Head of the week: Key player

 
As CEO of the restructured Keystone, Jann Jenatsch is focusing on continuity and plans to offer video soon. 
The takeover of the Keystone picture agency by the Austria Press Agency (APA) and the Swiss News Agency (SDA) came as "a bit of a surprise" to everyone at the beginning of this year. But for Jann Jenatsch, who was promoted from COO to CEO with this structural change, this solution is the best. "Keystone has been transferred to an area where the agency belongs. It could have gone very differently and we would have been sold to some investors." With publishers and media producers as the new owners, Jenatsch sees an opportunity to "do in future what the former owners were aiming for with the sale, namely to guarantee continuity and enable development". A change had been on the cards for some time. Walter Grolimund, who took over Keystone 17 years ago and was able to develop it from a small agency into the most important image provider in Switzerland, only wants to remain active as Chairman of the Board of Directors. His life's work has attracted various investors. "The breadth of Keystone's offering is unique in Switzerland. And images are becoming increasingly important, not just for visualizing trendy websites." No one can pull a stock of images like Keystone's off the cuff in a hurry. Not even the know-how that Jann Jenatsch has been able to build up with his team at Keystone as longstanding production manager and number two alongside Grolimund.
So it really is "business as usual", the new CEO can reassure his customers. However, there will be a few interesting new features. The new owners APA and SDA promise synergies. In cooperation with the news agency in Switzerland, Keystone wants to bring the images even closer to the text - "everything from a single source". Thanks to the Austrian partners, there is a technological boost, as APA is already further ahead in this area and employs 70 people in its IT department - at Keystone it is 5. As APA is largely owned by ORF, video already plays an important role in Vienna. This is a potential that Jenatsch has long recognized for Switzerland as well.
This is why Keystone is launching a video unit in March: "We have little chance of competing with television." However, moving images will certainly experience a boom in the form of web videos as an extension of photos. "There is a need, we have the know-how, and the online media are already looking forward to it," Jenatsch reveals. However, the 20 permanently employed photographers will not be used for the new service. The new department is being set up in parallel and will have its own specialists. "The photographer has to condense the event into one image, the VJ tells the story in the form of a sequence. These are two different approaches."
Jenatsch himself has become acquainted with the world of images in all areas of his career. The Grisons native studied architecture in Zurich. At the age of 25, his parents thought that he could now start to look after himself. So he looked for a job alongside ETH and ended up "as a gofer" at Keystone. "Those were different times," he laughs and remembers the office at Zurich's Seilergraben, "close to the Safari Bar". Jenatsch had to pack the repros in envelopes, take them to the station and buy sandwiches on the way back. However, he soon discovered more challenging photographic jobs. In the late 1980s, Jenatsch set up the first color lab for Keystone. That was the time when you still had to duplicate slides for advertising clients, for example.
Because he thought he was doing everything better than his employer - "which is normal at that age" - he founded his own agency "Delay" in addition to his work as an editor at Keystone. With this agency, Jenatsch and his partners Christoph Ruckstuhl (now NZZ) and Willi Helfenberger (now 20 Minuten) were able to hold their own for five years as official festival photographers for the film scene in Locarno and Solothurn. Jenatsch also photographed stars such as Louis Malle in Paris and Robert De Niro in Berlin for Delay. However, this assignment for Japanese media turned out to be a flop. The dream of getting a superstar like De Niro in front of the camera in an exclusive shot was so exciting that Jenatsch "failed a little".
At Keystone, Jenatsch was in charge of infographics and also designed them himself. From 1996, he also set up the image database and developed what is now the largest department at Keystone. For the last seven years, he worked as production manager and "right-hand man" to Walter Grolimund.
An important challenge for the new CEO will be to continue to position Keystone correctly for the needs of advertisers. Although the company has been producing and distributing themed and stock images since 1981, Keystone is still largely seen as a news agency. "Due to its presence in the newspapers, this is almost inevitable." However, Keystone works "extremely broadly" and is therefore working hard to expand commissioned photography for companies, associations and organizations.
Jenatsch derives his passion for the job from his enjoyment of the pictures. Today, he only takes photos himself on vacation. Jenatsch experiences "Project Switzerland" at the agency as an ideal substitute for a hobby. He works with external photographers to create a visual documentation of the state of our country. The "Swiss football landscape" is currently being photographed. The 250 pictures on the subject of "football in the broadest sense" will be on display in an exhibition in Winterthur in the spring.
Andreas Panzeri