Danny Townsend
Age: 37
Company: Repucom
Title: Global chief revenue officer
Where born: Sydney
Education: University of New South Wales (B.S.S.); Charles Sturt University (MBA, international marketing)
Family: Wife, Kate; daughters, Claudia (9) and Grace (7)
Favorite way to unwind: Watching sports; enjoying time with my family.
Cause supported: The Heart Research Institute.
Most thrilling/adventurous thing I’ve ever done: Join Paul Smith in a startup!
Person in the industry I’d most like to meet: Sepp Blatter.
If I could change jobs with anyone for a day, it would be: President Obama.
2015 will be a good year if: Repucom continues to grow, my girls don’t grow up too fast, and my wife doesn’t spend too much! No specific order.
My fellow Forty Under 40 class members would be surprised to know that I: Can play the trumpet.
JAMES GARLAND
eer and a bum knee made Danny Townsend the man he is today.
Townsend knew that after multiple surgeries on his right knee, the chances of a long career as a pro soccer player were unlikely. So during his three-year career on the pitch in his native Sydney, Townsend also earned a bachelor’s degree in sport science from the University of
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Forty Under 40 editor Mark Mensheha and Executive Editor Abraham Madkour discuss this year's class, some of the more interesting stories in it and how the selection process works.
New South Wales — and then an MBA, with an emphasis in international marketing, at Charles Sturt University.
He hung up his cleats at age 23 and became the commercial director at the Australian Jockey Club. There, he quickly secured a sponsorship with San Miguel Brewery, the biggest sports sponsorship in Australia at the time, Townsend said. But the Manila, Philippines-based company “had no idea what they were doing in Australia,” he said, and so they asked him to find them an agency.
“Being on the rights side of the property, I wanted to get them an agency that wasn’t going to bust my balls,” Townsend said.
Townsend paired San Miguel up with Paul Smith, who ran an activation agency in Sydney. With that beer deal as the catalyst, Smith and Townsend eventually joined forces in 2004 to form Repucom.
Since then, Townsend has launched Repucom’s business in Asia and Europe and now oversees a client base that includes the likes of the major U.S. pro leagues, FIFA and the Barclays Premier League. Emirates, Gatorade, Pepsi, Red Bull and Volkswagen are clients as well.
“Paul and I agreed on something very early on in our business life together,” Townsend said. “If we go into a meeting and talk about why we’re better than our competitors, then we’re already behind. We just stick with why we’re the right company to work with.”
— David Broughton
