Summit Media is a tech consultancy and retail performance marketing specialist based in Hull.
In 2018, Summit announced the launch of Productcaster, a Comparison Shopping Service (CSS) designed for both retailers and agencies.
Both Ryan Thomas and Martin Corcoran acquired 100% control of the company following a management buyout (MBO) from TCC Global last year. The company’s key clients include Three Mobile, Joules, H Samuel, Ikea, Levi’s and Ann Summers.
First joining the business in 2015, Corcoran is now serving as CEO. He shared all the lessons he has learnt across his career and personal life…
Which single daily habit or practice could you not do without?
Running – I try to run as often as I can. I’d go mad if I couldn’t get outside and exercise.
What’s been your luckiest break?
I’ve had lots of lucky breaks in my career – mainly working with some amazing people who have taught me so much. Firstly, Grant Steadman and Artem Lavrinovich when I moved to Oslo with Dunnhumby. Secondly my brothers, Tim and Michael, who have huge but vastly different experiences which they share with me.
It’s very handy for a CEO having a corporate lawyer on hand for advice. Finally, the leadership team at Summit are all absolute experts in their field. Like falling in love – when you know, you know! I honestly think I could go on holiday for a year and the business would carry on just fine without me.
What’s your best failure?
Sales and marketing in 2019! I wrongly believed I could lead all the sales at Summit. I’d only ever dabbled at sales and marketing, closing warm leads. After 12 months of effort, it became obvious that others were far more experienced and far better positioned to lead on this front. I still love sales and new business but I’m happy to fall in step with our sales director, Michael Maslona, who has twenty years of experience in sales and it shows!
What is the best investment you’ve ever made, either financial or time?
At a business level I have to say buying Summit from our old parent company. It has felt so energising to be independent and out on our own. It’s turbo-charged all the things we were already good at – our specialism in retail, speed, service, developing great talent and of course we’ve returned to being a Google Premier agency partner in that time as well.
At a personal level I would say the 3 day SCQuARE training course I did on problem solving and storytelling. It made me think about challenges so differently and it has fundamentally changed how I tackle day to day business challenges. As they say…“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
Which book would you recommend others to read and why?
The most helpful book I read was The First 90 days by Michael Watkins – I read this on a beach in Mexico the week before I started working at Summit – happy memories and it seems to have served me well 7 years later!
What one piece of advice would you give your 21-year-old self?
I’d reinforce what I sort of knew then but definitely know now – Have a great attitude and good things will happen. You don’t need lots of experience to be positive, supportive, and collaborative. These traits make others want to work with you and you’ll find others with a similar mindset gravitate together making work and life more fun.
Who or what has had the single biggest influence on your working life?
The late, great Ben Latham. He was my boss at Summit for three years before he sadly passed away. He was a man mountain in every sense. His ethos and aura rubbed off on everyone around him. Once he set his mind to something there was no stopping him and he would carry everyone with him. It’s for that reason the Ben Latham Leadership Award is the most prestigious award you can win at Summit.
Tell us something about you that would surprise people.
I go to bed dreaming about building a mega agency in Hull with hundreds of staff and our pick of the clients. It would be so significant for the region that is so often overlooked and not in the conversation. Typical hot spots like London, Leeds and Manchester are quite saturated so why couldn’t Hull be the next hot bed of agencies and marketing talent?
How will the COVID crisis change work for the better?
Hybrid working can be a joy. It makes co-parenting so much easier which is only a good thing for the mums and dads who both want the balance. It’s also helpful to businesses like Summit – we don’t need a massive costly office space, but we do need a space that’s practical and fit for purpose.
We allow staff to do compressed working hours which means they can work 10 days over 9 and take every second Friday off. With lots of commuting time that would not be possible, so hybrid working is having more impact than people recognise.
What does success look like to you?
Success looks like happy staff, happy clients and running ourselves efficiently and profitably. In my mind if we run ourselves efficiently and profitably then we can do more for our staff, which means we retain the best talent, who can deliver the most value for our clients. Finding that balance can be hard sometimes but at the moment the data is telling me we’re on track.
