EPISODE 2

The Revolutionary Within

TRANSCRIPT

Note: This is an AI-generated transcript and may have transcription errors. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Robert Berkeley  0:04  

The sun's over the yard, which means it's time for another episode of Inside jobs. The podcast hosted by me, Robert Berkeley, just for you. Anyone who works at or alongside In House Agencies in house agencies brought to you in association with I have the In House Agency in house agency forum. We meet creative leaders who work directly for brands learn about how they got to where they did and understand something of what drives them. We have today a very special guest, a globe trotting polyglot creative leader whose favourite cocktail is loud music with a message. JACK tuba from PwC Welcome to Inside jobs.

 

Jack Teuber  0:41  

Robert, I'm really happy to be here.

 

Robert Berkeley  0:44  

Well, I hope so. And I hope you'll say that at the end of this little session that we've got you jack, where did you grow up? Because I don't know much about your early background.

 

Jack Teuber  0:53  

It's a it's a pretty typical story. I was born in in a hospital in Waterbury, Connecticut, one of these post industrial cities I'm afraid that, that, that world war two sort of was probably its high point in terms of brass production. My mother was in fact a Rosie the Riveter type. But I,

 

Robert Berkeley  

grew up to was over when you were born, right where it was, 

 

Jack Teuber  

where it was, yes, I was born just in time for the Vietnam War. Fortunately, I did not have to participate. And I actually grew up just outside of New Haven, Connecticut, in a place called North Haven.

 

Robert Berkeley  1:23  

And you want it to be a creative leader at this point, when you were growing up as a child, was that your calling? Then?

 

Jack Teuber  1:30  

Pretty much while other kids were playing baseball and basketball and football, I was sitting home just just dreaming of running a large team of Creative People and fielding complaints from people I work with. No, actually, not at all. This is this is something

 

Robert Berkeley  1:44  

I was wondering if you're kidding that Yeah,

 

Jack Teuber  1:45  

I'm completely kidding. I did not grow up. I you know, I grew up with creative like, you know, probably like most kids of the day, there was no video games or anything like that. And you know, your imagination was critical. My sister did was gave me who is much older than me, equipped me with a constant stream of pens and coloured pencils and paints. And in fact, there's a picture of me at Halloween, probably sometime around 1969 dressed like a beatnik wearing a T shirt that says make art not war. So there you go.

 

Robert Berkeley  2:18  

So we want to hear a little bit about that journey, though. So So there you are dressed as a beatnik aged, whatever you were in 1969. And very, very weird the times, of course, and an anti establishment, which I'm sure will we'll learn more about, especially anyone who digs into your Twitter account,

 

Jack Teuber  2:38  

sticking it to the man as I work for PwC Indeed,

 

Robert Berkeley  2:42  

indeed, well, you know, sometimes the best revolutions work from the inside. So, so tell me about college, where did you go to college?

 

Jack Teuber  2:50  

I went to Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and I actually was at the School of foreign service there. So you know, in terms of aspirations at the time, I applied to college, the idea of becoming a diplomat, I never never went into the State Department. I decided at the time and that was the environment at the time for me was not one that I wanted to work in the State Department. So, after I graduated from college, I did my own bit of Foreign Service, I went off to Nicaragua, to work as, as a volunteer to help a community of people who had no running water, no electricity, you know, real sort of 1880s kind of existence. And it was it was a very, very stark learning experience coming away from the the joys in front of college, but it taught me quite a bit.

 

Robert Berkeley  3:36  

There was Nikkor, This is in the 70s then I guess. 

 

Jack Teuber  3:39  

This was, in the early 1980s. Yeah, when the when the country was at war, and yes, very interesting place to live. And in fact, my experience down there was largely what drove me into journalism, which what I did when I came back, I I was having seen the world on the ground there and then read the reports back here about what was happening there. I couldn't really just match the two together that one experience did not meet what was being reported. And of course, I decided altruistic as I was that I was going to, in fact become a journalist so I could tell the world the truth and that that quickly became telling the world the truth about securities and tax law which was a long long way away from Yeah, yeah, you know, the drunk the rain forests in Nicaragua.

 

Robert Berkeley  4:29  

I guess your Spanish is is good then right?

