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“It all started with a little hole in the skirting board.” Gordon Jansen is talking about the small domestic project he’s been carrying out. The affable Kiwi goes on to explain the 18-month process in the space of a few dismissive phrases. “I just thought ‘I’ll demolish the whole house and start again’.”

Jansen is not one to be put off by a challenge nor, it seems, a lack of experience. This was his first house. He grins. “I’d never done anything like that before – I’m a little bit mad.” I make a note on the pad in front of me: ‘ambitious, possibly insane’.

Long before he took up his current role as design and production manager for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), Jansen, then a press minder at a small Auckland based printer in New Zealand, called a meeting with the company directors to give them a proposal on how they could improve the business.

Jansen’s drive, determination and passion for his clients, may have been easy to dismiss as ‘cheek’ a decade ago, but savings of £2.5m in the last three years are hard to ignore and one could not exist
without the other. It has been these three characteristics, coupled with his need for a challenge, that have led Jansen to pursue three different careers within the space of 10 years. He can claim to be one
of a relatively few print buyers who have had experience in printing, quoting and sales, all prior to taking up his role as a buyer – a turning point, which ultimately happened more or less by accident. “I was working in sales for a UK printer when the NSPCC decided not to renew the contract they had with their facilities management firm,” explains Jansen. “I met creative director Ian MacArthur and he asked if I would like to come in and help. I thought it was going to be part time…”

On his arrival, Jansen took a pen and paper and proceeded to build the department’s systems and processes from the ground up. Two years on and he has found his previous experience invaluable. “Because I’d been on the other side I could see how best to manage the supplier relationships. I basically drew on all my experience from being a minder and then being in sales, and put that to good use here,” he explains. However, despite his extensive print knowledge, Jansen is the first to admit that you can never know it all and, with his initial print production role having already evolved into one that includes management of the design team, he is always keen to learn new techniques. “I’m very interested in dynamic publishing and I’ve also got a hell of a lot to get my teeth into on the web side of things. That’s what I like about this role, you’re never done, you’re never finished, you’re always developing,” he says.
Jansen’s team at the NSPCC has developed in line with his success, with more and more staff required to handle the massive growth in throughput from the society’s nine key regional sites. “The fact that we’re doing more and more work is down to the fact that people want our products,” he explains. Clearly a goal-driven individual, Jansen is hungry

for recognition, both for himself and his team. “Hopefully, one day, there’ll be a little slice in the pie chart that says: studio saved £2.5m. That’d be fantastic – that’s my ultimate achievement,” he says.

Nevertheless, one gets the feeling that no matter what business or personal goals Jansen achieves, he will simply go on setting himself more and more targets. “I’m a finisher,” he says. “I’m one of those guys that you can just point in the right direction and say, ‘Go: achieve that’, and I’ll say, ‘OK.’” And the house? Jansen grins again. “I’m still going.”