Founder Interview Series #6 — Kitty Parry
Founder and CEO — Social Media Compliance
Kitty Parry — Founder at 26 of a London PR business sold for an undisclosed sum this year to Vested — the fastest-growing PR agency in the world. CEO of global Cyber & RegTech Social Media Compliance. Young Global Leader as recognised by the World Economic Forum, Davos.
Intimidated? Me? Hell, yes!
It turned out that Kitty had something to say about being taken seriously.
Enjoy every word of this fence-crushing interview, just as I did.
Where does your story start?
I’m sixteen and living on a farm. Money was tight and Dad was worried. I was the oldest child and dyslexic, so thinking about the solution always. “Why don’t we turn the barn into a wedding venue, bring some cash in?”
The weddings took off. My parents didn’t think I’d be serious about running that business whilst still at school, but when you are dyslexic, you have this determination, a deep fire which gets you through. That business is still going. Its purpose now is to help other landowners do the same as we did. I ran it through school and university, until my parents told me under no uncertain terms that I had to get a job in London if I ever wanted to be taken seriously.
Are you taken seriously?
I always assume no. So I focus on executing ideas, not presenting them around a Board table. This coping strategy has served me well.
Just getting on with things goes way back — I was on the WPP grad scheme and was absolutely desperate to get on to a particular sport fashion account. They weren’t being taken seriously as a sport brand and I felt I could fix that. I set up a running club for journalists. A weekly run around Hyde Park, a social back at the store with a free pair of trainers. What’s not to like? We changed perceptions. I was twenty two and found a way to be taken seriously. Precocious now I think of it.
What happened next?
Whilst at WPP I worked with Cilla Black and Jerry Hall. We were running celebrity campaigns for a sweetener brand. That was fun — seeing the immediate impact — the share price change, customers signing up. I get a kick out of that instant response. Always do.
Lansons then pulled me across to use my celebrity experience to bring celebrities into financial services for MoneyExtra.com. That was an incredible team, great minds and practical in their organisation. But I was starting to get the urge to found a business of my own.
What motivated you to found your first business?
I’d developed an interest in helping other women. Women’s voices aren’t heard in business in the same way that men’s are. There is no blame in that statement, just fact. I’ll never forget one well-known PR advisor saying to me, “Why would any Bank CEO listen to a 26 year old girl?” I set my mind to making business look easy. If I can do it, anyone can.
Setting up Templars PR was relatively straightforward. In Moneyextra.com we had our first PR client and it went from there. My job was to help Banks and hedge funds explain how they were different. Much of our work began with crisis situations; that was how we built the trust from the Board. To do this well it just took honesty, and knowing when to apologise. I’m good at those things so could make it look easy.
Focus on what you are good at.
My parents questioned my ability to set up a business. They just had such a desire to protect me. Every two weeks for 15 years they’ve warned that I’ll probably lose everything. I tell them my motivation isn’t to make money but it makes no difference.
Tell me about your latest venture, Social Media Compliance
I sold Templars to Vested so that I could focus on this new business. We are the first and only software that recognises corporate data breaches in social media.
What’s the problem that Social Media Compliance is looking to fix?
It’s critical that colleagues can use social media at work. Customers want transparency, instant communication and a human touch. But data breach accidents are happening. Think Jeremy Hunt in a hospital photo with patients’ data visible in the background.
Ninety-three million selfies are taken a day — a portion of those in the office and the unintended consequence of some of these images is extreme: client data, product data, trade positions. In financial services, data breaches can move markets.
Every bank I worked with during that time in PR wanted to use social media, but they didn’t know how. They’d just get started and Compliance would step in and the brakes would come on. Rightly so.
Where have solutions failed in the past?
Social media is a Ferrari of business communication but we don’t have a seat-belt strong enough to make it safe.
There hasn’t been a solution. Sometimes Compliance will manually trawl through but it’s an impossible task without technology. Cyber solutions aren’t focused on protecting corporate data held in images.
What do you have that others can’t copy?
We have a patent pending machine learning algorithm that picks up data breaches in images from employees’ social media and notifies the organisation. No-one can read an image like we can. With that we can offer a full social media compliance and cyber security solution that works for people.
That should do it. Who’s your typical buyer?
Head of Cyber Security, Information Security, Compliance and brand management in big Banks, but it can work for any organisation with sensitive data and regulatory requirements around privacy.
Why do you do it?
The social media Ferrari I mentioned…
This business exists so that we can let the Ferrari go.
We work on the side of the employee, the person driving the Ferrari. Our customer, the corporate, buys a licence to access our SaaS solution to make social media safe for their employees.
Where are you on your journey?
Funding wise, we have just over a million dollars so far, funded by myself, and a well regarded cornerstone investor and several influential angel investors.
Our Seed closed in September. We are generating good revenue and have 12 major clients now across banks and regulators — Bank of America Merrill Lynch is the one we are able to talk about. We are aiming for Series A in July. Our investors are investing in the patent, our team, technology and our client list.
Client’s tell us they like us because we respect privacy and pick up bad behaviour. It’s unusual that we come at it from a communications and compliance angle. This sets us apart. We are just about to rebrand to better tell this story.
Hearing your client list, these are Global businesses, will you still be UK focused?
Our new headquarters will be on the West Coast US, with an office in New York. We have a strong sales pipeline in the US, more regulation, more maturity. It plays to our strengths. The US understands regulation and cyber security and is always looking for solutions. Product and technology will stay here with the UK team.
Coming from PR, certainly not from AI, have you worried about credibility?
We keep focused on what we are doing and so far this hasn’t been a problem. We have spent over five years building this concept, ensuring a solution that can stand up as best practice in adhering to global regulation.
We have 94% accuracy now on our model. We’ve incorporated thousands of regulations, figuring out which could be breached by image and text.
We have built barrister-grade thinking into scenarios in a world of Compliance which can be grey and obscure.
We have global investment banks as clients, regulators and central banks that are clients. This helped build credibility. All this evidence gives me confidence and it gives investors confidence too.
Where will this all end up?
We will be fully global with offices throughout Asia. We’ll be operating outside financial services, into healthcare and other applications. We will always be a cyber solution. Our image analysis will keep evolving to do more.
How does the World Economic Forum and Young Global Leaders play in?
Ah yes. Getting picked. It was a great shock. Young Global Leaders is a community of people truly focused on fighting for and building a better world. It was probably the first time I stopped thinking of myself as a black sheep and found my gang. One very kind friend shines out, Robin Scott — an awesome entrepreneur who won the Gates Scholarship. WEF are looking for that thread of purpose running through your work — it’s all about finding creative ways to be more beneficial to industry.
What has YGL meant for you?
There are nine hundred YGLs across the world. It’s a ball of energy. As an entrepreneur you experience awesome moments and utter despair. Our fears and social training can put a fence around us that we aren’t aware of. You need people around you to make sure that the fence is crushed to pieces on a daily basis. That mentor is hard to find. Mentors can love putting fences up. Protect you. The YGL network shares problems, helps each-other. It’s gold-dust.
And your parents, do they still worry?
We’ll be going after a C round in two years time. Maybe they’ll stop worrying then. But I doubt it.
It’s such an undervalued and rare skill — making something look easy. Kitty’s business — perfectly simple, perfectly needed. The execution —well, if you are a RegTech, watch and learn. High potential, effortless.
Her words on mentoring should be carefully heeded. Crush some fences, unlock the gold dust. Kitty crushed fences for me.
Go to SMCompliance.com to find out more.
You can go to HonestOnions.com to find fence-crushing mentors and book me to profile your growing business.
