Rachel Pendered, managing director of Media Zoo, on The PRmoment podcast

This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing Rachel Pendered, managing director of Media Zoo.Media Zoo has a fee income of circa £13m and approximately 130 employees. It’s an independent PR firm in London. It was co-founded by Rachel and Mark Killick in 2003.Before she co-founded Media Zoo, Rachel worked for the BBC and Channel 4 as a TV producer.Here’s a summary of what Rachel and I discuss: [00:01:30] Why have we seen so many women leave their agency CEO jobs in the last 12 months.[00:06:51] Why Rachel believes it's much harder to become a successful female entrepreneur than a male entrepreneur.[00:07:22] How just 8% of start-up funding goes to women.[00:10:08] How can we encourage more female entrepreneurs?[00:12:21] Why entrepreneurship is all about imagination.[00:13:28] Rachel talks to us through some stats from The Rose Review, a piece of research looking at why there are fewer female entrepreneurs in the UK. [00:13:34] How, if we were to close the entrepreneurial gender gap, we would potentially add £250 billion to the UK economy in the next 10 years.[00:16:27] Where women can find out more information about becoming entrepreneurs.[00:19:03] Why Rachel set up Media Zoo in 2003.[00:20:23] Why Rachel didn't enjoy being employed.[00:21:08] How, originally, the plan for Media Zoo was for it to be a network of production freelancers – but things soon changed…[00:25:16] How Rachel has built the Media Zoo to become a £13m firm alongside Mark Killick.[00:26:50] How did Rachel create a culture of entrepreneurship at Media Zoo?[00:27:27] How has Media Zoo grown to a £13m fee income when lots of its independent agency peers have not? [00:29:11] Why Media Zoo has brought all its production services in-house. [00:29:35] Why Media Zoo has never made any acquisitions.[00:32:20] Rachel talks about her working relationship with Mark Killick. [00:37:27] How Media Zoo has diversified through its content engine proposition.[00:38:46] Rachel talks about Media Zoo’s embedded client team strategy of six to 12-person teams typically on one- to three-year contracts.[00:40:12] Rachel talks about Media Zoo’s expansion plans into Scotland, Switzerland and the US next year. [00:43:54] With many economic forecasters predicting a recession is on the way – Rachel recalls what she did after the 2008 financial crash that helped her business to survive.Support the show