 

Jack Teuber  4:32  

And my Spanish used to be good to use it or lose it I Spanish was my my language in Georgetown you need to graduate with a foreign language so I had a proficiency in it and down there I was you know, I might my Spanish became excellent to be to be quite immodest and honest, but I also I also affected the great Look, I had a very of the time moustache and I tan up nicely. So yeah, nobody could tell whether I was local or or American, which was helpful in my in my accent. Didn't betray me either?

 

Robert Berkeley  5:01  

Well, I was gonna say that's the that's always the giveaway, I'm sure that when we test your Dutch a little bit later, we shall make sure here, whether you master all accents or just that one. So we'll move to that. So and I know that right now you also with PwC, you do travel, I think, to South America is I don't know, periodically, well, the charitable reasons.

 

Jack Teuber  5:22  

Well, we go down to Belize City, where we run a financial literacy programme for students, actually, that programme is just over 10 years old. And we have turned over the programme to the Ministry of Education down there and believes but I've been down five times. And we, we teach financial literacy here in the U.S. all around the country. It's called an access your potential programme, where we go into schools, and and just talk to people about talk to people talk to children about money. And, you know, which I think the same worldwide is that no parents really talk to their kids about I

 

Robert Berkeley  6:01  

was gonna say, Would you come and talk to my children about money? 

 

Jack Teuber  6:04  

Yeah, well, the only conversation Yeah, the only conversation I had with my parents about money when I was a kid was ones that ended with no, you can't have that your birthday is coming or? Absolutely not. Who do you think we are made of money. So it was that was essentially the extent of the conversation. And I am a quality ambassador for a school here in in Harlem, where we just last week, finished talking to kids about insurance, which is, you know, when you're talking to third, fourth, and fifth or sorry, fourth, fifth and sixth graders about insurance, it's kind of an interesting concept. But fortunately, we have cell phone insurance to base our concepts in. And what's absolutely amazing is how quickly kids grasp these concepts. And the and the, and the kids in Belize, were absolutely no different. We would run a three day, what amounted to a summer camp on financial literacy, which I think to most listeners might sound like, you know, kind of a slave labour experience in terms of having to attend. But the kids really got into it, you know, we had the idea, create a business concept. And then fully flesh that out from the branding of the business to the marketing plan to operations and execution,

 

Robert Berkeley  7:18  

by read through to PwC is the most powerful brand of the of the Big Four, and the number one professional services brand. You did a rebranding in 2010. Now, prior to that, what was your role? And what was your role during that rebranding and so on?

 

Jack Teuber  7:35  

Yeah, I so at the time, I had a global role, I was actually responsible for all of our global digital properties. And we took the basic visual identity that had been created and adapted it for the digital environment, and then rolled it out across all the firm's digital properties in pretty quick order. As I recall, we got the guideline sometime in June 2010. And I believe it was like September 23rd, that all of our properties, went live with the new logo and look and feel. In fact, it appeared for the first time online. So your first experience with the PwC logo was was on our website.

 

Robert Berkeley  8:21  

So while all this was being developed, though, you weren't in New York City. Is that right? You were in Amsterdam, then?

 

Jack Teuber  8:27  

I know, I had moved back to New York in 2004. I had a York. Yeah, I was in Amsterdam between 1999 and 2004. So I mean, that were you in Amsterdam? Well, that's an interesting, interesting question. The firm the merger of the firm's happened in 1998. And at the time, there was just a lot of activity sinking up to large, successful organisations. And I was working at the time for the global tax practice. And I basically spent my time there travelling among our network firms, trying to just trying successfully, you know, creating kind of a unified approach to at the time, it was something we were calling knowledge management. I think people still do call it that. But how we tapped into the various knowledge around the network using digital tools.

 

Robert Berkeley  9:22  

You were living in the city in Amsterdam.

 

Jack Teuber  9:24  

Yes, yeah. And I put myself in a position where I had to learn Dutch.

 

And, yeah, that really worked out. Well. You know, finally, I was supposed to be there for two years, and I managed to stay for five. So that gives you an indication of how much I love that.

 

Robert Berkeley  9:44  

You finished that. You go back to New York. And your role changes. Again, I guess, but the rebranding has not occurred at this point, right. 

