Martin Galvin is Co-Founder of Calm Media Investments, having started his career in media 25 years ago after a brief spell working for his favourite record label. Prior to Calm he ran the Global Agency Commercial Programme at Pinterest, led Digital Trading for GroupM in the UK, as well as enjoying stints at the likes of Publicis and Virgin Media.
Who is your digital hero?
This is such a hard question given the hundreds of brilliant people I’ve worked with over the years.
Working in trading, your deals are only as good as the contracts that underpin them, so I’ve always had a close working relationship with the respective legal teams at the various places I’ve been. If I had to choose one Digital Hero then, in a crowded field it would be Nicola McCormick, General Counsel – Media, WPP.
What has she done to win hero status in your eyes?
Nicola is, quite simply, pure class. She’s technically brilliant, has an unwavering moral compass, is calm, empathetic and most importantly kind. She was always generous with her time, no matter how much she had going on, and genuinely valued my (unqualified) opinion on everything from deal structure through to data ethics and beyond.
I got so much out of working with her and learnt all sorts of new French terms such as ‘Force Majeure’.
How has their heroism helped drive digital?
Digital advertising hasn’t always been synonymous with transparency from an advertiser perspective, or sustainability from a societal one.
Nicola’s work at WPP to tackle those issues has done a lot, mainly unsung, to significantly improve things.
What are the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
If you asked me to name 100 brilliant TV Ads, I could do it from memory in about 5 minutes. If you gave me a week to name 5 brilliant Digital Ads, I’d struggle. It’s ridiculous that people’s enjoyment of digital advertising is indirectly proportional to the time they spend with it.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
I’m proud of lots of things in my career, none of which I’d describe as heroic.
Seeing people I’ve helped in some small way in their careers go on to be brilliant in bigger and better things is always cool though.
