1. 21 May 2015
5 Balmoral Terrace
Newtown
Wellington
+64 21 795 456
Reference: Josh Hannagan
From: Darel Hall, General Manager Planet Media Dunedin Limited and the Otago University
Students’ Association September 2011 – January 2015
Josh is creative, intelligent, has good analysis ability, has great interpersonal ability, understands
business needs, and manages projects well.
I first hired as an account manager in mid-2012 reporting to the PMDL Sales Manager. His role was
primarily about advertising sales of the Critic Magazine, Radio One, and other PMDSL and OUSA
products. When the Sales Manager left in mid 2013 Josh stepped up to help for 6 – 8 weeks. His
effort and ideas were noticed and tested and, along with his personal sales results, led to his
promotion.
Josh was good at presenting his ideas for improvement on all areas from content creation to sales
techniques.
He led the process on several key projects including:
o Price review of all products including the complicated relativity between several products
o Simplification of rate cards
o Product review, particularly the successful shift from Handbook Dairy to UNI101
o Connecting better with Auckland markets
He also contributed to projects like the Dunedin Craft Beer & Food Festival, and was a contributor
on the organisation’s management team where Josh was sufficiently confident in his own abilities
to present a more “dry” analysis which typically was the minority view with his colleagues. So he
helped counteract group think and the risks associated with that.
Amongst Josh’s attributes are that his ego is firmly aligned with organisational outcomes. For
example he hired a sales person who was much more experienced than he was, and clearly,
despite his very good results, she was just a bit better at sales than him. I was particularly
impressed with how he hired this person, kept her motivated, and encouraged her to keep doing
better. Some people would have found this challenging. At no point was Josh ever anything but
encouraging and supportive.
Josh was very good at managing important internal relationships between quite passionate,
creative people who didn’t always focus on business outcomes. He was one of those people who
help glue different parts of an organisation together.
While I believe Josh has performed very well, I am happy to say his performance is yet to match
his abilities – partly because his abilities are increasing. So I suspect his next employers will do very
well from Josh’s contribution.
I am very happy to speak further to Josh’s abilities.