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CASTINGTHENETWIDER
CASTINGTHENETWIDER
You know, there are still companies
today who insist that women wear
skirts. I don’t think I own a skirt. And I couldn’t work for any company which insisted on calling me Ms Thexton.”
The Vice President of Macromedia (Europe, Middle East and Africa), responsible for a turnover of $120 million, is discussing corporate culture in her modern and function- al, glass panelled office at Bracknell, Berkshire.
Sue Thexton, at her desk by 7.30 each morning, belongs to that breed of modern boss who effortlessly combines a sharp business brain with an instinctive urge to be on the R&D floor with the ‘creatives.’
“I couldn’t bear the thought of working for a company where there are boxes that need to be sold to customers. I love creative people who aren’t constrained by corporate rules. It’s about respecting people’s skills and experience and taking advantage of that irrespective of their social background or sexual orientation. It’s about freedom to be successful.”
Thexton’s passion for the creative process, for the aesthetic appeal of good design and for creating a useful product that is enjoyable, is infectious. She boils it down to “creating rich media experiences on the web.”
The core of Macromedia’s business is focused on the internet: “The complete range of organisations from small companies to multi-country global organisations use our products not only at the front end of the website but also at the back end for person- alisation of data and for tracking what peo- ple do when they visit a website. In short, we automate the whole web experience whether for an intranet or extranet.”
Eye-appeal is crucial. “People retain more information if they are engaged with the content. Our aim is to make it easier, richer (that word again) and more visually stimulating for the user. Every film or TV programme has a style. From the design of opening credits through to the closing music. A director sets a style. That’s what we do on the web. Good experiences by the
by style. “We were brought up to appreciate good design whether in furniture or build- ings. Typography was always a big thing for me. I used to cut headlines out of papers and magazines if I thought they had an inter- esting shape.
“It was the middle of the 60’s when a huge proliferation of groovy typefaces began to appear. I used to collect wacky typefaces. Kind of bizarre for a small child, don’t you think?”
Clearly not. It was just a matter of adding computer skills, financial acumen, modern management and chief executive arrows to her quiver. Oh, and leaving plenty of time to have baby Amy two years ago whilst keeping up regular trips to head office in San Francisco and seven satellite offices throughout Europe.
Oh, and acquiring two other compa- nies and welding them all together into a Euro powerhouse.
But she does leave at five on the dot every night to put Amy to bed. “Everyone here and in America respects that.”
Warm, elegant, resilient, Sue Thexton admits that she has had to dig deep recently. “It has been rough going for the dot.com industry. At the moment, the brakes are on. Everyone is like a rabbit caught on the head- lights and frozen. My job is to make sure that Macromedia is ready when the rabbits leap out of the headlights and take off. “
Many rabbits, though, get squashed? As the Sunday Times put it: ‘The technology sector is dead. Only a handful of companies will survive.’
The Thexton steel shows through. “There is no doubt whatever that the inter- net will not go away. It will continue to grow. People are not going to stop using it.
“What has happened is that all the crazy business ideas which, no matter how you looked at it were never going to suc- ceed, had to die and what is going to be left are solid requirements. Our products and technologies will be in even more demand when we get through this phase.” ■
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Sue Thexton, chair of BAFTA’s Interactive Entertainment Committee, enthuses about new media to John Morrell.
customer is what we are all about.” Which slots Sue Thexton very nicely into BAFTA.
As Chair for the past three years of the British Academy’s Interactive Entertainment Committee, and just re-elected unopposed, Thexton has been the driving force behind the growth of the BAFTA IE Awards. Last year, a hugely successful sell-out at the Royal Lancaster. This year the ceremony, on October 25, moves to the larger capacity Grosvenor House with room for 1000.
“As a new media person I was very flat- tered to be asked to join the Academy and I loved the idea of BAFTA putting its name behind the convergence that was happening. Rewarding excellence is very close to my heart.
“What I found stimulating was that tradi- tional entertainment could come together with this new media and produce the most amazing pieces of work. The creativity that is going on is fantastic and I am immensely proud that the IE Awards have become recog- nised as the top accolade in the industry.”
A former chairman of the British Interactive Multimedia Association (BIMA) Thexton began her career as a graphics artist.
Armed with a BA in Graphic Design from the London College of Printing, she joined Letraset to set up their creative soft-
ware business.
Her father was a
Newcastle architect and she grew up surrounded
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Academy Profile