Text 100 was founded in 1981 by two very different people. For 18 years Mark Adams has been the group's public face, while Tom Lewis has remained in the shadows. Adams is the one with that indefinable PR touch, the outgoing charismatic half of the partnership, whose job it has been to woo and counsel the clients. Lewis gave up consulting two years after the agency was founded, and has concentrated ever since on managing its growth.

In the run-up to Text 100 Group's floatation last month, the long established dynamic between its founders was reversed. This summer Adams, who did not want to be a plc director stepped down from the board. Meanwhile, Lewis, as chairman, has taken Text from Ofex on to the London Stock Exchange and presided over one of the market's most successful PR business listings. Text's shares were valued at 30p when it joined Ofex in March 1997; they reached £5.40 last month.

'I've suddenly sort of popped out of the woodwork, if you like, because Text 100 is now the size where I can start to make some exciting things happen,' says Lewis. He seems to be blinking a little in the limelight. Despite his unashamedly eccentric get-up - he has for years paired his suits with a collection of 25 matching bow-ties and braces - he is reserved and camera shy (hence the more sober image above). Despite a passion for politics which led him to campaign actively for the Conservatives, he claims to have few interests outside work. One colleague describes him as focused and intelligent, but aloof.

Lewis studied German and French at Southampton University before joining Associated Newspapers in 1979 to sell advertising. In 1980 he joined Interco Business Consultants, an agency run by Chris Codrington, whom Lewis describes as the father of technology PR.

He met Adams at Interco - when he interviewed him for a job. With a few important things in common - German mothers and the desire to build a Europe-wide technology PR business - the two decided to join forces and strike out on their own. They pooled what remained of their last month's salaries, about £450 and got going.

Lewis recalls: 'Text was as humble a start-up as they come. We had nothing. We had a round table in the front room of a house in Raleigh Road, Richmond, we had no business on day one, we had no money, we didn't even have a typewriter.'

Adams' father was a salesman for IBM, which at the time was manufacturing electronic typewriters. He would deliver a machine to Raleigh Road late in the evening, leaving it for the two entrepreneurs to type away at furiously until the next morning, when it would be carted off to show a client.

Lewis is keen to emphasise the agency's humble beginnings, because he has grown Text to its current £23 million turnover organically. Apart from its initial £450 cash injection, the agency has never had more than a bank overdraft to fund its expansion. Lewis has always shied away from acquisitions, seeing them as too risky.

He prefers to use his money to motivate staff. About 13 per cent of Text's shares belong to employees. He is particularly keen on what he calls the concept of dignity for senior staff. 'Young people want parties and cars, and people in their thirties and forties want financial security for children, roofs over their heads; a lot of our industry still doesn't provide that.'

Text staff also play a big part in its growth. Susan Grant, who left eight years ago to co-found technology agency Grant Butler Coomber (GBC), says Text gave her the experience she needed to run her own business. 'Both Mark and Tom are great at being hands-off managers,' she says. Lewis encourages consultants to launch their own businesses under the group's umbrella. August.One Communications, Bite, Joe Public Relations, Evus, Extra PR in Germany and Brand X, a web marketing business have all been launched since 1995.

Lewis is unusual in that most of the great agencies have been founded or are headed by star practitioners. His interest has been in creating a high worth business. Text began its international expansion in 1989, and is now one of the world's three largest technology agencies. A mark of his success is that Hill Samuel, Schroder's and Gartmore were among 28 institutional investors queuing to buy its shares when it launched on the LSE.

Today there are only three genuinely international PR networks originating in the UK - Shandwick, Citigate and Text. Perhaps this is because PR is still regarded as a lifestyle rather than a money making industry in the UK. But as Lewis the businessman takes over from Adams the PR man as the public face of Text, the groups success may convince other agency founders to aim a little higher.

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