In “Leading an Iconic Brand Through a Global Transformation,” David Cox, former CFO of The Economist, shares how he helped guide the publication through its bold shift from weekly print to a digital-first and live events model. On this episode of CXO Conversations, David reflects on early digital adoption, the value of listening to clients, and how consultative selling reshaped the way advertisers and subscribers engaged with the brand. From launching Economist Espresso to hosting government roundtables across the globe, David’s story is a playbook for executives leading organizations through disruption and change.

For the full interview: https://ocns.co/leading-an-iconic-brand-through-a-global-transformation/

10 Min Clip Transcript

David Cox: [00:00:00] CFOs go on to be COOs and many into the CEO role because you are so tuned into everything that’s going on in an organization. We’ll kick it.

Michael Mitchel: CXO conversations, talks with C-level executives on how they reach the C-Suite and what advice will they give those who want to be one. Hi, I’m your host, Michael Mitchell, managing director of OC National Search Today. David Cox, former CFO of the Economist, joins us. David was a senior executive with Economist for over 14 years, including serving as the CFO for the Americas.

Followed by C-F-O-C-O-O for the global media business where he transformed the brand on the global stage. I’m very much looking forward to speaking with David on how he, he led the digital and brand transformation of the Venerable Weekly. Please see the show notes for more information on David. [00:01:00] Um, David, welcome to the conversation.

David Cox: Thank you, Michael. Nice to see you. Nice to be here. 

Michael Mitchel: Yep, absolutely. Hey, um, before we get deep into things, I’m kind of curious because I mean, you’re doing global things and you know, just the economist. What’s the most unique or memorable experience you had while you were there? 

David Cox: I think the, uh, we, we used to do a lot of government round tables and I think those were always unique.

Uh, every government round table we did, and we tended to focus very much on the emerging markets. So I think having. Access to the Prime Minister of India, for example, having access to Lula in Brazil, uh, Mexico, uh, everywhere. Um, there is a major economy. Uh, we were there and I think that was a, that was a great privilege and it was also very exciting as well.

Michael Mitchel: Um, alright, so because I [00:02:00] would imagine you’re interacting, interacting with a lot of interesting people globally. 

David Cox: Yes, yes. The brand was very powerful. I mean, we, we, we could, uh, you know, we could, we could pick the phone up and, and manage to get most politicians, uh, quite easily. So it was very good. Yeah. So, you 

Michael Mitchel: know, you’re at the, you’re at the Economist and there’s change in the air in the industry.

What, what was the trend that you observed at this point? 

David Cox: Well, I think it was the trend towards social media. It was the growing prevalence of content marketing and social media within the wider marketing circle. I think in the past, uh, the Economist and a lot of media businesses had been very focused on two revenue streams.

It was, uh, circulation and advertising. Uh, and the economist I think, managed that very well. We always had a, a good balance between circulation revenues and, and [00:03:00] advertising revenues. Around about 2010, the market started to change and it was really, I think, precipitated by, uh, the iPhone and mobile devices because suddenly you could start to read The Economist on, on a mobile device and you could get information quickly.

Uh, you didn’t have to wait for the weekly. Publication to come out and be printed and everything. So the whole sort of market changed and I think what that brought about was a fundamental change to marketing. We went from, uh, advertising through much more towards integrated marketing. So clients would come to us.

Advertisers would come to us and say, Hey look, we don’t want a page of advertising anymore in the publication. We want you to help us tell our story, shape our shape, our brand. And clearly, you know, that had some downsides as well because being, you know, we had editorial independence, so we had to be independent, but we were great story.[00:04:00] 

And we found ourselves really sort of moving outta advertising, print advertising into digital advertising, um, and into content marketing surveys, thought leadership, uh, and, uh, ultimately videos as well. Um, and that was, you know, that was, that was a transition. That was, that was a driving force. 

Michael Mitchel: Did, was there an aha moment?

David Cox: For you? Um, yeah, I think, you know, there, there was, but I think the pace, the pace had, the pace was so apparent and I think, uh, being based here, you know, being in Britain, being based in the us I think the US is always probably sort of two to three years ahead of. Of Europe in terms of digital evolution, digital revolution.