 

Jack Teuber  9:53  

That's correct. Yeah, I mean, you know, the one thing about PwC is that there's lots of change always in the air. And when I came back, I had Add still a dual role global and U.S. And there were a lot of changes happening in the U.S, leading up to the rebrand. And these are just, you know, operational sort of organisational changes here.

 

Robert Berkeley  10:12  

So, so you were there, then when all in the run up to the rebranding, and you remember how long the process took?

 

Jack Teuber  10:19  

Several years, I'm gonna say two and a half years of, of, of  just, you know, the, the outside agency working with the global brand team and global brand team working with a global leadership team, it took a while, you know, me, there's no easy with a process like this with a firm like this. You know, you want to do your your homework, right. And there was a lot of interviewing and preparation. And then when the decision was made to go with the new brand, there was a lot of internal preparation, like I said, we had, you know, I guess, barely three months, three and a half months to get our digital house in order. But we're talking about massive changes, right. As you mentioned, there are changes in terms of how we speak about the firm, changes in how we like, put new signs on every building, we have talked about every building around the world. So there was a lot of work going on, 

 

Robert Berkeley  

there are an awful lot of moving parts there

 

Jack Teuber  

Well, it's kind of like in, in that, that I can really put myself in the position of, you know, somebody who gives birth, but you know, it seems like one of those things that he would if you ask the day after, would you want to go through this again, a lot of people would say never again. But you know, people do have multiple kids, because you, you forget about you forget about the, the, the challenges.

 

Robert Berkeley  11:38  

So yeah, you probably want

 

Jack Teuber  11:39  

to cut that out. Or you and I really gonna be fit. We're gonna cut that out. I hope. Thanks. 

 

Robert Berkeley  11:46  

That was, that was just for our edification. That's okay. That's okay. We'll we'll use examples that are way outside our personal experience and throw them around. So let's get back to, to where we were. So we rebranding, we're talking about that around 2010, you're back in or not? You're back in the United States, you're in New York. And you at some point not far off that you take on the role, I think of creative leader at PwC.

 

Jack Teuber  12:13  

Yeah, that was in September of 2012.

 

Robert Berkeley  12:15  

And what does that mean?

 

Jack Teuber  12:18  

Well, at the time, I, I asked myself that question quite a bit. 

 

Robert Berkeley  

You offered them? What did you think you were taking when they offered you this this role? 

 

Jack Teuber  

Well, it was a, you know, I was given a role and a mission. So those two things went hand in hand, the role was okay, you're, you're the firm's first creative leader. And because there had been separate teams doing creative work around the business, and the idea was to bring them together. And it was it was a good idea, and not just, what was the motivation,

 

Robert Berkeley  12:47  

what was the motivation behind that, and what was the driver?

 

Jack Teuber  12:50  

I think it's a simplification. In in order, you know, if somebody had a request back before 2012, they simply call the person who helped them last time, and the person who helped them last time may not have been the best person to get the job done. But it was the person that they knew. So the goal was, let's, let's bring our creative resources into one place, let's set up a system where we have, you know, essentially turn it into an agency, where we have accounts, account managers, single points of contact, and then the work goes away from being geographically based, you know, with the, the, the demands for creative today are so complex, that it's, you know, really, really challenging to find a person who can work across all the channels that we have easy all the media that we have comfortable, 

 

Robert Berkeley  

okay? 

 

Jack Teuber  

I mean, there are people who can, you know, we have some really talented people, but people are happy doing, what they're doing what they do best. And so we we went through a process where we reorganise, and we're really clear in terms of what we're going to be asking people to do.

 

Robert Berkeley  13:56  

But your background wasn't agency, you are not someone creative leader who has come from a Madison Avenue agency and said, right, this is the way that these things function. And this is how we're going to achieve the the aims of the business. You came to it without having any of that background. Were you were you given much direction? Did you know this is what you wanted to create? And if not, how did you? How did you know that?

 

Jack Teuber  14:21  

I love the the unwritten part of your question, Robert, is how the hell did you get this job? What? What were they thinking turning over such an important task to you?

 

Robert Berkeley  14:36  

The evidence you have the result? Very, very wise people but

 

Jack Teuber  14:41  

it's hindsight is 2020. Now that, that I think the,the, the key for me getting the job to be honest with you. And I mentioned it earlier was was my digital heritage. And well, how did you have your vision? Where

 

Robert Berkeley  14:51  

How did you have your vision? Where And well, how did you have did your vision come from for what you wanted to build here?

