Bernadette O'Reilly

I set up Luca Media in late 2007/early 2008. In hindsight, terrible timing, as unbeknownst to me at the time, The West was already several quarters on the path to recession. But hopefully, longer term, it will be the best thing I could have done.

I had just completed 3 years in London at Ask.com (IAC Inc) (a global search engine), where I risked a step down from my former Board Career, to learn all about the Internet there, as Director of Commercial Development, responsible for commercial strategy development, revenue management and commercial operations. I really enjoyed working with cross functional teams in San Francisco, New York and London, building out the infrastructure for a scaleable global revenue business.

After Ask, whilst considering what to do next, digital colleagues confided the difficulty of sourcing advice from people who understand the commercial dependencies within digital and online businesses. I realised that my destiny was not to utilise my experience in any one organisation, rather to deploy it by helping existing digital businesses and new entrants – hence the launch of Lucamedia.

My business apprenticeship was in UK TV media sales with a then market leader Thames Television (largest ITV company). I honed my communications/sales/marketing skills for 15 years from Sales Executive, to Business Director responsible for circa £100m of revenue back then. Because of my media background, I have always been on the edge of development, and by default an early adopter of new technologies/services. My first Internet business experience was in 1998-2000, as Project Director for u>direct.tv, a planned pay per view, near video on demand web business alongside their 17 UK near video on demand satellite TV channels, for which I was Director of Sales. This was all ahead of time, but now, it’s a very exciting time again for converged TV services.

My personal and professional lives continue to merge. Consideration of home communications providers is ongoing. Whilst I evaluate innovation, price, customer service, content and convenience, my family insist on premium sports content.

They keep me informed about the Games market, and I juggle both domestic and digital Goddess roles.

Observing our different individual media usage patterns at home is very useful professional research for me.

To keep things together, I put on my running shoes, and switch on my IPod (I find the iPod on my iPhone too sensitive for running), and, as the great Eddie Kendrick's songs says, I keep on trucking!