Jen Jonsson — Chief Operating Officer, GYK Antler
Jen talks to TheNextGag about the steps she put in place to foster her company’s culture, her style of leadership and what being a digital person in the 90s was like.
Jen Jonsson is the Chief Operating Officer at GYK Antler, an independent marketing agency, in the USA.
GYK Antler is based in New Hampshire and acts like a mini-holding company — they have an in-house production shop, an audio branding studio, a publication called Iron & Air, and own several corporate entities outside the agency (including drum brand Noble & Cooley, the York Fund, the York Cigar Building, footwear/apparel brand York Athletics, and 1BAND1Brand, a music and brand alignment agency).
Jen Jonsson and her team at GYK work with global brands including PayPal, ESPN, Sweet Baby Ray’s and Harpoon.
With over 20 years of experience in project management, operations, and digital marketing at some of the world’s leading companies, Jen heads up all agency operations at GYK Antler. Not only does she help drive the agency’s commitment to innovative excellence, but she also helps their CEO, Travis York, execute his vision for the company from top to bottom. Jen pays attention to every detail — from the structure of who employees report to, to prioritizing short term vs. long term investments (like their recent acquisition of motorcycle publication Iron & Air).
Prior to joining GYK Antler, Jen worked at some of the top agencies in the industry, including The Barbarian Group, Arnold Worldwide, Razorfish, and was a consultant at Google’s Creative Lab. During this time, she worked with huge brands like GE, Pepsi, Royal Caribbean, Samsung, Fidelity, Liberty Mutual, Google, YouTube, HBO and Facebook.
THENEXTGAG: WHAT IS THE STORY BEHIND THE CREATION OF YOUR COMPANY ?
JEN JONSSON: Our company has been evolving since 1975. It started as Griffin York & Krause, Inc. — a marketing agency that helped drive sales of businesses in a wide range of industries. Our current President and CEO, Travis York, took the reigns in 2011, after which followed the acquisition of the social and experiential agency Antler in 2013. That year brought tremendous growth to the company as we also brought video production services in-house, as well as hired some terrific creative and account services talent. Since then, our agency has grown to about 100 people with offices in three locations — Manchester, Boston, and Western Mass.
TNG: WHAT MAKES FOR A GREAT HIRE ?
JJ: I’m intrigued by candidates who ask a lot of questions and have a great story to tell. I like to give them the floor to tell me who they are, not just what they have accomplished. And rarely am I looking for the right answer to a question, but more to see how creatively they think and how they problem solve. The key traits I look for in a great hire are curiosity, passion, being team-oriented, and self-motivated. GYK Antler is always looking for people who can turn passion into action.
TNG: HOW DO YOU BUILD AND MAINTAIN YOUR COMPANY CULTURE ?
JJ: We’ve spent a lot of time this last year thinking about how we can evolve our company culture and maintain it. We believe our culture is what sustains employees’ enthusiasm and leads to great work. As we grow and open multiple offices, we have to pay careful attention to this. We recently rolled out a new employee onboarding program which our new hires go through in their first week. During this time, they learn about our company history, our vision, mission and values. Formalizing this step and really immersing employees in who we are, what we do and how we do it, is critically important to instilling our culture from the get-go. We’ve also developed a peer-to-peer recognition program, with the goal of building camaraderie across the agency. And we also have an employee incentive program in place where we share company financial goals for the year, so that there’s complete financial transparency. This gets everyone working towards a clear and specific outcome for mutual benefit.
TNG: WHAT IS THE PROUDEST ACCOMPLISHMENT IN YOUR CAREER ?
JJ: Surviving agency life as a digital person in the 90s. When I started in this business, the digital folks were definitely not the ‘cool kids’ — there was a lot of resistance to the new medium and it was hard to get some of the more traditional teams to care or to collaborate. Persevering through that challenge and seeing the evolution of advertising over the past twenty years has been rewarding. It’s so gratifying to see that my love of tech and innovation and trying new things is the core focus of our industry today.
I’m committed to pacing our growth to ensure our success, to balance our people and business priorities, and also keep our entrepreneurial spirit alive.
TNG: HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SCALE YOUR COMPANY ?
JJ: GYK Antler has a very robust five year strategic plan that identifies areas of opportunity, industries we want to focus on, market trends, and we make sure to revisit this every year to keep it fresh and accurate. My job is to put this plan into action, and so I focus on services or offerings that we want to ramp up or adapt. In the past year alone, we’ve invested in a lot of new cutting edge equipment for our video offering; built out a 6,000 sq ft content studio; and doubled down on our proprietary data & analytics platform.
We also constantly tend to our agency framework to ensure it evolves as the market evolves, and we invest in continuous training and discussion about these changes internally. I’m committed to pacing our growth to ensure our success, to balance our people and business priorities, and also keep our entrepreneurial spirit alive.
TNG: WHAT KIND OF LEADER DO YOU AIM TO BE ?
JJ: I have had the privilege of having some really amazing mentors in my career. Through these mentors, I learned how important it is to be available and approachable for advice or guidance. I also really appreciate leaders who are decisive and confident, but also fair and factual. And I always look to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am so I am constantly learning.
TNG: IS THERE A COMPANY THAT YOU ADMIRE AND WANT YOUR ORGANIZATION TO LOOK LIKE ?
JJ: I am fascinated with Elon Musk at the moment. When I think about SpaceX and all that he is doing with sustainability at Tesla, innovations in artificial intelligence and solar, it makes it seem like there are no limits. I find his creativity and diversification incredible and inspiring. When we talk about GYK Antler and our ecosystem — we have an agency, a magazine (Iron & Air), a video production company (Big Brick), a foundation (RockOn), I love how diversified we are and I’m excited to test the limits and to see what else we can tap in to or create.
TNG: DO YOU BELIEVE IT’S A SHAME THAT “THE BEST MINDS OF OUR GENERATION ARE THINKING ABOUT HOW TO MAKE PEOPLE CLICK ADS” ?
JJ: Making people click ads is not what we do. Advertising used to be about getting people to buy things with a clever headline and compelling visuals, but it’s become so much more than that today. It’s about knowing your audience, connecting with them and engaging with them in a meaningful way. People who believe it’s just about clicking ads do not have a clear understanding of our business today.
TNG: WHAT WOULD THIS INDUSTRY LOOK LIKE IF IT WERE REBUILT FROM SCRATCH USING TECHNOLOGY WE HAVE TODAY ?
JJ: Advertising today is about telling stories and creating experiences. Maybe if it had started there we would be further along in this journey of brands being a trusted resource rather than just seen as product pushers. As we go forward, advertising will become more personal and more immersive, and will focus even more on quality over quantity in its engagement with consumers.
TNG: DO YOU HAVE A PERSONAL MOTTO ?
JJ: I have three daughters and always aim to make sure they know that anything is possible and to dream big. My personal motto is: “She believed she could, so she did.” This is a simple, direct and very empowering statement that I hope to instill in my girls so they know the sky is the limit.
Jen Jonsson
Chief Operating Officer
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