I love a challenge, me.
My last role was Regional CCO of Ogilvy ANZ. It was all-consuming and I loved it.
Home was Auckland. Work was mainly Sydney and Melbourne with a dash of Aotearoa. It was a little discombobulating at first but I got into it after a while. I managed three and a half years. Time flies when you're on a mission.
Things I loved about Ogilvy: The name. The history. The global creative network. The ambition of its clients. The trust of its clients. The earned media we created with vastly different-shaped ideas for big brands like KFC, Dove and Coca-Cola. The creative team I attracted and developed across three quite different markets.
Things I didn't love about Ogilvy: WPP. They've run their race as a network.
Ogilvy’s creative output improved dramatically under my tenure on both sides of the Tasman. At least that’s what I heard a lot from people I respect in the industry.
Obvious signs. The reputation of the agency in a tough market grew. We won a truck load more awards: Gold Lions and every other shade many times over. Gold Clios. Golds at One Asia. D&AD pencils. One Show pencils. Gold AWARD pencils. Just as importantly, Ogilvy Melbourne won Asia Pacific Effectiveness Agency of the year last year for the Matildas campaign.
That was a proud day.
I’ve attracted really good talent.
I hired great ECD’s, all of them intentionally new to the role. I love to hire creatives who have a point to prove. Hilary Badger in Melbourne transformed the agency. Max McKeon, new to Sydney, is killing it. Kristal Knight smashed it in Auckland. Bridget Jung is the undisputed heavyweight of PR in Sydney. Nina East, the maestro of Health. Yes, they’re all women, except Max. Proud of that too.
I have a pet passion that I created with Fran Clayton, our Regional CSO. It's something we call Return on Creativity. Or ROC. We believe that ROI is too linear a measure of a brand’s success. It’s been around since 1914 for Chrissake. The real gains are in ideas that impact culture. So using Ogilvy’s Impact Index and working with WARC, we found a way to measure the impact of creativity that our clients, one by one, all adopted. A shared language about how clients and agencies critique ideas is important if you want them to go the journey with you. A tool that manages this never existed before. Proper trailblazing stuff. For Ogilvy, at least.
As an ECD and, as of the last 12 years, a CCO I have succeeded in making good agencies great. Through the work, primarily. But great work only comes when you have the right people, the right culture and have fun. I’m passionate about building that environment wherever I’ve been.
With my experience, I feel I can help in ways that a spectacularly ageist industry is only starting to realise is important. A good dose of wisdom and heaps of experience. Grown up conversations with clients. Stuff that really matters right now, as advertising eats itself with AI. Somebody’s got to sell the dream amongst this race to the bottom we find ourselves in.
I don’t have a ‘house style’. Of course, I adore storytelling – I’m a writer – and so the allure of a 60’ TV ad will always be there for me. It’s what got me into the business in the first place. But now I take great delight in telling a story in 6 seconds too. It is possible, believe me. I love the challenges and opportunities of this proliferation of media we find ourselves in now. I love AI. Sure it will take lots of jobs. It needs to. Our business is all about change. The key is to get ahead of AI. Learn to use it smartly, not be afraid of it.
Showing off.
Let’s get the award stuff out of the way.
I have won lots of local and international awards, personally as a writer at Colenso BBDO and then as ECD and for the last 12 years as a CCO. I don’t keep a tally because I always found doing so a little tragic. And as Cannes has become more and more of a circle jerk, I see it as a necessary evil rather than the pinnacle of creative ability. Suffice to say, I have won all the big ones like D&AD pencils, One Show, Cannes and Clio. All the regional ones like Adfest and Spikes. And all the local ones like AWARD and Axis. In all the shades: Gold, Silver and Bronze. Many times over. And Grand Prix too. Blah, blah, blah.
A few career highlights.
I won Campaign Asia Creative of the Year when I was at DDB New Zealand for Australasia.
I also won Campaign Brief Agency of the Year five years in a row at DDB. And Agency of the Year at Spikes, AWARD and Axis.
I am currently ranked number 2 ECD in the world on the bestadsontv rankings over the last ten years.
I was behind the most awarded mobile campaign in the world at DDB Sydney, #comeonin for Sydney Opera House.
I had three ads banned in New Zealand that all went on to get reinstated on air and go on to win ‘Favourite ad of the Year’ by populist consumer watchdog show, ‘Fair Go’. Very much the peoples’ vote. I love that. We won the backyard barbecue test.
I gave a talk last year at SXSW about Return on Creativity to a packed house. In truth because Tika Waititi was on stage after me.
Listening to Gruen Transfer a few months back wax lyrical about KFC as “the best case-study for building brand and selling product in the last ten years in Australia”.
Basically, what I’m saying is I’m awesome.
And so are you for getting to the end of this extraordinary piece of self-aggrandisement.
I’ve got history.
01/2022 - 09/2025
Chief Creative Officer ANZ
Ogilivy | Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne
Reinvigorated the creative output of Ogilvy across the region.
Ran a combined creative department of 90 using borderless creativity to cast the right creatives for the right brief.
Put in new ECDs, coached them and their CDs to become better leaders.
