the destiny of the world’s biggest brands and must do so beyond these shores.

Four who’ve made it into London’s marketing elite… and me

Lorraine Twohill, Head of Marketing, Google EMEA

The lowdown:

London-based Irish marketers don’t come more powerful than Twohill, who directs Google’s marketing in Europe. She joined the search giant in 2003 from Opodo, the travel portal. Indeed Twohill, a Carlow-born polyglot educated at Dublin City University, is a serious Europhile. Before moving to the UK in 1999 as head of marketing for Dreamticket. com, she worked in Spain, Italy and The Netherlands. Twohill is a regular in the ‘Power 100′ list published annually by UK magazine Marketing and is listed in US ad bible Advertising Age’s most recent ’40 under 40′ power ranking.

Irish nationality as a competitive advantage: “Ireland is going through a popularity phase at the moment, ” Twohill says. “They can talk about Cool Britannia, but it’s more Cool Hibernia now.” That said, Twohill notes that “there are so many nationalities in Google, and if you’re considered good, you’re good no matter where you come from”.

Reasons to stay in London: “I’m in the UK because my team is here. It’s our largest market in Europe and one of our biggest in the world. London is a centre of advertising resources and I need to be around them.” But the London-Dublin route is “like a shuttle service”. She returns to Ireland once a month.

Rory Godson, Partner and Co-Founder, Powerscourt

The lowdown:

Godson’s ascent from grubby journalism to habitué of UK plc boardrooms has been astonishing.

The Sunday Tribune hired the young Godson as a sports subeditor in late 1980s, and promoted him to deputy editor.

Stints at other Irish newspapers and a job as Irish editor of the Sunday Times followed. Poacher became gamekeeper when the world of PR beckoned. Godson joined Goldman Sachs as European director of corporate communications but, never one to let the grass grow under his feet, quit after a year to set up Powerscourt, advising such clients as Aer Lingus, Eircom and BP on their media relations.

Networking: Godson gets together with fellow London-Irish business people through the Irish charities he helps.

He describes such networking as “subconscious” but acknowledges that his agency does gain a lot of work from Irish clients. “Because we are culturally attuned to Irish sensibilities, working out what Irish clients want is easier for us. You get to the same wavelength more quickly.”

Reasons to stay in London: The key factor keeping Godson in London is business opportunity. “Our Irish clients want us to operate here and we have a rapidly developing international business too. You need to be on the ground, going to events and parties and having coffee with editors to tell your clients’ stories.” Godson doesn’t rule out moving back. “Happily we have a house in Dublin so it is relatively easy to move back and forth.”

Kevin Brown, Head of Engagement Planning, Bartle Bogle Hegarty

The lowdown:

Brown is one of London adland’s most influential media experts. It’s all a far cry from when he went to the UK aged 22 in the 1980s after completing a marketing course at the College of Commerce in Rathmines. Having been introduced to media planning and buying at Nestlé, Brown then experienced ad agency life at BMP and Bartle Bogle Hegarty. He honed his specialist media skills at Starcom Motive, leaving in 2000 to set up Soul, an agency he sold in 2005 to an Asian network. Last year Brown was headline news in Campaign, the UK ad magazine, when he rejoined BBH to establish a new planning division.

Irish nationality as a competitive advantage: “It’s no disadvantage. The Irish are pretty open, friendly and good communicators, which is important in a communications business.”

Reasons to stay in London: Brown’s wife is English and they have two children. “Once your children start building a world in this environment, it’s harder to up sticks and leave, ” Brown says. The other big incentive to stay is the global horizons offered by London and by BBH. “There are centres of excellence in the ad industry and London is one of them.”

Paul Walsh, CEO and Co-Founder, Segala

The lowdown:

One of AOL’s first employees in Europe, Walsh is a selftaught internet technology whiz who combines running his web accessibility and mobile testing agency Segala with chairing the UK internet trade association BIMA. He sits on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) advisory committee and is a key member of the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) steering council. Before founding Segala in 2001, Walsh consulted for mobile phone giants such as Vodafone and Orange. His career beginnings were not so lofty:

Walsh’s first job involved filing and lugging computers around for a Dublinbased bank.

Irish nationality as a competitive advantage: “I’ve been at international events where I’ve been told: “you Irish can get away with anything with that accent”. He admits to being “quite proud” that an Irish person is heading the UK internet trade body.

Networking: Walsh is an assiduous networker amongst internet technology types, regardless of nationality.

Based with his family in Guildford, Surrey, Walsh divides his time between Segala’s offices in Dublin and the UK, with travel around the world to speak at conferences and to visit clients.

Dee Forbes Senior Vice President and General Manager, Turner Broadcasting Systems, UK and Ireland

The lowdown:

UK London’s advertising business was the making of Dee Forbes, senior vice president and general manager of Turner Broadcasting Systems UK and Ireland. Arriving in the UK capital 16 years ago armed with an arts degree from UCD, the Cork woman began her career as a lowly sales executive at ad agency Young and Rubicam Europe. Promotion has led to her current position at Turner, where she is responsible for all the channel’s commercial activities, including marketing and PR.

Irish nationality as a competitive advantage: Forbes doesn’t believe that nationality is an issue in London’s business world, and apart from occasionally speaking more slowly, has never felt she had to compromise her Irishness. Forbes notes one undeniable positive. “I came to London 16 years ago as a green graduate and luckily the Irish have a strong work ethnic so we can make it here.”

Reasons to stay in London: “It would be difficult to get something as senior as this at home, ” Forbes admits. “But I return a lot to Cork where I have a house and so have the best of both worlds.”