"Ready for the upswing"
Werner Lang and Peter Knoll, co-founders of LangGysiKnoll, give up their shares and retire. The company management - Nicole Huber, André Gysi and Silvano Spezia - is joined by CD Simone Quast.
Werner Lang and Peter Knoll, co-founders of LangGysiKnoll, give up their shares and retire. CD Simone Quast joins the management team of Nicole Huber, André Gysi and Silvano Spezia.WW Simone Quast, on July 1 you joined the LGK management team, which now consists of two men and two women. Does your agency have a quota system?Simone Quast Where are you thinking? We are radically oriented to the market. A good half of our consumers are women. And so are about half of our customers. In fact, LangGysiKnoll's management team is an expression of a natural process. We don't think in gender categories. What counts for us is personality and performance. The constellation in the management team happens to be one of parity. Life experience, different perspectives and strategies lead us to decisions that are always good foundations for successful solutions.
Women in GL are a rarity on the Swiss advertising scene. What do you do differently?
What seems new now is nothing more than the visible expression of a long-planned development. We are four partners who are going our way together. Thanks to this constellation at the management and owner level, we can optimally divide the strategic tasks among us and invest a lot of time in day-to-day business and new business projects.
Is it these points that appeal to you about the new function?being able to influence and change things is always a good feeling. Especially when you have the support of a lot of people. Now I have new strategic tasks in addition to my duties as CD. That means I will now be able to do even more for the company.
It's well known that women are more likely than men to withdraw from the workforce during periods of recession. How do you assess the current situation of women in the advertising industry?
After all, a few years have passed since the last recession, and even Switzerland continues to develop. Today, women in management positions are hardly affected by the phenomenon you mention. In my estimation, it is more likely to be women who earn the extra money in a partnership who withdraw or are cut back in the face of the threat of red pencils. But again: At LGK, both women and men are well-trained professionals, and who wants to do without them?
Is the young tradition of the agency a reason why you don't change its brand name?Right. LangGysiKnoll was intended as a brand from the very beginning. Three-tone dimensions, as "Rheingold" was so beautifully called in the eighties.
You're also about to become co-owner of the agency. How do you plan to boost the performance of your top 15 agency?
We are going through the crisis healthy, slimmed down and fit and ready for the upturn. Through our investments in Account Planning, we want to reach our goal even more efficiently in the future. In the past, this was around 13 percent plus per year, and we want to build on this success.
Will you be able to match these growth rates this year?I wish! But let's keep our feet on the ground: In the current market situation, we are also satisfied with less.
Then you'll probably have a more active pitch policy than before?We'd prefer to have digestible growth. But it's true, we're pretty active at the moment. And I hope that I will soon be able to look for suitable reinforcements in Berne and Zurich. Whereas: the "Zurigese" seem to prefer to remain unemployed than to sit on the train for an hour.
Peter Knoll and Werner Lang sell their shareholdings and withdraw from the Management Board. This reduces the number of members to a quartet. Was this the first cost-cutting measure?
So please, who wants to cut back on quality? In fact, our management team only temporarily became a five-member body when Nicole Huber - one of the greatest women I know, by the way - came on the scene in 2001 to initiate the long-planned generational change.
When two of the three agency fathers retire and a generational change takes place, one wonders whether André Gysi is also considering his succession plan.
The name is probably deceptive, LangGysiKnoll has always had four agency fathers. Silvano Spezia and André Gysi are not a bit tired yet, and that's just fine with Nicole Huber and me. The fact that one of them is stepping down is not an issue at all.
Joint management quartet at LangGysiKnoll: Nicole Huber, Silvano Spezia, André Gysi - and new: Simone Quast (from left).
Women in GL are a rarity on the Swiss advertising scene. What do you do differently?
What seems new now is nothing more than the visible expression of a long-planned development. We are four partners who are going our way together. Thanks to this constellation at the management and owner level, we can optimally divide the strategic tasks among us and invest a lot of time in day-to-day business and new business projects.
Is it these points that appeal to you about the new function?being able to influence and change things is always a good feeling. Especially when you have the support of a lot of people. Now I have new strategic tasks in addition to my duties as CD. That means I will now be able to do even more for the company.
It's well known that women are more likely than men to withdraw from the workforce during periods of recession. How do you assess the current situation of women in the advertising industry?
After all, a few years have passed since the last recession, and even Switzerland continues to develop. Today, women in management positions are hardly affected by the phenomenon you mention. In my estimation, it is more likely to be women who earn the extra money in a partnership who withdraw or are cut back in the face of the threat of red pencils. But again: At LGK, both women and men are well-trained professionals, and who wants to do without them?
Is the young tradition of the agency a reason why you don't change its brand name?Right. LangGysiKnoll was intended as a brand from the very beginning. Three-tone dimensions, as "Rheingold" was so beautifully called in the eighties.
You're also about to become co-owner of the agency. How do you plan to boost the performance of your top 15 agency?
We are going through the crisis healthy, slimmed down and fit and ready for the upturn. Through our investments in Account Planning, we want to reach our goal even more efficiently in the future. In the past, this was around 13 percent plus per year, and we want to build on this success.
Will you be able to match these growth rates this year?I wish! But let's keep our feet on the ground: In the current market situation, we are also satisfied with less.
Then you'll probably have a more active pitch policy than before?We'd prefer to have digestible growth. But it's true, we're pretty active at the moment. And I hope that I will soon be able to look for suitable reinforcements in Berne and Zurich. Whereas: the "Zurigese" seem to prefer to remain unemployed than to sit on the train for an hour.
Peter Knoll and Werner Lang sell their shareholdings and withdraw from the Management Board. This reduces the number of members to a quartet. Was this the first cost-cutting measure?
So please, who wants to cut back on quality? In fact, our management team only temporarily became a five-member body when Nicole Huber - one of the greatest women I know, by the way - came on the scene in 2001 to initiate the long-planned generational change.
When two of the three agency fathers retire and a generational change takes place, one wonders whether André Gysi is also considering his succession plan.
The name is probably deceptive, LangGysiKnoll has always had four agency fathers. Silvano Spezia and André Gysi are not a bit tired yet, and that's just fine with Nicole Huber and me. The fact that one of them is stepping down is not an issue at all.
Joint management quartet at LangGysiKnoll: Nicole Huber, Silvano Spezia, André Gysi - and new: Simone Quast (from left).
LangGysiKnoll in figures
LGK, Bern, was formed in 1994 from the merger of Lang & Knoll with Gysi & Partner. At the end of June, Werner Lang and Peter Knoll stepped down from operational management and also relinquished their shares in the agency. Since July 1, the new owners of the agency are Nicole Huber, Simone Quast, André Gysi and Silvano Spezia. Today, the full-service advertising agency employs 37 people and serves 30 clients in the banking and insurance, retail, energy, postal and transport, food and non-food, media, culture and science sectors. Sales in 2002 amounted to 40 million, gross operating income to 7.2 million Swiss francs. (la)
Interview: Luca Aloisi
