ou just never know about some kids. John Minnec was always a pleasure to have in class. Fresh out of the Marines, he had that air of respect for authority that a teacher always secretly enjoys, a manner that might seem out of place in the dress-down world of college if it were not so obviously sincere — or at least, ingrained at the level of reflex. In a Creative Writing class, it can be a problem, because Questioning Authority is in the job description.

With John it was never a problem. In his writing and thinking and his comments on his classmates’ work, there was always enough sheer exuberance to counterbalance any tendency to think of life as a matter of squaring corners and keeping your footlocker spotless. Tall and lean and strong-looking, he spoke very rapidly, with great confidence and quick, animated gestures. He was fun to listen to, showed real enthusiasm for his classmates’ work and his own, and took criticism completely in stride. He enjoyed writing and did it well. But he did not much care for the endless fussing over language that others (me, for instance) find an addictive pleasure. He clearly knew something about the Dark Side, but did not care to linger there.

I remember him explaining once, with a glance of mild apology all around, that he could render anyone present unconscious in just four seconds, using a certain prescribed grip on the throat. I think you have to have sat through a semester of a creative writing workshop to understand how this can be an entirely friendly speculation. At the time we were discussing the fight scene in someone’s story, trying to decide what was credible and what wasn’t. As always, John was on-task. But an English teacher? I didn’t think so.

It turns out I was right. These days, John is President of the London branch of Draft FCB, an advertising and consulting firm with 118 offices scattered over the six habitable continents. He works twelve-hour days, five days a week, and spends the weekends in places like Paris, Venice, and Scotland. He lives in his flat in London’s Chelsea Borough, but jets home every other weekend, at company expense, to spend time in his condo in Chicago’s Gold Coast. Seven senior executives report to him directly, and together, they oversee an office of some 250 people in the heart of London. The team has five global accounts, 6 regional accounts and 12 accounts that are bespoke to the UK. Since joining Draft FCB, John has made seven speaking trips to China and one each to Russia, Sydney, Stockholm and Helsinki. Though he thinks of himself as a “tiebreaker” and an open-door manager, every so often he makes a decision on which millions of marketing and advertising dollars are riding.

And all this has happened with a speed calculated to make a former instructor feel like Rip Van Winkle after his nap. After graduating from Eastern in 1988, John went to work as an advertising copywriter for Leo Burnett. After leaving Burnett, John and another EIU grad started a small but successful ad agency in the suburbs of Glen Ellyn, Moesh and Minnec Advertising. A few years later, with two children and a mortgage, John returned to the “big-agency” life with Grey Advertising for a while and then, with a lot of experience under his belt, left Grey and joined Ogilvy & Mather, running a large piece of the Sears business. He joined Draft Worldwide in 1996, gradually proving himself to eponymous chairman Howard Draft, and rose through the ranks to the position of Executive Vice-President. In charge of the huge United States Postal Service Account, he also became director of Draft’s global initiatives, responsible for coordinating business practices around the world.

Draft UK had greatly expanded its London operations in 2002, when a merger with Lowe Live created Draft London. Minnec’s visits to the London site, from 2002 on, had already made him somewhat familiar to the office when he was appointed managing director in April, 2005.

Was it a little daunting, I wanted to know when we spoke recently, to walk into a new job in a new country and take charge of so many people? “Well, you have to be fearless in this business,” he said. “And I don’t believe in shrinking from a challenge.”

Well, was it difficult to get the Brits to take orders from an upstart American? “What I’ve found everywhere, around the world, is that people respond to energetic, enthusiastic leadership. There is so much uncertainty in this business, and thus in their lives. People want a leader who seems to know where he’s going and how to get there. If they have that, they really appreciate it, no matter what country you’re talking about.” Slight pause. “Of course, you do have to know what you’re doing.”

So how about those grueling eight-hour plane rides? “Well, I’m lucky enough to get to ride up in front. I work for a while, then take an Ambien with a Jack Daniel’s chaser, go to sleep, and wake up refreshed in a new country, ready to go to work.”

By my count, an extra shift got slipped into his schedule there somewhere, and the word “work” bookends the key sentence. But John doesn’t seem to be counting. He thrives on the pressure of a notoriously unforgiving business and describes himself as “crazy enough to want to do this forever.”

As if his day job weren’t enough, John has authored numerous articles for a range of advertising and marketing publications, has been sought out to comment on brands in trouble, and to give advice to the industry. Recently he was named to the Campaign “A-List” of the UK’s most influential marketers and to Marketing Magazine’s list of the 100 most powerful marketers in the UK, coming in at lucky number 13. He’s now in the process of supervising a major reorganization of the London office and has set himself the goal of doubling Draft UK’s revenues in the near future.

Best of all, when I asked him what advice he would give to current EIU undergraduates, he said the very thing that I always say: