Most top executives are quick to describe their roles in terms of geographical extent, corporate turnover and headcount, but Jonathan Wright takes a contrasting approach.
For him, the first point to emphasise is that being global managing director of Dow Jones is “a huge privilege”, one which combines excitement and opportunity in defining growth strategies, and launching new products, and plotting a course for the digital era.
Overseeing the sales and commercial side of the business, which is separate from the editorial and news teams, his basic task is to grow three revenue streams – advertising, professional data and membership. That entails expanding reach and using quality content to drive subscriptions around the world. It also means running speaker events, launching CEO councils to stimulate debate, and setting a target of three million subscribers globally.
“This is a pretty transformational time in the media and information business,” says Hong Kong-based Wright. “Therefore, our strategy is to achieve organic net growth by working with like-minded partners and finding new ways to bring journalism to life.”
Having spent his early childhood in Cyprus, where his grandfather was headmaster at the English school in Nicosia, Wright attended boarding schools in the south of England from the age of eight. Sport, especially rugby, became a real passion, in which respect he took after his father, an economics teacher who reached international level as a fly-half.
However, his mother was the more lasting influence on family life, and her job moves as a nurse meant school holidays were spent in Nottingham, Liverpool, the New Forest and then Surrey.
Though no bookworm, Wright worked hard at his studies and won a place in 1996 to read criminology at the University of Wales in Bangor. The choice was partly inspired by thoughts of a possible career in the army or the police’s royal and diplomatic protection service, the attraction being the diversity of roles and the chance to help others.
“As you mature and grow, you explore multiple options,” he says. “But it’s also important to instil a work ethic and, as a teenager and going through university, I took various jobs that helped pay the bills.”
That included cleaning the biology labs at school and post office sorting. Later, unsure about the next move after graduation, he made ends meet for a year by managing pubs in the Lake District and working security at a night club in Bangor. On moving to London, though, everything began to fall into place.
“I took a job with a contract publisher printing a magazine to go with the Bafta awards and got into ad sales,” he says. “I came to realise I enjoyed the interaction of selling and fell in love with the media business. In a way, it was serendipitous, and I’ve now spent 17 years in the field.”
Along the way, there were stints with Thomson Financial and Euromoney, as publisher of a corporate finance magazine, which also brought a transfer to New York in 2004. It was a chance to sell to US financial institutions, build a reputation within the industry and, as it turned out, meet his future wife, who was working in sales for radio.
“It was a great experience, but after five years living in an apartment on 57th street, and with the birth of our first child, I just felt it was time to go back to the UK,” Wright says.
Accordingly, conversations took place and he joined Dow Jones in London as the advertising director of Financial News. Subsequently, he took on circulation in Europe for The Wall Street Journal and, in 2015, was offered a move to Hong Kong to head up the company’s Asia operations. He has since added further responsibilities as the group expands its footprint by enhancing digital platforms and looking to boost customised content, event sponsorship and attendance, and subscriptions.
“We have an engaged audience reading independent, quality journalism. That is a great platform for business partners and advertisers to leverage,” Wright says. “But it’s also important to build new revenue streams, which are not one-off and which use the value of our data and news content.”
All that, of course, presents challenges and opportunities, a dynamic situation he relishes as the current “guardian” of a major international brand.
“I’m still career-driven and since, overall, I believe there is nothing more important than family, the key is finding the right balance.”
When a hectic travel schedule allows, Wright likes to watch his two kids playing rugby and keeps fit by training for the occasional ultra marathon or similarly daunting endurance tests. These events, as in cycling from London to Monte Carlo, are deliberately chosen as something outside his normal purview, which he is “not predisposed to be good at”. Besides the physical aspect, he finds they are a great way to clear the mind, team up with clients and colleagues, and meet inspiring people from completely different walks of life.
At present, he also has plans to get more actively involved in the local theatre scene, reviving an interest from his days in New York. While there, he produced three off-Broadway plays in his spare time, optioning scripts from professional writers, doing readings, finding the right directors, and “getting bums on seats”.
“The experience of ‘curtain up’ and the first-night magic of theatre is what drove it, but there was also the challenge,” he says. “I want to know how other businesses operate, how everything is put together, and sometimes the best way to learn that is by doing it yourself. In the next 18 months, I’d like to repeat the experience in Hong Kong where there are some great performance spaces.”
(Photo: Sky Lip)