 

Jack Teuber  14:54  

I I I think, you know, I guess I'm quite fond of saying that everybody is experienced today is based upon their best experience in their in their life, not their best experience at work, my vision came from one of the best experiences that people are having in their everyday lives. What are the experiences that the culture is serving up to them? And are we delivering those kinds of experience for our clients? Because our clients is our clients, excuse me, are not, you know, nameless, faceless corporations, but our clients are people making decisions. And we need to engage with them at a human level, and create fantastic experiences. And if we're not doing that, digitally today, we're not talking to our clients that so that's really been my core vision throughout the,

 

Robert Berkeley  15:46  

year, but from from that vision, and it's kind of a digital First Vision, but it's not an only digital vision. You've you built an In House Agency in house agency, I hope you're okay with me call.

 

Jack Teuber  15:59  

I love that. It's the way I describe it to everybody I know. And then they still ask me what I do for a living.

 

Robert Berkeley  16:03  

So you've created on this what I'm doing now. So you built the In House Agency in house agency, but it's not just about digital, it's about video. And it's about experience. And it's an obviously it has to be coordinated, and so on. What was your? What was your your Northstar? for that? How did you kind of know where you were going? What did you start with a blank sheet of paper and say, This is what I need to achieve, to deliver to all the partners around the business and to our customers? And how do I fill it out? Or did you start by looking at other agencies and and seeing how they were structured and try and mimic something that would be more applicable?

 

Jack Teuber  16:35  

I think, to be honest with you, it was more of the former, it was what are we being asked to do? What is what is what are the outcomes we're being asked to help achieve. And if you look at the structure of our organisation, we have one that's focused on, you know, we'll call traditional design with presentation layout, but but it mixed in with that. Our is our interactive design team. And mixed in with that is what we call our pursuits team, which helps with our, our large, you know, proposals and doing design work on those, the same thing we have, it was called an experiences team. We do a lot of in person events, we do a lot of recruiting, and that involves, you know, real, again, getting people to feel a certain way about PwC. You know, we needed a team of specialists who could do that, we needed a team of specialists who could deliver super high quality proposals, increasingly digital to clients when we're pitching business. So these teams sort of fell out. And you mentioned video, we video wasn't necessarily a separate organisation. When I took over, there were people who were, you know, I think passionate hobbyists who had turned that into, you know, what they could manage to do with their their day job for the firm. And we took them and built a $3 million state of the art Video Studio, and, you know, hired a bunch of, you know, skilled industry professionals to work, not just it, but to work as field producers. And we had some that are older, you know, people who'd been legacy video folks who were excellent field producers, and we managed to set that up as a professional video team.

 

Robert Berkeley  18:15  

They work on behalf of your customers who being an In House Agency in house agency are predominantly Of course PwC and the partners around the country and, you know, maybe around the world, I don't know.

 

Jack Teuber  18:27  

Yeah, exclusively. So we we don't do any client work and E charging work for clients. We do. You know, we support our business.

 

Robert Berkeley  18:36  

Now your your offices in Madison Avenue, traditionally home of, of traditional agencies. You don't need those anymore, right?

 

Jack Teuber  18:48  

Oh, contraire. Now we do we partner quite nicely with them. I think agencies have recognise the value of In House Agencies in house agencies. And it's no longer a zero sum game, that it's all or nothing, that every time that we have worked with an outside agency, I think it's been a successful partnership, provided we'd been brought in early. And that has been, you know, a big caveat. But one that I think we've gotten our arms around here, as long as outside agencies understand, understand our role. We can help them, you know, along and in some cases, we get involved in doing some of the work with them, helping to lower the overall cost. And it's been it's it's worked out and we do work with, with outside agencies, and there's, you know, a core group that we rely on to help us get our jobs done.

