When Kevin Hand, chief executive of Emap, recently took up golf his
instructor told him that he was ’temperamentally unsuited’ to the sport.
But Hand, who admits to being impatient, was undeterred by such words.
In fact, they made him even more determined to excel at the sport.
That is typical of Hand. When he wants to do something he will stick at
it until he has proved that he can do it. He couldn’t speak French when
in 1994 he was assigned by David Arculus, then managing director of
Emap, to head the company’s French magazine division, Groupe Emap.
But within a short while he was fluent in the language, a keen
francophile and had built the company into a highly profitable
business.
His secret: never take for granted what you’ve got, and don’t feel too
sure of yourself. ’Stupid people don’t worry,’ Hand declares. ’You
should always be wondering whether you are up to the task.’ Happily for
him, although he constantly worries about what he’s doing, he doesn’t
seem to have had much to fret about.
Robin Miller, the non-executive chairman of Emap Group, spotted Hand’s
potential when he was marketing director at the publishing company, Link
House, in the early 80s. He recollects: ’We were having dinner in the
Guildhall and it was rather dull. I saw across the table a rather perky
young man who didn’t seem short of an opinion. I was impressed from the
moment I met him because he was a particularly sharp man with a view,
who was old enough to have a good conversation with.’
Hand had always admired Emap from afar and, shortly after rescuing
Miller from that tedious dinner, was brought into Emap as circulation
director. Sixteen years on, Hand hasn’t looked back. Since his
appointment as chief executive last July, following a long and rather
acrimonious boardroom dispute, Hand has driven Emap along and last week
restructured the company to face the changing media environment.
He has reorganised the company into four divisions which have the
potential to offer advertisers a complete package stretching across
Emap’s magazines, radio, TV and websites (Campaign, 19 November). These
changes have met with City approval. Lorna Tilbian, a media analyst at
West LB Panmure, states: ’I think it’s a brilliant idea because the only
way to harness property is to do the root and branch approach.’
Hand realises that not all advertisers will demand a cross-media
advertising package, but for those bigger clients it is a valuable
proposition. ’We are talking about 25 to 35 clients for whom we would be
looking to do cross-media deals. But people are looking for different
solutions to the marketing problems they’re addressing. With our
portfolio of radio stations and magazines we have something no-one else
has in the UK.’
Hand is keen to build up Emap’s presence overseas and last week
announced that the company would launch the lads’ magazine FHM in the US
next year, which, he hoped, would be followed by other titles, such as
Q. He is also in talks to licence FHM further afield, in countries such
as in India.
But Hand’s foreign manoeuvres have not been without criticism. The
pounds 720 million paid for the US specialist publishing company,
Petersen, at the beginning of the year was seen as an overgenerous sum,
but Hand is confident that he did the right thing. ’The further on you
get the more people will look at the Emap-Petersen deal and see it as a
big success. People should be talking less about price and more about
opportunity.’
Although Hand is not one to hide his light under a bushel, he insists
that he is a driver of ideas, rather than an initiator of them. He
reflects: ’Early on in my career at Emap I would talk with people like
Mark Ellen and David Hepworth and they would come up with something so
much better than me.’ His art degree from Leicester College of Art may
have helped him appreciate good design, but he admits that his stint
there wasn’t a golden age: ’I was the worst in my year and they
encouraged me to get out of it.’
Hand’s Achilles’ heel is his blind love for a football club. Miller
states: ’His only weakness is that he’s a supporter of Leicester City.’
Such dedication, however, is also a strength, according to Miller. ’He’s
remained as loyal to Leicester City, as he has to his long-standing
friends. Kevin never forgets where his roots are.’
Hand may be abrupt at times but he can also be down to earth, letting
his hair down once in a while. One media head describes Hand’s prowess
on the dance floor: ’He dances like he’s doing something to
somebody.’
At 48 years old, Hand, it seems is an FHM reader in spirit, if not in
body.
THE HAND FILE
1973
Link House, management trainee
1974
National Association of Boys Clubs, information officer
1978
Link House, marketing director
1983
Emap, circulation director
1994
Groupe Emap (France), managing director
1998
Emap, chief executive
