Former Interpublic Group colleagues Craig Lister and Karl Loudon have launched Tevyan, which provides sales training for marketing and technology agencies.
The pair previously worked at IPG performance media agency Reprise, where Lister had led the business for nearly nine years until leaving in March to set up Tevyan. He was succeeded at Reprise by former PHD digital chief Chloe Hawking.
At Reprise, Lister led a team of more than 450 employees and oversaw the acquisitions of Mubaloo and Stickyeyes.
Loudon worked alongside Lister at Reprise as managing partner of enterprise and Mubaloo, the mobile ad developer IPG acquired in 2016.
Tevyan has launched as a training company with the mantra of “sales with soul”. It plans to do this by “creating the building blocks for growth and building scalable commercial teams within agencies”. It will apply what is described as a "Design thinking + sales doing" framework.
The consultancy has five clients, including global, national and regional businesses.
As co-founders, the pair say they are passionate about client service and will focus on a customer-centric approach throughout all aspects at Tevyan.
Lister, who is chief product officer at Tevyan, said his experience as a board director at IPG Mediabrands provided him with a good understanding of the issues agencies face, including acquisitions, inceptions, the development of proprietary assets and founder exits.
He said: “I believe in the Tevyan mission of operationalising the sales process to involve all of the agency, growing beyond just founder-led sales and to be a breath of fresh air in the sales training space. I’m thrilled with Tevyan and I can’t wait to see it grow in the developing media space.”
Loudon said many agencies were still reliant upon founder-led sales, that commercial talent was hard to find, and growth was limited by people’s capacity to sell.
He said Tevyan was “born out of the idea that there is a better way to scale growth for agencies”.
“We believe in changing the sales process from what it is today into a much more systematic, structured framework, much like we treat a campaign or a product in the agency.
"Our processes give everyone the confidence to do sales, and Tevyan’s belief in transparency and accountability is a clear benefit to all agency stakeholders.”
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