 

Robert Berkeley  19:47  

So where does that happen? Where is the point at which you'll use an external rather than an end? rather than use your internal resources? How do you know what should be kind of under your direct control and umbrella within PwC and actually What doesn't have to be? Well,

 

Jack Teuber  20:02  

Well, I mean, part of it is what is the appetite of the firm for, you know, taking on new, creative, direct costs? Right? What? In other words, you know, do? Does the firm want to hire more people? And until, you know, typically the answer is we like to keep a lean organisation. And so we look outside to augment our skill set, I think that's primarily what we look to do if we don't have the skills in house. Are there people out there who can do that? And do we need those people full time? If the answer comes, oh, yes, we need this particular skill set full time, we probably had come around to hiring it. The second is just bandwidth. You know, the workload ebbs and flows and having strong partners that understand our brand. And understand our firm is is really important to handle the the ebb and flow of work. And and people who, you know, who understand that, you know, some days, it's gonna it's never feast or famine. I mean, there's always work there. But sometimes we're really going to need, you know, them to take on more work than they're used to, because we're being asked to take on that much more. And so that's, that's a huge need for us,

 

Robert Berkeley  21:12  

you've led the way in, In House Agencies in house agencies. I'm not sure whether you did that, knowingly or not. But I know that you now you're members of the In House Agency in house agency forum, and you have a role within the AMA, as well,

 

Jack Teuber  21:23  

I believe. That's right, I'm the co chair of the In House Agency in house agency committee, I should qualify that any In House Agency in house agency committee east, I just attended a meeting in San Francisco of what's going to be the In House Agency in house agency committee West. So the In House Agency in house agency, you know, vibe is catching on, people are really investing in them.

 

Robert Berkeley  21:44  

So you think, you know, what I'm seeing and what a lot of people are talking about is that what was once a trend is now becoming a flow of the move towards establishing In House Agencies in house agencies that have competencies across all media, and across the brand.

 

Jack Teuber  22:01  

When you look at it, you know, just in sort of the black and white, you see that that no two agencies are alike. They're born of a particular need, in some cases, in most cases, I would argue that the need started as cost saving, you know, nobody wants to pay, you know, high rates for production level work. So productions when it starts, I think it's the, you know, the grain of sand, if you will, around which the pearl of the enhanced agency is formed. But then you see that there are you know, there are lots of similarities in the in the enhanced agency world, but but lots of differences and those differences have to do with you know, are there other organisations in inside an enterprise that are doing some of the things outside the agency model, whereas those organisations is being done inside the agency model.

 

Robert Berkeley  22:54  

So, you've, you've done the journey, you started out as a journalist, you've travelled, you built the In House Agency in house agency, your job's done, jack, nothing else to do.

 

Jack Teuber  23:05  

Ddone and dusted. I'm gonna drop this mic and walk out the door now. Now, that'd be a great place to kill it. I want to end it just like that. I will, I'll throw that back out there. Now. I mean, in terms of the journey, it continues, I mean, we we have plenty of growing to do there's unexplored territory. You know, we have yet to really take advantage, for example, of VR and AR.,

 

Robert Berkeley  23:33  

Iit's not a solution in search of a problem. You think that you know, what problems that consult?

 

Jack Teuber  23:38  

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I used the word experience a few times, you know, during our chat, and I think delivering experiences to people is, is the way you're going to leave an impression going forward. Right. He used to be just deliver the information. But now you need to deliver it in in a way that leaves people a recalling what you had to say, but feeling good about what you had to say,

 

Robert Berkeley  24:02  

Are you a you experimenting, I'm sure PwC itself, things like blockchain and artificial intelligence are going to have a colossal impact on the world, and particularly on companies like PwC. But do you see applications and you're looking at applications for those technologies as well within your realm.

 

Jack Teuber  24:04  

I'm sure PwC itself, things like blockchain and artificial intelligence are going to have a colossal impact on the world, and particularly on companies like PwC. But do you see applications and you're looking at applications for those technologies as well within your realm, or we're looking at everything. And we were very fortunate that we work in the middle of an organisation that is full of incredibly intelligent people who are, you know, passionately focused on taking advantage of the latest. We'll call them trends with the latest developments on behalf of their clients. And we benefit from that.

