Girl Guides: Former EasyInternetcafé CEO Mary Keane-Dawson talks emotions and business

Her lengthy experience in digital business has led her into an advisory capacity to founders and boards of directors in a whole range of companies. She’s also mentor to five young digital business men and women – “future CEOs” as she confidently calls them.

“I like to learn something new every day,” she says. “I don’t mean that in some bullshit way – if I don’t then I feel like it’s a day wasted.”

That’s part of her selection criteria for which projects, people and companies to work with – can she learn something new from the collaboration?

“I work with people or businesses where there are interesting intellectual challenges to overcome. In digital you have a fascinating combination of creative and technology. The people in the space are invariably bright, forward-thinking and often quite maverick in their thinking. That’s the environment that I want to be working in.”

Keane-Dawson lists as one of her proudest achievements the fact that a business she sold in 1997 –Spafax Airline Network – is still going strong to this day. What does she make of the recent mergers and acquisitions in digital?

“Invariably when you have founders running companies there comes a time when they want to cash in. A company like AKQA [recently acquired by WPP] is proof that being the best-of-breed and having the highest standards in town is still worth a hell of a lot. If anything, its sale shows that standards in the industry have to be raised even higher.”

Digital is, as far as Keane-Dawson is concerned, on an unswerving course to become the key driver of ad strategy. It’s a moment she looks forward to with gusto.

“Strategic planning is something that digital is waking up to. For too long it has sat within the large, traditional networks. Strategic planners are the people that brands really listen to, and once digital starts to develop its own strategic planning discipline then we’ll find ourselves in the driving seat. Digital is, after all, the key to the future for most brands.”

Keane-Dawson’s own digital awakening came in1999 when she was made CEO of EasyInternetcafé. While the venture eventually failed, she learned a lot of valuable lessons.

She was galvanised by the experience, and realised how critical frank and honest discussion is to commercial success. In her own words, “if I have to be the one to point out an elephant in the room, then so be it”.

“I don’t think it’s exclusively female, but I think women do tend to find themselves emotionally involved in things and there’s a belief in industry as a whole that you shouldn’t let emotions be part of business decisions.

“That’s a fallacy because often it’s emotions that are driving decisions in the first place. I think it’s a fine line that women have to walk, not to end up being accused of being over-emotional.

“Courage is a good thing, but intellectual rigour is far more important. The one area I always recommend women, and indeed anyone, really develops is to make sure they know more than anyone else.”

Do women have to work harder to be taken seriously in that respect?”

I think that women look for permission to be successful. The women I see having real success in digital are unafraid, but intelligent with it. More and more women are not afraid to challenge, which can only be a good thing.”

Time and again Keane-Dawson talks about the need to innovate, to “constantly reiterate” as she puts it. Her focus is on “rarity value” and maintaining it in an unbelievably fast-moving business climate.

“Innovation is not a comfortable bedfellow in the corporate structure. People who stand out and are individualistic are either the CEO, or they’re on their way out of Dodge because they create headaches. There’s very little middle ground.

“There’s the constant danger that if you sit there with your money in the bank [rather than investing in innovation], you’ll see revenues rapidly diminish. This isn’t just in ‘traditional’ companies either, look at what happened to AOL and Yahoo! – they didn’t innovate or reiterate.” So what’s the alternative?

“Take Facebook and Google. One of the biggest reasons that they do so well that they have built open development ecosystems around them that constantly push the platform, benefit the consumer, and generate revenue. It’s a beautiful model.”

We can’t all be Facebook or Google, I suggest.

What about smaller businesses? “Well, there’s a struggle between innovation and money. But there are investors who want to work with ambitious, interesting people who have a vision.

“I do think, though, that there is a misconception at the moment among start-ups that they can easily just go out and raise a quick million quid, and then 12 months down the line they’ll get acquired and that’s that.

“The reality is, a successful company – take AKQA as an example again – means a lot of sleepless nights, a huge amount of effort and hard work, and an absolute obsession with being the very best in class. You have to be ruthless in your dedication.”

Right now there’s a huge amount of energy and excitement around the London digital scene. Keane-Dawson’s a realist, and recalls only too well the “Vapourware” of the early noughties. What’s changed?

“In 2000 everyone was drunk on the concept of digital. I know people who sold businesses that didn’t even really exist in any real sense – they just developed a demo of an idea and that was enough. There was a lack of understanding back then of how to actually deliver on the promise of digital.

“That’s the difference now – there’s so much more technical expertise at the top of the industry. There are proper business incubators out there, run by proper tech people who really know what they’re doing.

“What can radically improve GDP in this country? Digital is the way. The UK’s creativity is fantastic: we find solutions to problems and have some of the best developers in the world.

“The challenge is the commercial side of things. We have to think globally, not locally. The Americans, the Chinese, and the South Americans have a sense of scalability because of the vast size of their local markets. Once we Brits truly embrace that perspective, the sky is the limit.