Mike Hanley the Content King. A eulogy.

I delivered this 'professional eulogy' for Mike Hanley on Tuesday 28th May 2024 at North Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club, attended by hundreds in person and online. I share this for the volume of people who's lives he touched across the world.

Mike the Content King. In his professional life Michael Hanley was impressive and innovative in so many ways. Ways that could lead to a very long speech - but he’d prefer this to be clear, well structured and concise, so here goes...

Mike and I worked together for over 20 years. I saw his entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial journey from Australia to Switzerland and back. Our families and work lives became enmeshed.

I’m glad I got to see, up close, what a brilliant, world class, and inclusive talent Mike Hanley was. And fun! Mike was fun to work with. The best way to describe it is my wife Sheridan Jobbins 's phrase “puppies in a basket”. If everyone could roll around together, that tumble of ideas and sociability would produce great things. It was that mindset which persuaded me to also join the World Economic Forum. He said to me, “You’ve gotta come over. It’s a much bigger train set to play with.”

I saw four main phases of the entrepreneurial Hanley:

• Mike the freelance writer and publisher
• Business21C
• The World Economic Forum
• The Content Engine

Writer and publisher

He began writing about Insurance Derivatives! Seriously, he was a world expert in something that no-one understands but that somehow he could explain. Back in the early 2000s he was writing articles and reports on trends in weather derivatives. This was before weather actually seemed like a risk.

eMap was the first thing to map and monetise websites.

Then Australia China Connections with Elizabeth Fry where he joined the voices of the business worlds between those two countries.?

He wrote 3 books, including ‘Crunchtime’ with Adrian Monck , about how everyday life is killing the future.’ The co-authors even went on an Australian book tour... in a combi van... painted top to bottom with the book jacket… until someone stole the van!?

Business21C

Between 2007 and 2009 there was Business21C led by Jet Swain with Mike in charge of content, and me in charge of digital. This visionary project was about converting UTS Business School’s academics into rockstars, and its alumni into an award-winning platform. There were digital-first and print publications. Content innovations in 2007 like podcasts and video posts. There were glamorous intellectual events culminating with the creation of world class architecture from Frank Gehry, and the inaugural sponsorship of Remo Giuffre to create TEDxSydney . Lots of puppies. And a bigger basket.

World Economic Forum

Mike and Jet invited Adrian Monck to speak at the Sydney Opera House where he persuaded first Mike, and then me, to join the World Economic Forum . The invitation was to build what Adrian Monck described as ‘becoming your own media’.?Mike wanted to reinvent reports - unlocking them from PDFs and making them digital-first. He brought blogs and vlogs to the forum. He and his team created content that drove unique views to 15 million visitors a month to the Forum website. Davos as a live streamed video experience (thank you Mark Kornfilt ). And social videos that exceeded a billion views.

He thrived in the chaos - and sometimes brought it on himself. At the end of my first Davos he texted to say he’d gone skiing and got hot - taken off his woollen long johns and left them in the toilets. Said he saw Martin Sorrell going in after him. Thing was - it was late now, and since I was still on the mountain, would I pick them up for him? I did. Only, the lifts closed with me on the wrong side of the mountain. So I had to ski all the way to Klosters with his pants tied around me - through homes and backyards. By the time I got to Davos, he’d left. So I took his undies on a ski tour with me and sent him photos - of his pants on peaks, drinking beers, sitting in chair lifts. I was not alone, dozens of comments on Facebook and LinkedIn were about his underpants.

The Content Engine

Always restless, by 2018 Mike had done Davos and was preparing for a new phase. He wrote on Medium:

“I want to build something. I'm fifty now, when I’m sixty, or seventy or whenever… I’d like to have something to sell, to show for my work. My business is just me now, but soon, there will be more of us.”

Mike grew that dream into The Content Engine. With his wife Claire Hanley at his side, he built a company from zero to hero in a few years through the depth of his network and the trust and respect they had for him. Pushing boundaries at every turn. Occasionally a bit too far.

Summary of a 181 LinkedIn Comments

A Twitter campaign we created for Business21C called ‘2009 in six words’ inspired me to ask ChatGPT to take the outpouring of heartfelt memories from LinkedIn and describe ‘Mike Hanley in six words’. It said;

“Innovative storyteller, humorous, caring, inspiring leader.”

I then asked ChatGPT to summarise his colleagues’ comments, from the LinkedIn thread that announced his passing, into a paragraph. This is what you all said about him. Crowd-sourced, if not quoted:

“Mike Hanley was a relentless force of nature whose pursuit of excellence inspired everyone around him. He had an extraordinary ability to make even the most stressful situations fun. Mike was a visionary leader, a master storyteller, and a creative genius. He had a unique talent for making complex ideas simple and compelling. He treated his colleagues like family, offering support, encouragement, and a listening ear. His love for his wife and children was evident when he spoke about them, and he spoke about them often. He brought the same sense of care and commitment to his friendships. Mike’s legacy is one of kindness, generosity, and an unyielding zest for life. He saw the best in people and helped them see it in themselves.”

As for you, Mike, shine on. The puppy basket was fun.