So it was a bit of an aha moment. I think. Uh, it was scary as well. I think, you know, a lot of media and publishing businesses [00:05:00] saw that their, their ad dollars disappearing into digital dimes as they used to say. So were people prepared to pay the same amount of money for a digital advertisement or a piece of content?

Uh, that was produced than they would for a big page, glossy page of advertising in a magazine. Um, and I think, you know, the Economist, um, sought that, you know, sought that answer and that was what a lot of the transformation was about. 

Michael Mitchel: So what were some of the first steps you took? 

David Cox: So, I think, you know what, the first things we did was, was really, I, it was pretty clear that there was, there was, uh.

Disintermediation between print and, and digital. And I think what was happening is that people, our clients, customers were wanting both. And so we did a lot of research, um, and we did, uh, quite a lot of work. We went out and found a, a global firm of pricing consultants because what was happening was we were hearing [00:06:00] rumors in the market that people were no longer prepared to pay for digital.

It was different. It was different from print. You know, they could understand the economics of print because you had to produce a magazine and circulate it. And it was expensive printing and expensive distribution, whereas everybody thought it was digital was much cheaper. And I think, you know, what we, what we learned from our research was, was a couple of really interesting things.

Is that actually to sort think about the economics and the cost may have been somewhat of the wrong way of looking at it. What we really wanted to look at was value. So in terms of digital, what did the value of digital bring to the customer, to the reader as opposed to print? And the reality is actually digital could be more valuable because it meant they were getting information and they were getting data faster.

Than they were if they were waiting for the print edition. So the idea that we should perhaps price, uh, [00:07:00] digital lower than, um, advertising, which many of our competitor than, than, uh, print that many of our competitors did. We sort of ruled out quite quickly. And, uh, it was a, uh, that was a bit of an eye opening moment, I think.

I think the other thing was. That we discovered through a lot of, uh, reader research that our price was quite in elastic for the economy. So we did a lot of by response curves. And look to see that actually, you know, a proportionate change in price had less than a proportionate change in demand, uh, for readership.

So we were in quite a strong position. And so we went to market and we basically were agnostic, uh, in our marketing campaigns. We basically said, you know, you can read The Economist in print. Still be available, uh, because everybody was saying, you know, print’s gonna go away, print’s gonna go away. No, it’s not.

And it still hasn’t. It’s a very, very popular medium and [00:08:00] will remain a very popular medium. But you can have it in digital as well. And you’ll pay the same price for digital as you will for print. And if you want both, we can, you know, we can give, we can give you both and you’re gonna pay more. 

Michael Mitchel: I’m curious ’cause you’re charging the same for digital as you would the print.

And obviously print is more expensive for the obvious reasons, but with the digital you don’t have, um, a limitation on the content because of the number of pages of, of the physical copy. So did this allow the economist to provide more content? For the price or more in depth? Did did, did it change the, the quality of the product?

David Cox: Well, I think I, I think one has to be a bit careful in, in terms of, uh, of sort of oversaturation of content and, and, um, there’s something nice about the Economist and there was something our readers liked about this curated content as they called it. So we’re relying on you and your editors. To be, give us the information and the, and the information and [00:09:00] data and news that we want for that particular week.

So yes, you probably could add a lot more. What we found was that it was, gave us opportunities to be able to do perhaps special reports that we weren’t. In print because they wouldn’t have been economical. So we could, we could dive into, into subjects, um, which were perhaps on the periphery of, of what we were doing.

I think the other thing is that it also gave us, from a digital perspective, the ability to be able to produce new products. So I think we did, um, something called the Economist Espresso, which was a daily, we know we’d never, we’d never done a daily before. We had only ever done a weekly. And we were able to produce a daily, uh, app called Espresso, which gave you the five stories that we think you need to read today.

And they could be political, they could be business related, uh, they could be a [00:10:00] combination of the two. And I think that’s where, that’s where that’s real advantage that digital gave us. 

Michael Mitchel: What were some of the specific strategic moves you made? 

David Cox: In terms of, well, I think in terms of specific strategic moves, I think, you know, the, the, it was really driven by the client base and, you know, I, it’s the whole idea of just wanting one piece of marketing.

