McKelvey, Andrew J

views updated

MCKELVEY, ANDREW J.

Andrew McKelvey is the founder, chairman, and CEO of TMP Worldwide, the world's largest seller of yellow page ads. TMP is also owner and operator of Monster.com, the number one job placement World Wide Web site and one of the 100 most visited Web sites. With sales of more than $1 billion and earnings of nearly $57 million, online recruitment powerhouse TMP is also a top recruitment advertising services firm and executive search and selection agent.

McKelvey earned his undergraduate degree from Westminster College. After borrowing $18,000, he founded the New York-based Telephone Marketing Program (TMP) in 1967 by offering to place local yellow page advertisements for national companies. McKelvey spent the next two decades growing his business through strategic alliances and acquisitions. By 1985, TMP held a 30 percent share of the yellow page advertisements market. The firm changed its name to TMP Worldwide in 1992. The following year, McKelvey decided to diversify into recruitment advertising by purchasing two recruitment agencies.

TMP made its first move toward the Internet in 1995 when it acquired two leading career Web sites: Monsterboard and Online Career Center. To fund his firm's aggressive expansion, McKelvey conducted an initial public offering in December of 1996. He used the fresh capital to bolster recruitment operations with the purchase of 12 recruitment agencies, including one in Australia. Austin Knight Ltd., the world's third-largest recruitment agency, was added to TMP's holdings in 1997, as were U.S.-based Johnson Recruitment Advertising and two U.K.-based firms, MSL Group and Lonsdale Advertising. The following year, McKelvey found himself at the helm of the largest recruitment-advertising agency in the world and a leading Web-based publisher. The Monsterboard site, by then the leading career Web site, earned its first profit.

Afer merging Monsterboard with Online Career Center, McKelvey launched Monster.com in January of 1999. According to Doug Donovan, writer for Forbes, it was Monster's success that allowed McKelvey to achieve billionaire status. "He ended up making more money in three years than in the three previous decades." By 2000, Monster.com had grown into an online career gateway with a series of Web sites in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, and New Zealand. More than seven million users had registered at the site.

Each Monster site offers real-time job posting, company profiling, and resume screening and routing services to employers. Job seekers are able to store several versions of their resume in Monster's database. They can also participate on message boards and in chat rooms. Personal job search agents are available to assist with job seeking. Monster makes money by charging companies for access to its database of resumes—which total roughly 1.5 million—and to list their job openings on the site.

Hoping to further the success of his Internet powerhouse, McKelvey oversaw the acquisition of several of Monster's rivals, including Hotjobs.com and Flip-Dog.com, in 2001. He remains at the helm of parent company TMP.