Sven Lung, formerly founder and CEO of BrandAlley, is CEO at Green Park Content, which creates brand publishing platforms for brands including Unilever.
Who is your digital hero?
Bill Campbell, the former Apple and Intuit executive who spent his time serving as a coach for tech start ups. Once a football coach, he understood how to create effective and engaged teams and helped to build some of Silicon Valley’s greatest companies.
He also understood founders, and what makes them want to create something durable in business.
What has he done to win hero status in your eyes?
Bill mentored pioneers such as Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt and coached dozens of inspiring leaders who have helped to shape the digital landscape as we know it today.
There’s a book called ‘Trillion Dollar Coach’ about Campbell’s management lessons by ex-Google employees Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle. His dedication to building relationships and personal growth in individuals is inspiring.
How has his heroism helped drive digital?
He mentored those founders of Apple, Google and many others.
Absolute giants in the digital world, these people led the way in innovative technologies. It’s not a choice, but a need for business people and consumers to use them.
What’s the biggest challenge in digital we need another hero to solve?
The impact of social media on mental health of children growing up in the digital era, the need to be seen to be ‘perfect’, look a certain way and think a certain way.
I have five children and watching them grow up in this world is quite terrifying. It won’t be a quick fix, but if businesses take greater responsibility for using ‘real’ models and a embrace diverse mix of cultures, disabilities, body sizes, etc. to portray a healthy view of what someone looks like, we’d be building a healthier digital world as opposed to this sometimes toxic one.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
Please can I offer two? I founded BrandAlley in France in 2005 and I’m proud to have been one of the pioneers of the concept and development of private sales online, offering brand overstocks at discount to savvy consumers.
More recently it’s convincing our clients at Green Park Content to look at brand publishing from a different perspective. We create relevant, purpose-led content that the consumer wants to see, in turn, helping our clients to increase their ROI instead of wasting expense and time on content created for the sake of it.
We’re convincing more clients to take this on board and it feels good to be a part of a movement that will, I believe, only become more relevant.