Collateral was, was dying. Um, print, print advertising was dying. It was seen as old fashioned in this new age. Um, it was about digital. It was about video. Um, it was a lot more interactive. And I think what that, what that gave us is, is it made us change the structure of the business and I think it changed the structure of the business in, you know, in a couple of key areas.

One, obviously in processes and systems and finance processes and systems, which [00:11:00] underpins sort of revenue and everything like that. You know, you had been able to predict the advertising. Business quite well. It also boiled up our subscription business. I think that was a, a business which we really needed to make work because having good quality subscribers, good quality readers, was absolutely essential to content, uh, marketing and, uh, had always been to advertising too, but even more so, so huge focus on circulation and driving circulation across.

The Americas and across the world. And I think the other, the other thing I would say is that it changed the way that we went to market, the way we sold Suddenly, uh, it was gone. Gone with the days of going into a, a agency or going into a cloth and saying, how many pages of advertising do you want? What you needed were [00:12:00] salespeople who were consultative in their sales approach.

So it was about. You have a problem, IBM or you have an issue, uh, ge how can we help you solve it from a marketing standpoint? And as I say, it may, it’s probably not a page of advertising, it’s probably a website. It may be a blog that we work with you on. Uh, it may be a film, it may be sponsorship of a conference, uh, that we run or a, a meeting, a, a thought leadership meeting.

So the whole sort of business changed and. The, uh, sales perspective, you needed people who could, who were comfortable selling consultatively. So you, you’re, 

Michael Mitchel: you’re engaging with sales, marketing, uh, operations. Um, uh, uh, what else? Um, you know, all these different departments. 

David Cox: Content. Content, very important.

Content, content. Content very important because again, you know what I would, what I would hasten to say is that you [00:13:00] have a, you have a, a, a thin line between editorial independence and doing right for the customer. I mean, I think one thing, the customer, you know, a client, if you take a take a

of. You know, you could find, the economists would write a very nasty article saying, no, they don’t. And that was, that was just the type of thing you had to learn to live with and manage because you couldn’t, you couldn’t mitigate, you couldn’t mitigate the economist’s editorial independence. ’cause otherwise you’d be, you’d be a, um, you know, you’d be dead in the water really.

But that, 

Michael Mitchel: so it sounds like you, it sounds like you alluded earlier, you had a lot of support. Early on. Yeah. Did you have any pushback, any headwinds at all? I mean, what are the content providers, the authors and the writers, uh, what did they feel about this? 

David Cox: Yeah, I mean, I think I, I think it was, I think in general there [00:14:00] was, you know, I think it was well managed.

The, the editorial independence was well managed and the, the separation, uh, between commercial and editorial was a, a very important line that, you know, that really couldn’t be crossed. But I also think, you know, we, we spent quite a long time putting in place rules. About how we would work with clients, what we could say.

You know, if a major client came to us and said, you know, we’d like to do a thought leadership piece on how great our new product or our new software is, chances are we probably might not be able to do it. What we would want to do is a survey of the whole market and show that their, you know, their benefits against the competitors sort of thing.

So I think that was, that was bit of the pushback. I think also on pricing. I think, um, what it, what it did was certainly in the market, I think there was, um, quite a lot of, [00:15:00] um. Initial sort of skepticism from our competitors about, you know, how can the economist charge this amount of money for digital?

Everybody knows, you know, digital’s much cheaper to produce. The reality is, as I say, it’s not, it’s about the value and it’s about the content. And also, you know, I would make a strong case that the infrastructure needed to deliver digital globally is, is as much as a printing, um, you know, press and everything.

So. 

Michael Mitchel: Did anybody wanna say, Hey, laces, keep it status quo, or, I mean, you know, I guess that when you first brought this up internally where people are, you know, were you the first one to raise this issue? No, 

David Cox: no, no, no. And I, and I, and I wouldn’t, I, you know, it was, it was, it was, it was so, it was so pervasive to our industry.

And we had seen it, we had seen it earlier. So I’d spent the early part of my career, uh, at the Economist in a, in a, uh, [00:16:00] publication called The Economist Intelligence Unit, which, uh, for those of you who know what the Economist Intelligence Unit is, it is a, it’s one of the sort of leading sources of.

