Meet the team

Meet our MD – and rockstar in residence – Jay Neale

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In the first of a new series where we interview the people that make Agency Works tick, we get the inside scoop on our MD – and rockstar in residence – Jay Neale.

Tell us about your early career…

“As a child, I always wanted to be a footballer or a rockstar. But I ended up taking a slightly different route and training as… an accountant.

“My first job was at Next’s head office, where I completed an HND in business and finance, but I spent most of my days taking data from paper records and inputting it into spreadsheets.

“Eventually I decided that I would much prefer to be in a people-facing role."

"I moved down south and got a job as an investment adviser for Lloyds Bank and from there moved to Synergist where I became the company’s first salesperson - and met Steve Vincent, who is now my co-director at Agency Works.

"I worked in the south and Steve covered the north and we’d basically decide which towns to focus on based on where we wanted to meet up and go drinking!

“After 18 months we decided to go it alone and Agency Works was born.”

What did the early days of the business look like? How did it grow to become the company it is now?

“We eventually got to the point where we knew we needed a base, because we’d started employing people and there was only so long that conducting interviews in motorway service stations was going to cut it!

“In 2010 we opened the Agency Works first office, in a two-storey office above a butcher’s shop with woodchip on the walls. I remember worrying about the £400 a month rent and whether we could afford it.

“We moved out of there after about 18 months to a barn conversion, and then relocated to the current base in Ashby Magna in 2023.

"I sometimes feel like I’ve set a treadmill going that I can’t stop! It doesn’t feel like the slow button ever gets hit, it’s either the incline or the go faster button!"

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Nowadays, we look after over 400 agencies in the UK and employ 18 people.quote mark

How do you deal with the inevitable pressure that comes with heading up an ever-growing business?

“I have a very strict morning routine and get up at 4.45am every day.

“I’ll get my gym kit out the night before, have my slippers ready by the bed like Wallace and Gromit, make a black coffee, let the dogs out, watch Bloomberg on TV for half an hour and see what the markets are doing, then go to gym and train for an hour.

“The gym, to me, is a massive coping mechanism. I feel set up for the day. If nothing else, that’s my one achievement."

“I make sure all my clothes are ironed for the week ahead – I usually do it while watching sport on TV – then I know I can just grab something without thinking about it.

“It’s about being efficient. I love my clothes and it’s important to me to look smart, so in a world where you’re so busy every day, why would you want more chaos for yourself?

“I think the main thing that keeps me going is that I wake up every day and I’m not like “oh f*ck, I’ve got to go to work. I genuinely love it. I’ve still got a passion for it and I love the people I work with.

“I love making people feel like I can solve their problems.”

What are you most proud of?

“I’m really proud of the team at the Agency Works and the relationships that we’ve built up over the years through the agency community.

“When you’ve got that longevity of people it’s amazing. It makes you feel like we must be doing something right. If you didn’t care, if you were just doing it driven by revenue and profit, you wouldn’t have those relationships.

"I have an imaginary board above me. I’m always thinking ‘if I had to walk into a CEO’s office today, would he say I’ve done a good job or a bad job?’. It’s a mixture of using your heart and your gut. I think the best decisions are made somewhere in between those two points.

“Everything we do is a real team effort. I’ll set the direction and the targets, but we ask the team how they want to get there."

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The level of experience of our people is what makes us stand out. Our people really understand agencies. They’ve all got agency experience and really understand what we’re doing. They’re not just selling stuff for the sake of it.quote mark

What value do clients get from working with you?

“Lots of laughs.

“In all seriousness, I’ve worked with hundreds of agencies across 20 years, so I can spot trends quickly and know what’s good, okay or bad, and can tell them what they need to be doing to get there.

“It’s not system advice, I give board level business advice to our clients. 

"I run my own business, I’ve invested lots in training, attended hundreds of agency talks, and talked with thousands of agencies over the years, so I’ve gained a lot of practical knowledge!”

What do you think will be next for the business? What are your goals?

“I take all our clients’ businesses very seriously and I always want to do the very best I can, so I’m responsible for pushing those buttons as much as anyone."

"I want to get us to a position where, if you’re an agency and you’ve got process issues or you need a system, you don’t think any further than Synergist or Agency Works.

"I genuinely think we can get there."

What about outside work? What do you like doing with any spare time you have?

“I’m a singer in a band called Wild Star. They’re called that because they’ve got a ‘wild star’ as their frontman!

"We’re an indie rock band and perform all across the East Midlands and at weddings and things like that.

“I’ve always been interested in music but I sort of fell into this by accident. It started at our village’s royal wedding celebrations back in 2011. They had a band there but the singer didn’t turn up. The guitarist said ‘does anyone want to come and have a go?’, so I thought ‘yeah, alright’. I’d had a few drinks by that point obviously.

“On the whole, I do try to achieve the things I want to achieve."

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The only thing holding you back is you. I tell my kids that all the time.quote mark

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