It is no small task helping clients transform business processes and realise the potential of their brands, but it is one that allows Dan Healy to use his talents to the full.
“We provide end-to-end services to optimise each client’s communications output and achieve multi-channel marketing effectiveness,” says the Asia-Pacific head of business development for Williams Lea Tag. “That involves everything from print and point-of-sales materials to creative production for billboards, digital and video content to deliver their message to the intended audience in the best way.”
The client could be a big name in, say, investment banking, financial services, pharmaceuticals, FMCG or the retail sector. Their head office might have an initial concept for launching a new brand or revamping the image and impact of an existing product. But Healy and his team will then step in, working alongside creative agencies and brand managers, to produce the necessary materials in different languages, rolling them out in different locations, and ensuring everything comes together as planned.
“We focus on ‘trans-creation’, which means taking the assets and visuals for a campaign and making it market-specific,” Healy says. “We make sure it is culturally sensitive and that every element is relevant to each market. In essence, we are selling solutions and are very frontline. Everything is about helping customers meet their needs and future-proof their business.”
Typically, an FMCG or retail-related campaign might entail a background video with the required edits, translation and adaptation for commercials in different countries. There would be in-store promotions, write-ups and, increasingly, special attention to tailor-made initiatives on tech platforms and online.
Since Healy’s team is heavily focused on new business, they must understand the trends in various sectors and industries and be ready to cross-reference experiences and share insights to optimise the process.
“We never offer prescriptive solutions, but observations that can start a conversation,” he says. “There is an element of due diligence and discovery to make sure we are offering what’s best for the client. It is a long sales cycle, with more consultant-type selling. Listening is a major element, and with so many organisations going through fast-paced growth, we see ourselves as partners helping to position them for the journey and deal with any peaks and troughs.”
Healy’s own journey began in Hamilton, a small town in western Victoria, but the family relocated to Geelong near Melbourne when he was 16. He is the fifth of seven children, whose mother was a primary school teacher before becoming a homemaker, and whose father worked in finance and administration for what is now Telstra.
An enjoyable upbringing, with a spell playing second-tier Aussie rules football, led to a three-year degree is sports science at Victoria University, completed in 1997. Career plans had initially centred on sports management or business, but a part-time job while at university, doing projection work and ticket sales for cinema chain Village Roadshow, brought the offer of a full-time management role and the chance to move up quickly.
Healy accepted, became a location manager looking after cinemas and training new joiners, and, in mid-1999, transferred to Sydney as area manager with city-wide responsibilities.
“It was a good education in running operations and teams,” he says. “And I was there through the 2000 Olympics, which was an amazing social experience, like travelling the world without leaving your own city.”
Keen to advance, he moved on to the national head office of Reebok in client relationship management for four years, eventually looking after major accounts, back-office and data-entry teams plus warehousing and logistics. The attraction was the link to sports. At the end of the day, though, it all about business and that caused Healy to think more seriously about what he wanted from his life and career.
“I had worked out what I liked and was good at,” he says. “In particular, I prided myself on being able to present and communicate well. You learn that when you are fifth in line.”
To take that further, he therefore did a two-year postgraduate diploma in writing and editing at the University of Technology in Sydney meanwhile making ends meet by working on Commonwealth Bank’s annual report and taking contract-based assignments in the music department of state broadcaster ABC.
“I’d always loved the client-centric sales environment and had a talent for writing and communications. I was future-proofing myself with more business applicable skills.”
Returning to the corporate world full time in 2006, he first joined the a local recruitment firm’s “bid and pursuit” team, but really found his niche after moving to London and landing a role with real estate firm CBRE that was to last six years. He ran their “pursuit and sales” efforts, did best-practice sales training, and helped project managers and subject matter experts make more effective pitches.
“I’d got to the age where I had done the legwork to get my career moving, but I wanted international experience and thought it was now or never,” he says. “It was a leap of faith because I had no job lined up, but the task and role suited my skills. I also met my now wife in London and we had two of our three children there.”
An 18-month stint in Paris was followed by a transfer to the CBRE office in Hong Kong, but by mid-2018 Healy simply felt it was time to take on a new challenge — and has found just that in his current position.
“This is a pretty exciting period for us; we have a huge growth agenda for the region over the course of the next five years,” he says. “We plan to double the size of the sales force over the next 12 months to ensure we are set up for success and that our value propositions and go-to-market strategies are attractive to clients.”