Won an unprecedented amount of creative and effectiveness awards.
03/2020 - 01/2022
Global Chief Creative Officer
14 | Barcelona, Catalonia
Led end-to-end global campaign ideation and production for the SEAT car brand.
Oversaw, guided and coached a department of fifty in Barcelona.
Managed and mentored teams throughout the DDB European network who work on SEAT.
04/2017 - 03/2020
Chief Creative Officer
Saatchi & Saatchi | Auckland, New Zealand
Breathed new life into an old brand.
Revitalised the creative offering of Saatchi by bringing Publicis data smarts and CRM into creative.
Authored one of the most awarded films in 2020 at One Show and D&AD.
10/2016 - 01/2017
Managing Partner
Assignment | Auckland, New Zealand
Left a great job for a not so great job. So I pulled the plug after six months.
It was WPP’s answer at the time to a consultancy practice but it didn’t work because it wasn’t left alone to do its own thing. It got thrown together with other offices and lost its allure to clients. Fascinating learning experience though. C suite client interactions vastly upstream from the transactional relationships of agencies and clients. Unfortunately we just couldn’t make any money out of it.
05/2014 - 08/2016
Chief Creative Officer
DDB Sydney | Sydney, Australia
Complete transformation of the agency’s creative output starting with a massive cultural change.
Got rid of siloed creative departments (Tribal, Track etc) and had creatives, technologists, UX, CRM talent all sit at one big long table.
Planners joined too. One big mash up.
Redesigned the agency space and created more of a shared working environment.
Hired a raft of hungry ambitious juniors; technologists and multi talented creatives. Lit a big fire under the senior teams (metaphorically, speaking). Bad ones left. Ones who wanted to learn got better and got promoted into ‘Creative Partner’ roles. Emphasis on the word partner.
Result: The agency went from non starters to Australia’s most awarded agency in Cannes 2016.
Forced to leave as my wife was having cancer treatment in New Zealand and so I had been commuting between Australia and New Zealand for two years. Wasn’t tenable. Real shame. Loved that job.
04/2013 - 03/2014
Chief Creative Officer
TBWA New Zealand | Auckland, New Zealand
I went to TBWA after Lee Clow talked me into it over lunch in LA as I was there shooting a BBC campaign.
Had a strong year at awards shows. We cleaned up at Clios. Hired a great team.
Then I was offered the chance to work in Australia to transform a big agency and took it as I hadn’t worked there before.
01/2012 - 04/2013
Executive Creative Director
Rainey Kelly Y&R London | London, United Kingdom
My father was dying back in the UK so made a big call after the successes I had enjoyed at DDB NZ to move back.
Took a job at Rainey, Kelly because their client list was incredible and I hankered to work on the BBC,
who became my main client.
Loved the job. Had some big successes at D&AD. But then my father died, my wife and daughters were homesick for our adopted home in New Zealand and so we moved back a year later.
01/2007 - 12/2011
Group Executive Director
DDB New Zealand | Auckland, New Zealand
This was a big creative and cultural transformation job.
The agency doubled in size with new business wins. Creative output transformed vastly.
Won seven agency of the year titles.
Only New Zealand agency to ever win Campaign Brief Agency of the Year four years in a row.
(I actually won it six years if you count two years at Saatchi prior to DDB).
DDB became the best agency in New Zealand.
I won Campaign Asia Creative of the Year across Australia & New Zealand.|
But then my father in the UK got diagnosed with dementia and I had to leave all that behind.
08/2004 - 01/2007
Creative Director
Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand | Auckland, New Zealand
After eight years at Colenso I was ready for a change of scene.
Saatchi proved great. Built a wonderful relationship with my main client, Toyota.
We won agency of the year creatively and as a business too. We cleaned up at Cannes. I learned the subtle art of managing clients and how to run a creative department. It was a big time for me. I was ready to be an ECD. Then DDB came knocking...
10/1996 - 03/2004
Copywriter/Creative Director
Colenso BBDO | Auckland, New Zealand
I arrived fresh off the boat from the UK in my late twenties, married with two small kids.
Colenso was a big, fat lazy agency that did terrible ads.
I nearly got straight back on that boat. Glad I didn’t. A decent ECD took over, who was great at attracting talent.
I ended up working with another writer. On paper it was a terrible idea.
But we clicked and became their awards machine.
Colenso went from no hopers to a top ten agency in the Gunn Report. We won Agency of the Year titles galore.
I won my first serious awards at Cannes, One Show and D&AD. When my partner left, the next logical step was to become a CD.
So I moved to Saatchi.
10/1991 - 03/1996
Copywriter
McCann Erickson London | London, United Kingdom
My first proper job in advertising. Learned the art of writing.
Learned the art of craft.
Won my first Cannes Lion. A bronze as I recall.
02/1990 - 12/1991
Dogsbody
Anyone who’d have me | London, United Kingdom
So many people I worked for as a useless intern in London helped to set me up for success in later life.
I truly stood on the shoulders of some advertising giants who gave me my first break.
People like Paul Arden at Saatchi and Dave Trott at GGT for having me on his alternative.
´D&AD Failures Workshop´.
True legends.