The Fishbowl: Brett Aumuller, Sky Media
The Media Leader’s interview series asks the media industry’s top salespeople 10 revealing questions, drawn from our fishbowl. The questions will be drawn at random and contain some tricky posers set by the commercial chiefs themselves.
This week is Brett Aumuller, managing director at Sky Media.
Brett Aumuller first joined Sky in 2001 and in that time has held various leadership roles at Sky, Foxtel Group, Sky Italia and NOW.
Aumuller started his career at Ansett Australia Limited in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
How did you end up working in media?
I started working for Sky when I arrived from Australia over 20 years ago.
I have always enjoyed the fast-paced nature of the media and love that it’s a people industry.
I’ve worked across many areas of Sky in wide ranging roles in finance and marketing functions — all of which come with their challenges and innovations.
I believe this wide perspective sets me up well at Sky Media and know it’s appreciated by clients particularly.
**Peer question** Where or what do you get your best creative inspiration from?
For me, creativity is about making space to think and approach things differently when I need to — my best thinking happens when I’m walking my miniature Dachsund, Elvis… getting outside in the fresh air and stepping away from my desk when I have some downtime.
Just having that opportunity to switch off and find a new environment means I can think more clearly and from a ‘bigger picture’ perspective, returning to work with new ideas.
Inspiration comes from a wide variety of places, in particular I’ll spend my holiday down time reading books like Shoe Dog: A Memoir by Nike co-founder Phil Knight.
Question from Katie Bowden, director of commercial audio at Global.
What is one of your greatest achievements?
Always a tough one to answer as I like to think I am humble by nature!
I would say in my previous leadership role at NOW (Sky’s steaming service) we underwent a business transformation programme to simplify the business and rebrand our go-to-market approach.
I am pleased to say this resulted in accelerated growth across our brand, trading and financial metrics which is not always easy to achieve.
If you could change one thing about the industry – what would it be?
I’d like to see continued progress on diversity. I think the industry has done a good job so far in this space and I would like to see everyone keeping this front of mind.
We know that greater diversity, in all forms, is a proven way to improve business success, diversity of thought and creativity — continuing on this journey will be good for all of us.
Has selling media become easier or harder?
I am relatively new to the industry so my reference point for this answer is a little different to someone who has been around for 20+ years.
What I can say is that the ways in which we sell media to clients is rapidly changing and we are looking to play in as many pools as possible at Sky Media.
We are proud to be leading the way when it comes to product innovation to help our clients improve their businesses — which means we are inherently trying to make selling media easier.
Describe your leadership style.
Calm under pressure, firm but fair and empowering (I like to think my team would back me up on this..!).
What are clients most excited about right now?
What seems to be coming up a lot when I talk to clients in this current environment is cross-platform measurement and how they can get the most from their marketing spend.
The current economic climate means being efficient and effective with every pound of spend. At Sky Media we seek to do that by helping clients use our data for better insights, addressable targeting across platforms and deterministic measurement techniques that close the loop between TV exposures and web traffic.
**Peer question** What was the last podcast you listened to?
Jumping on the band wagon with this one, but Diary of a CEO: The One Thing All Successful Leaders Have.
Question from Sally Keane, head of enterprise sales for Northern Europe at Spotify.
What’s the quality that people admire most about you?
Keeping calm under pressure.
Name all the streaming platforms you subscribe (pay money) to.
I have to admit I subscribe to most of the big hitters… Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime. I also have Paramount+ and Discovery+ as part of my Sky subscription.
My teenagers are the main ones to blame for this — they love to dip in and out of various shows. There’s such amazing content out there now for viewers and brands to engage with.
It would be amiss not to say just how good The Last of Us is right now on Sky Atlantic and I can’t wait for the new, and sadly last season of Succession to start.
Do you sell media and are brave enough to face questions from us and your industry peers? Email ella.sagar@the-media-leader.com.