Well suited

The project has become a Thai landmark.

Having survived the Asian stock market crash of 1997, dwp (Design Worldwide Partnership) is no stranger to operating
under difficult circumstances. We talk to CEO, Brenton Mauriello about about his strategy for surviving the current downturn.

We’re not here to plod,” Brenton Mauriello, CEO of dwp or, in its entirety, Design Worldwide Partnership, insists. “That’s just boring.”

Testament to this, perhaps, is the opening of four new dwp offices so far this year – two in Australia, one in Malaysia and one in China – as well as a recent move to new premises in Dubai.

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In spite of the turbulent global economy, the company has continued to invest, ploughing effort and energy into business development and marketing. As a survivor of the Asian stock market crash of 1997, the firm is well-versed in dealing with crisis and, arguably, particularly well positioned to navigate the current economic climate. We speak to Mauriello about lessons learnt, business strategy and the benefits of being a ‘suit’ in a creative industry.

Tell us about dwp.

It is an amalgamation of companies that started in Asia. The oldest company was Cityspace, which was started up in Thailand by Kristina Zanic and Scott Whitakker in 1994. And then we have another company that was started up by David Chang and John Chue in Vietnam, called Attitude.

They were independent and didn’t know of each other. Then there was the Asian crash of 1997 and Kristina and Scott got some consultants in and said: “Right, how do we protect ourselves?”

One of the ideas was that you bring like-minded companies together, you give them synergies and you create a common platform, if at all possible. So, they created dwp, which was a bit like a Star Alliance.

There were four companies; they had a common look and feel but they were independent – they were known as dwp Cityspace in Thailand, or dwp Attitude in Vietnam, for example.

Why Design Worldwide Partnership?

We didn’t want to be tied to any one location or any one person. What the alliance did was allow us to have some commonalities. We put in common IT systems, common marketing and common project management procedures.

This went on for about five years and then we realised that if we were really going to exploit the synergies, we needed to take the next step.

Kristina and Scott approached me and asked whether I would be interested in joining them as a partner, and I took up the challenge. We amalgamated all of the companies into one.

Did you face any resistance?

There was one of the original companies that dropped out. It wasn’t so much of a resistance but a difference in where they wanted to go. You can be part of an alliance but that’s a different thing to becoming one company.