Why Zig When Others Zag? A Leadership Tale About Thriving Through Adversity

2022-06-21

One thing I know for sure, when nuclear winter descends upon us, two things will survive, coackroaches, and Simon Leslie. Simon is CEO of Ink. Imagine it's 2019, $150m in profitable revenues, 36 exclusive inflight magazine publishing contracts. Covid hits. Almost all those revenues dried up overnight, and they had to refund customers, so the slap in the head cost him more than $150m. Our intrepid leader refused to die. In 2 and half years he has gone from the world falling out from under him to Ink having their BEST EVER quarter in Q1 2022/23. Ink now owns a closed TV network serving 12m customers a day with hyper targeted advertising. We talk data, decision making...

One thing I know for sure, when nuclear winter descends upon us, two things will survive, coackroaches, and Simon Leslie. Simon is CEO of Ink.

Imagine it's 2019, $150m in profitable revenues, 36 exclusive inflight magazine publishing contracts. Covid hits. Almost all those revenues dried up overnight, and they had to refund customers, so the slap in the head cost him more than $150m.

Our intrepid leader refused to die. In 2 and half years he has gone from the world falling out from under him to Ink having their BEST EVER quarter in Q1 2022/23. Ink now owns a closed TV network serving 12m customers a day with hyper targeted advertising. We talk data, decision making and disasters.

What will surprise you is just how much of Simon's recovery has been down to the application of soft skills, and building up his people from scratch. And it is a delight to see Simon thriving. His story is a lesson in leadership, leaning into his problems and an indomitable spirit of enterprise.

Contact Simon on

inkedin.com/in/simon-leslie-b252b92

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