Jon Russell Crosses From Tech Journalism To Ellerton And Co
Ellerton and Co has appointed Jon Russell as executive director, adding a former technology journalist and investor to the Singapore agency's senior management team. He will be based in Bangkok.
- Role: executive director, Ellerton and Co, covering venture capital, startups, crypto and technology
- Journalism: more than a decade on Asia's technology sector, at TechCrunch, The Next Web and The Ken
- Investing: a stint with Crypto.com Capital
- Most recently: three years as an independent marketing and content consultant
- Still publishes: Asia Tech Review, a newsletter on technology, startups and investment across the region
Why Jon Russell Is A Useful Hire For An Agency
The obvious version of this hire is contacts. The more useful version is the reverse: he has been on the receiving end of thousands of pitches, so he knows precisely which ones get ignored.
His own framing is sharper than most agency hires manage. Technology companies in Asia, he said, do not just need more press coverage, they need clearer stories. That is a distinction between output and narrative, and it happens to be the one agencies find hardest to sell.
The Timing
Ellerton and Co positions the appointment against a fragmenting communications landscape: tighter funding conditions and a contracting traditional media environment, which together mean companies need narratives that hold up across earned media, owned content and investor communications at once.
That is the honest description of what has happened to technology PR in Asia. Fewer outlets, fewer reporters, and founders who now have to be their own publisher. His mix of journalism, investment and consulting maps onto investor relations, founder positioning, owned content and go-to-market communications.
The appointment follows a year of expansion. Founder Oliver Ellerton was elevated to managing partner in April, Michael de Waal-Montgomery and Prayaank Gupta were made partners, and the agency launched Ellerton Creative Studio. More appointments.
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