Back in 2013, when Dara and I started Measurelab, it was just the two of us. I called myself Managing Director because I was the one signing stuff and it seemed to fit. Dara was the subject matter expert running training courses and talking at events, so we settled on the title of Analytics Director for him. We didn’t care too much for job titles anyway and just got on with growing the business.
Our initials are M and D. People have joked on more than one occasion that we’re a bit like a Mum and Dad to this funny little family - with neither of us quite knowing who was Mum and who was Dad. Not that it mattered. People seemed to intuitively know who to go to about what. It just worked (mostly).
But that funny little family grew. We waved a tearful goodbye to some of our progeny, but welcomed many new faces to our happy home (although several of them we’ve mostly seen on Zoom!).
Bit-by-bit, our roles evolved. We each shed some responsibilities - ah, the joys of delegation - and accumulated others. Some of it by design, most of it by default. Not all of it made sense - to us or anyone else.
It was time to take a step back. To look at what we were doing and how we were spending our time. What was making us happy and energised? What were the sources of frustration or anxiety? We looked. And we decided to change things up.
More than just an impressive beard
A good leader needs to be a good listener. And when Dara listens, you know every single word you say is being heard and heeded. He makes everything seem better. Everyone in the company naturally turns to him for guidance, advice and support - myself included! And the more people we have, the more we need those peerless people skills.
For the past couple of years, much of Dara’s time has been greedily gobbled up by some of our precious clients. (They have excellent taste, who can blame them?) Nobody understands the needs of our customers better, or the challenges of meeting those needs.
As well as sporting the most famous beard in analytics, Dara has a well-deserved reputation as a thought leader and speaker. I’ve lost count of the number of clients and staff who’ve approached us because they saw Dara talk at some event or other (or had a beer at the bar with him afterwards). If Measurelab was a band, he’d be the frontman. We need him out there, centre stage.
Fine folk of the global analytics community, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Measurelab’s new Managing Director, the one and only Mr. Dara Fitzgerald.
And here's a word from Dara
It’s very easy to pinpoint Mark’s super power. This is a guy who coded his first website back in 1997, when our youngest employees were a single year old. He regularly talks about burning CD-ROMs, the joys of TCP/IP (I’m still not convinced that’s a real thing) and the good old days when he and Tim Berners-Lee sat in the Lewes Arms brainstorming something they would later call the Interwebz.
I’ve never once seen fear in Mark’s eyes. He simply relishes a technical challenge. Like the bravest of cats, stalking the meanest of seagulls. He never tires of tinkering and tuning the engine. Whether that engine is a client’s analytics implementation, our internal use of software, or the business as a whole. The man’s skill at coming up with cunning workarounds and genius solutions is matched only by his ability to articulate them in a way that actually makes sense.
That creative, technical brain of his is squandered. It needs to be laser re-focussed on leading our innovation and driving our continued growth through the use of new-fangled technology. That’s why I’m thrilled to announce that Mark has agreed to transition into the role of Director of Technology and Operations.
