Murray Finds Making Mosaics More Fun than Working Puzzles

Perhaps not surprisingly, Andy Murray’s retirement was short-lived.

Murray, the 49-year-old former CEO of both Thompson Murray and Saatchi & Saatchi X, lasted less than a month on the sidelines.

“It was my wife’s idea,” Murray said with a laugh. “After three weeks of retirement, she said, ‘You need to go start a new company.’”

Murray did just that, launching Mercury 11 last December. Mercury 11 touts itself as a “marketing technology company that thinks in the cloud with feet on the ground.”

The idea is to help small and medium-sized businesses in terms of growth, customer acquisition and loyalty.

Murray, who was part of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s 2000 Forty Under 40 class, said being a cloud-based business with no physical address allows Mercury 11 “a lot of agility and scale.”

That much is evident in its employee roster, which includes specialists who live in all parts of the world, and the fact many of its meetings are conducted via Skype.

Then there’s Murray’s personal assistant, who lives in New York.

“I’ve never met her,” he said.

That sort of forward, unconventional thinking has served Murray well. Murray, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, spent a decade working at Procter & Gamble, including two years at its Fayetteville office.

From there, he moved to DaySpring Cards Inc. in Siloam Springs, where he worked three years as director of marketing and product development. Murray then formed his own company, BrandWorks Consulting, and eventually counted Procter & Gamble as a client.

Rapid growth in that endeavor resulted in a merger with Mike Thompson’s Fayetteville-based advertising agency in 1999.

“By 2004, we had grown it to about 120 people and were doing shopper marketing for more and more clients,” Murray said recently. “We saw that it was going to go global, but didn’t have the scale to do that fast enough.”

As a result, Thompson Murray was sold to Saatchi and Saatchi, resulting in Saatchi and Saatchi X.

“I eventually helped open 15 offices around the world, and the company currently has about 600 employees worldwide,” Murray said.

That phenomenal growth — and success — led to the brief retirement, during which Murray actually stayed quite busy with consulting and board service work. When he decided to launch Mercury 11, Murray tapped into a younger generation of employees and found that “working with 25- and 27-year-olds was energizing.”

“It was a completely new way to think and to learn,” he added.

Murray also noticed the arena had changed, thanks largely to the Internet, social media and the ability to conduct business in a cloud-based environment.

“It used to be the big eats the small,” Murray said. “Today, it’s more about how clever you are. The playing field has been leveled.

“It’s not about how much money you have, but how well you understand your customers’ insights.”

Murray’s continued eagerness to learn and willingness to adapt seems natural for someone who becomes audibly enthused when talking about the Renaissance, “a time when polymaths gathered and asked ‘What is true? What is good? What is beautiful?’”

The result, Murray said, were people like Martin Luther and some of history’s finest art and architecture. He believes the Internet and the collaboration it often spawns is resulting in a new, different breed of polymaths.

“The ability to learn is a lot easier than it’s ever been,” Murray said.

Murray also offered some advice for those just starting their careers.

“No. 1, life is a mosaic, not a puzzle,” he said. “How do you work a puzzle? You start with the corner pieces because they’re the easiest and then you fill in the box.

“But life doesn’t work like that. It’s not about, ‘Does it fit?’ but ‘How does it fit?’

“Mosaics are built from the center.”

Murray also urged today’s up-and-comers to be patient and not fret over long-term results.

“Be awesome at what you’re doing right now,” Murray said. “A lot of young people worry about, ‘What is my purpose in life?’ –

“I always believed my purpose is whatever I’m doing right now.”