40 Under 40 2025: Scott Purcell, Man of Many

Scott Purcell

Co-Founder and director
Man of Many
Australia

Scott Purcell has long straddled the worlds of finance and media with the precision of an analyst and the vision of a publisher. After seven years as a senior financial analyst at Westpac Institutional Bank, he co-founded Man of Many which has become one of Australia’s top men’s lifestyle platforms. Today, the publication reaches 2.1 million monthly readers, boasts 900,000 social followers, and 130,000 newsletter subscribers. Under Purcell’s leadership, Man of Many also became Australia’s first fully carbon-neutral, Climate Active-certified digital publisher—a benchmark for sustainability in media.

Over the last year, Purcell’s impact has been tangible. He led the website’s mobile-first relaunch, optimising navigation, ad formats and first-party data capture, which boosted views per session by 50% and increased engagement across the board. This laid the groundwork for a planned membership launch. Commercial operations were streamlined through advertise.manofmany.com, to turn days-long brief processes into minutes and improve the quality of inbound client enquiries. He greenlit a series of original social media franchises for the relaunch, that alone generated 150 million video views and 16.7 million interactions.  The results spoke for themselves - the publication’s digital community has added 380,000 new followers along with an expanded presence on emerging platforms. 

At the same time, Purcell transformed the in-house branded content studio into a full-service creative agency that can produce video, social, editorial, and live experiences. Commercially, Purcell’s leadership returned the business to profitability. FY25 year-to-date revenue is up 12%, average deal size climbed 4.7%, and average brief value rose 15.4%, all without outside capital or debt. The team has grown from nine to 16. Little wonder then, Man of Many has been recognised with multiple gongs in Australia.

Beyond the business, Purcell contributes to the wider media ecosystem as a founding member of the Digital Publishers Alliance, plays jury on industry awards, and runs a fortnightly AI and audience behaviour thought-leadership newsletter, Digital Media Digest. Philanthropy is equally central: he has slept rough in support of the Vinnies CEO Sleepout, supported Waves of Wellness surf-therapy programmes, and contributed to mental health and sustainability initiatives, proving that commercial success and social impact can thrive together.