Country information across the world. So if you want to know the GDP of Mauritius in 10 years time, you go to the Economist Intelligence Unit. And that business used to run predominantly, well, almost entirely as a, as a print business. And, you know, libraries would subscribe to every edition we ran. We covered about 90 countries.

They would scribe quarterly to every, every edition of what we ran. And in, uh, you know, when the internet sort of came out in sort of the late nineties, mid to late nineties, the, the speed at which that market disappeared was amazing. I mean, it literally in 18 months, that market had gone and it was all electronic.

It was all digital. Um, because nobody wanted to [00:17:00] carry tombs of, you know, um, printed material anymore. Everybody just wanted to go and access it, um, via, via the web or, or, or via. In those days it was, uh, CDs. But, uh, even that went away very quickly and in face for the web. 

Michael Mitchel: So everyone knows this issue. It, you know, the winds are blowing from bii this way.

Why you, why not the CEO leading this or the COO or the CIO? 

David Cox: Well, it was, I mean, it was, it was the CEOI mean, I, you know, I, I can’t claim it from a finance perspective. Remember I’m the finance person. But I mean, I think play an integral role. But it was, it was a global effort. ’cause it was a global phenomena.

Uh, and you know, I worked very closely with the CMO, uh, in the Americas and very closely with the CEO in the Americas as well. I mean, clearly they set the, you know, they set the strategy and they were, uh, most closely associated with the [00:18:00] clients and the advertisers. But there was a whole new way of report, you know, there was a whole new way of reporting.

Uh, it wasn’t, as I say, it wasn’t just advertising revenues. There were new revenues coming into the p and l. You know, there were new structures to the p and l. There was a lot of work around, you know, how do you, how do you, uh, cross sell across different products? How do you incentivize people? Because in the past, you’ve said to somebody.

I’m going to in, I’m going to pay you this much. If you sell a page of advertising, suddenly as I said before, you are going to find people are doing consultative selling. The, the, the lead time may be much longer. So, you know, how do you keep people, how do you keep salespeople engaged? 

Michael Mitchel: So would you say, while this is a, a c level group discussion, sounds like Correct.

Yeah. Um, were, were you really leading the charge basically project managing this transformation? 

David Cox: I work. Yeah, I mean, I work with the, I work with the [00:19:00] outside pricing consultants who played a, a pivotal role in this. I think in terms of sort of formulating the strategy and leading the charge, particularly in the Americas.

But as I say, the Americas, we did it first because we, Americas was always ahead of Europe. 

Michael Mitchel: So why do you feel that, um, it, was this a, a because it’s you personally or because your, your role as a CFO. 

David Cox: Uh, I think it’s, well, I think there’s two things. I think there’s, I think there’s a couple of things. I think there is, um, one, I had always been C as A CFO, so number a numbers person, but I had also spent quite a lot of time in the business at the Economist as well.

So I had ran, run their global events business. I had encountered there. I’d run p and ls, I had run the thought leadership and research business, uh, for the Economist Intelligence Unit. So I was, I was well aware [00:20:00] of the changes that were taking place ’cause I had experienced them firsthand myself in the business of which I had run.

And so I, I think that made it, you know, I made it, I made an ideal candidate. 

Michael Mitchel: I’m gonna step outta the conversation. For a brief moment, I’d like to thank CXO conversation, sponsor a CG Denver for their support of this podcast. As a local program chair, I’m proud of Association for Corporate Growth in its role as the hub of the middle market business community for quality networking education and events.

A little bit like the Economist that sounds like connections are made, deals reform, and thought leadership is exchanged. You like the way I kind of, kind of slid that in there, right? So, so, David. There, there was something you had said a, a while ago when we were chatting, uh, about the, the true role of, uh, the CFO.

Do you recall what that was? 

David Cox: I, I, I like to think, I mean, I think it was the chief transformation officer. I mean, I think that’s the, that’s what I see the CFO’s [00:21:00] role as being. There can be few roles on the C-suite that has their finger in, in as many buys, really. Uh, so yeah, I mean, I think that’s why it’s, uh, it’s a lot of, uh.

CFOs go on to be COOs and many into the CEO role because you are so tuned into everything that’s going on in an organization. But you, you know, it’s, it’s about pushing as well. I think it’s about driving and you’ve got the data. It’s all about data. 

