Linda Jenkinson has done it all – and then some.
The New Zealand-born globetrotting pioneer has joined a listed Australia stock exchange (ASX) company as chair to help drive its growth internationally.
The company, Pureprofile, she says, is experiencing remarkable growth.
“I think they've really got something special.”
The Australian-based company gives businesses insights into consumer behaviour and consumption, through proprietary market research.
It builds profiles of consumers and give businesses the ability to understand and engage with their audiences.
Founded 23 years ago, the company is now operating in North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific and has more than 750 clients.
Jenkinson says Pureprofile has the secret sauce. “It’s a winning formula."
She should know. She’s been dominant in the corporate, entrepreneurial and governance spaces for the past 30 years and has built several multimillion-dollar companies around the world.
She co-founded Dispatch Management Services nearly 30 years ago. The company now has annual revenue of $250 million and more than 6,500 staff.
She even listed the company on the tech-heavy Nasdaq, becoming one of very few women ever to do so. Insider magazine says, historically, only about 20 women have founded and led a company through to an IPO.
Dispatch was the first company she co-founded, when she was just 25. She'd met an American who was very entrepreneurial, and he recognised her business nous and invited her to help build a multimillion-dollar company.
“This is in the 80’s in Wellington – no one talked about that, back then.”
He became the chair and Jenkinson was the chief executive.
“Eight years later, we listed on the Nasdaq and built a quarter of a billion dollar US company.”
Raised on a farm
Not bad for a girl who grew up on a farm in the Manawatū.
She attributes her success to that provincial farm and to her upbringing – to her father, in particular.
She comes from a competitive family, particularly in sport. But she wasn’t very good at sport, so Jenkinson says she decided she was going to focus her energy on business instead.
“It was my winning strategy within the family.”
She says she was the first person in her family to stay at school past the age of 15.
“But my father had a growth mindset.”
Her father wanted a son, so the young Jenkinson was always trying to prove herself and became her father’s right-hand man.
Jenkinson says her father was a small-time entrepreneur who worked hard and didn’t see barriers.
“He would just decide he was going to be a pilot, or he was going to start a company, and he just did it.
“So, I was brought up in that mindset.”
Like her father, Jenkinson doesn't see constraints.
“I just basically say, OK, this is what we're going to do. And it's all a matter of just believing you can do it and figuring out how.
“I didn't realise until quite a bit further on in my career that I had achieved this or that – because I was used to just coming up with a plan.
“I was just trying to be successful and build successful companies.”
She hired Jack Dorsey
Jenkinson said she loves what she does, from the 8,500 jobs she’s created – John Paul is another $100m+ company she co-founded – to hiring Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey when he was 18 years old.
“I create opportunities. I have a real opportunity and growth mindset that's from my parents in different ways.
“And then I had incredible mentors along the way that supported my vision of creating something big.”
Jenkinson wants to capitalise on Pureprofile being in a “fabulous” growth phase. It grew significantly last year and in the US it grew by 50%, she says.
“The US market is 40 times larger than Australia. I've got an extensive background in the US, which is one of the channels that they’re looking to deploy.
“So, if you look at me, they want growth. They want global and, particularly, US experience.
“I've built multiple companies, so I understand the CEO journey. I can construct a company that wants to grow.
“I see myself as a global growth person in tech transformation. It's my skill set.”
Jenkinson says it's important to construct a set of diverse skills to support the right stage of a company. She plans on using this strategy to support Pureprofile’s growth.
The right people
“This is part of the evolution; you need to get the right people in the job to support the growth.”
She dipped her toes into consulting when she started working and learned about the corporate world. Then she made her big splash in her entrepreneurial phase, building big companies.
Now she’s making waves in governance, something she says brings all her skills together.
“Through my journey of building a number of very large companies, I learned that governance was incredibly important."
When she became the chair of her own board more than 20 years ago, Jenkinson had no idea what governance even was.
“I didn’t know women weren’t on boards, I didn’t realise. All I was focused on was being successful and building successful companies.”
Jenkinson says governance is the key to growth – and diversity within a board is important.
“I've been successful in Australia, bringing that growth mindset to governance.”
Her governance brand is opposed to one-size-fits-all, she said.
“Ten years ago, you go and look at a lot of boards in New Zealand and Australia. You see bankers, lawyers and accountants. And what sort of questions are they going to ask?
“They're going to be very risk-focused, right?
“They're going to be very compliance-focused.
“Well, you don't need five of them on the board, you need one of them on the board, and you need to have it balanced, depending on what that looks like."
For Jenkinson. this is her winning strategy: “I was always used to going into worlds with very few women.
“I happen to be a woman and I come from a farm; I've got prickles.
“I was always a glass-ceiling breaker.”
Giving back
Jenkinson is also passionate about giving back to NZ companies, so she created LevelUp as a support group for high-growth CEOs. She says NZ has become more isolated, post-covid.
“New Zealand was always quite outward looking and, with covid-19, we’ve become quite inward-looking.
Along with many other global New Zealanders, she was shut out of the country over that time, and it was quite traumatic, Jenkinson says.
“We've got all these Kiwis with this great global perspective on many things.
"This is what I'm really excited about in my role of coach here, connecting those dots to bring those great skill sets together.”
She says developing a growth mindset is key to business success.
Many of the challenges we have in New Zealand need us to collaborate, she says.
“If we come together and bring the best and brightest, bring everybody together, we can fix the challenges we’re facing.
“We've become quite siloed, so it's going to take everything from governance to creativity, to having the mindset that we can change things and knowing we can make a difference – it’s all incredibly important.”
Jenkinson says it's about creating a new world and opportunity for other people.
“I want to make a difference in the world, and I went off and did that, you know? And I'm doing it still.
“And I'll never stop doing it. Ever.”
This article has been corrected to remove a reference to Pureprofile being "newly" listed on the ASX. The company listed in 2015.