 

Robert Berkeley  24:40  

I can imagine and you're in an exciting place there. So so the future then involves these technologies. It involves talking to new audiences who have different expectations, which in a sense, are set by the technologies as well. So the business itself will also be affected by challenges. As we all are faster and faster in five years time, what what do you think you'll be doing? What will I be looking at a hologram of you right now on my desk? Because I'm in London, you're in New York.,

 

Jack Teuber  25:10  

Yyou very well might. I think that the the thing that I think most about when I look five years ahead, is not our people. I'm not worried about the technology, because I have amazing people working here, who can adapt what they do to the new technology. And to me, that is the most critical component of any In House Agency enhanced agency. You know, you you can't predict the future. But you can pretty much future proof your organisation by staffing it with the right people. And I think every time we have an open role, and we look to fill it, we don't look to fill it with a replica of the person who was in the role. We look ahead and say, what are the needs that we have going forward? And what kind of person should we fill it with.

 

Robert Berkeley  25:58  

Yyour future proofing the organisation by setting it up? So you don't have to do anything? jack? Yeah.

 

Jack Teuber  26:04  

Yeah. That's all I had the time to do this podcast.

 

Robert Berkeley  26:08  

I thought it'd be fun to visit.

 

Jack Teuber  26:10  

But it is I mean, to me that is, if you have the right people, and you hire curious people, the technology question takes care of itself. Yeah, there's investments we'd have to make nessus you know, in some cases, but I'm, I am very fortunate and very proud to have an unbelievable team. That makes me look really good.

 

Robert Berkeley  26:33  

That's the that's the way to do it. And that is indeed how I built my career as well. In my case, just making sure I always recruit people smarter than myself, and it's a very big pool to draw from.

 

Jack Teuber  26:46  

I finding it difficult to recruit people smarter than myself either, Robert so there you go.

 

Robert Berkeley  26:51  

That's why we're chatting on a podcast. Alright, so. So we don't have the clash anymore. JACK, who do we have these days? Who should we be listening to?

 

Jack Teuber  27:02  

I'm quite fond of Courtney Barnett I I see from Australia and there's something about her that she's just a very witty lyricist is very laconic and her style and I just think there's she's, she's somebody I'm spending a lot of time listening to. So what about you you have any recommendations on the music scene?

 

Robert Berkeley  27:24  

I have to say, my I have a kind of current all time favourite, which is the Decemberists, who hail from Portland, Oregon. And they are for me, my my sort of abiding passion and then I'll listen to a lot of Frank Turner if you know him, he's probably the hardest working man in in what would you say rock folk folk rock? what's the what's the best clash song jack?

 

Jack Teuber  27:56  

I'm a huge fan of complete control. A great song about control of one's music. And then control of one's sort of destiny as a band. And it's it's incredibly angry and it's got just massive beautiful clash guitars. And I still don't know how many years after the song has been released. But yeah, it still gets to be pretty pumped up.

 

Robert Berkeley  28:21  

They don't make songs like that or bands like that anymore. Now.

 

Jack Teuber  28:24  

In fact, Amsterdam

 

gets it gets a name check in this in the first bit of the lyrics as well, which is it is not a reason that I love it. But it is kind of fun.

 

Robert Berkeley  28:34  

Good bands in Amsterdam, and the milk fresh. Was that?

 

Jack Teuber  28:37  

Was that the The milk of that? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Already. So

 

Robert Berkeley  28:42  

parody. So that's it all the great bands and they decent sized venues as well. They're small and you can actually get intimate with the band. But you get big names there, at least to us big names, I guess.

 

Jack Teuber  28:51  

Well, as I said, Everybody comes to New York to play when they when a big band comes to New York to play. They play in a big venue because there's so many people here in Amsterdam, you can go see great bands at the parody. So I remember one one Saturday evening for friends were in town. And we actually went into the milk bath just after dinner and you know, settle down and have a beer and echo and the Bunnymen were just

 

a place.

 

Robert Berkeley  29:17  

Jjack Teubertuber from PwC thank you very much for joining me on the Inside Jobs inside jobs podcast if anyone wants to get in touch with you and learn about the inner man that is jack tuber. How can they do that?

 

Jack Teuber  29:31  

You can email me at jack dot tuber. That's te UB er. Teuber, I guess for your German listeners @pwc.com that's jack.teuber@pwc.com. jack dot Toubro. pwc.com.

 

Robert Berkeley  29:45  

Thank you very much indeed for your time. Robert, thank

 

Jack Teuber  29:47  

Robert, thank you. It's been a pleasure. I'm going to figure out a way to drop this microphone that breaking it so I can say that I dropped the mic.