Michael Mitchel: All right. Well, you can’t argue about the data, right? No, no.

I we have a mutual friend who says, numbers don’t lie. 

David Cox: Right. 

Michael Mitchel: So, a as you’re, as you’re, um, spearheading this effort, uh, you’re, who are you engaging internally? You’ve talked about some of the departments, but I mean, I guess what I’m really curious about is how do you assess the right resources, not just departmentally, but also the person within the department?

What are you looking for? 

David Cox: In terms of, [00:22:00] in, in terms of finance or in terms of general? Because I mean, I think there’s, there’s a change in the finance type of person, so I think in the past, you know, when we recruited, we wanted people who were. Finance people tend to be quite staid. I mean, they had always been quite staid in their approach.

People come up to the CFO role through a controller position very often, or through a chief accounting officer position, and so they tend to be, uh, quite controlled. Uh, and controlling, uh, from their backgrounds. And there’s no bad thing. You don’t, you know, you don’t want a finance function that doesn’t have any controls.

Uh, and that’s not, that’s not what I’m advocating. However, I do think one of the key aspects of, uh, the change in the role of A CFO is somebody who is a lot more, um, inquisitive. So somebody, [00:23:00] somebody who’s curious. Uh, that was a big trait, uh, not only of the, um, finance area, but also in operations and other areas too.

So we want, we want people who are curious because nobody had done this. This was something new. And so what you don’t want is you want somebody who’s curious, who wants to try things out, uh, who’s prepared to give stuff a go. Uh, because otherwise you get the, you get the naysayers and you don’t want the naysayers when you are going through something like this, you know?

So, um, I think it’s about, I think it’s about inquisitive. People. It is about curious people. It’s about analytical people. It’s about this ability. And I think you, you know, you say it Michael too, you know, it’s ability to see round corners. 

Michael Mitchel: See, you started rolling this out in the US and then you go global.

’cause you’re dealing with multiple countries on different continents throughout all of this. Right? 

David Cox: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I was predominantly, [00:24:00] I think it’s fair to say I was predominantly the US and I think, you know, the US was, was by far the largest circulation of the Economist. And it, and it, and it migrated to, um, the UK and, and Europe, and then it migrated onto Asia.

But each of those markets has its own ities. Each of those markets has its own pace of change, and I think the, uh, US was the fastest. 

Michael Mitchel: How long did this take? What, what’s the timeframe we’re talking about? 

David Cox: Uh, we’re talking co we’re talking about a couple of years, if not, if not longer. Probably two to three years.

I think all in all, before the whole structure, the business had changed. 

Michael Mitchel: And how much are we talking about cost wise, investment wise? 

David Cox: Well, in terms of, in terms of, um, well, I, I, you know, I, I don’t have a fi I don’t have a, a total figure because that’s a, you know, that, that would be, um, confidential. But I think that certainly if you think about [00:25:00] changing the, changing your systems, you’ve got systems costs, you’ve got people costs because there, there were people coming and there were people going.

Um, and people who had the skillset in the digital, who had the digital skillset were in very hot demand and were very expensive. So I think, you know, it’s not, it was not a cheap, not a cheap change, but we wouldn’t have been in business. We wouldn’t have stayed in business if it hadn’t happened. 

Michael Mitchel: Fair. If, I guess I was curious, are we talking like tens of millions of dollars of investment or a hundred, a hundred million more.

David Cox: Tens of, tens of, tens of millions. Yeah. 

Michael Mitchel: Tens of millions, yeah. So it, it was a significant investment. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so what did you learn from this experience personally? 

David Cox: Uh, okay. What I learned from this experience was I think the need to tell the story. I think that’s one big thing I, I take away and I think when you are in, when you are in, and it’s, [00:26:00] it’s a lesson I learned and my, my, I have to say my boss was, was brilliant at it.

You know, finance people generally. Put, put a sheet of numbers up and talk to the numbers. What you’ve gotta realize is it’s about telling a story whether you are, whether you’re a startup to new investors, whether you are a public company, going out to public investors. You need to tell the story as a finance person, and the numbers support it.

But you need to have a vision. And I think that’s what I, that’s what I, you know, took away from this, is that without a vision, it would just be a plan with a load of numbers on it. Um, and, you know, without some excitement and, and, and, and everything. So I think storytelling is, is, is key. 

Michael Mitchel: The storytelling.

David Cox: Yeah. 

Michael Mitchel: Okay. How do you feel about the outcomes? 

David Cox: Uh, looking back now, I mean, it’s [00:27:00] been a, you know, it’s been a few years since I’ve been out The Economist, but the Economist still continues to do well. It’s still considered to be, you know, one of the preeminent publications out there in the world. Um, and I think I, I think that it was a, it was a, at a point in time it changed, but I think.

The media industry as a whole is changing all the time. This, this, this felt like a big, this felt like a big change, but actually I’m sure there are as big a changes happening, you know, in other media companies today as as happened to the Economist and. I, it, it, it served, it served a purpose, you know, the Economist is still growing.

It’s still, it’s still, as I say, a very, a revered publication wherever you go, so, yeah, I mean, it worked. 

Michael Mitchel: Is there anything you wish you did during all this, but for whatever reason, you know, say, why you, you know, [00:28:00] that that didn’t happen? Sometimes it’s budgetary or time or, or whatever. 

David Cox: No. I mean, I think I was, I was, I was happy with the outcome.

Could it have happened faster? Maybe it would’ve happened faster in other businesses. You know, we, we, we, I think one great thing about the Economist was that it used to look after, it looks after its people, well, it, it realizes that it’s, its greatest assets or its people, it’s, its intellectual firepower.

So, I mean, I think they were very. Aware that as all this change was going on, you had to bring people along with you. I think there are probably other organizations who probably might have taken a more of a sort of, uh, a, a faster approach or a, a, a sledgehammer approach to it. But I think we were, uh, not that type of organization.

Michael Mitchel: What, what, um, could an emerging leader who who’s listening to this conversation take away [00:29:00] from, from this. And how can they apply to their career do you think? 

David Cox: I think, uh, so I think there are, there are a few things. I think there are a few things here and that is, I think about surrounding yourself with a team, because you don’t have all the answers.

You can’t possibly have all the answers to something of this scale. And you know, it’s the same with other issues. So make sure you’ve got a team which is supportive and uh, has different skill sets. You know, I think it’s diversity of thought, diversity of opinion, um, diversity of skills, and I think that’s the, that’s the importance.

Uh, I think that’s one thing I would say. Um, I think the other thing is don’t be afraid of taking expert advice. I think the pricing consultants we use were expensive. They’re expensive for a reason. ’cause they’re brilliant. And that’s the, that’s the, that’s the reason. Um, [00:30:00] so don’t, don’t skim, don’t say get the best advice you possibly can.

Uh, even if it’s going to cost you, you know, um, dollars more. Um, I think the other thing I would say, and I go back to it, is about get your story straight. Because people will come to you all the time. They’ll listen. They’ll hang on every word you have to say, and they’ll be listening to, what does it mean for me?

What does it mean for me? We’re going through a lot of change. I feel uncomfortable. What does it mean? So get your story right, get the story straight, and communicate regularly and thoroughly with everybody, uh, so that everybody hears what you’re doing. And if you don’t know the answer to something or you dunno what’s gonna happen, say it.

Be honest, you know, don’t, don’t bs you know, you’ve got to, you’ve got to bring people along with you, uh, in a project and, uh, and a, a change of this scale. 

Michael Mitchel: Okay. Well, I appreciate it. Um, any final thoughts? [00:31:00] 

David Cox: Uh, no. It been very good, Michael. I. Uh, it is been nice talking to you and, uh, it sort of takes me back to a, you know, a great, great and, you know, at the end of the day it was a fun time.

It was, it was, it was the unknown. It was, it was driving into the unknown and, um, it was, uh, it was a great, great time. 

Michael Mitchel: Well, I wanna, um, thank, uh, you for your time. Uh, thank our listeners for, and I hope they en enjoyed the conversation. And also I want to thank John Crossland for allowing me to use his music on, on, on my show.

Uh, it’s, you know, the best banjo player I’ve ever heard and a special thank you. And shout out to my engineer, Kyle Moore. Thanks for joining Six Hill Conversations.