ABOUT
 

Working in agencies such as Ogilvy, Wunderman and Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide I’ve absorbed wise words from many outrageously talented people during my career. They helped hone my ability to craft persuasive, engaging customer communications.

 

My copy background has given me a breadth and depth of channel experience within the CRM sector. This has allowed me to develop a clear understanding of how people respond to each one and how the use of subliminal triggers can change their behaviour.

As a Creative Director, I have a reputation for building effective, fruitful partnerships with key stakeholders and managing client relationships thoughtfully and capably. Confident and calm, I thrive under pressure and understand quickly what needs to be achieved. I also firmly believe leading by example delivers a superior creative product and results. I am not one to shy away from getting involved in the hands-on aspects of a project.

 

For creativity to thrive, I recognise the importance of having a collaborative working environment where everyone feels valued and motivated. As a creative leader, I provide clear direction and support to foster a culture of creative ambition and inclusivity especially to junior members. Through encouragement and inspiration, I actively encourage disruptive thinking that generates unexpected ideas, new solutions and embraces emerging technologies. This approach is key to delivering brand-defining creative products and maintaining executional excellence.

 

Managing at board level in both global networks and independent shops has also given me a unique perspective on making the most of the fast-paced digitally powered economy for both clients and agencies. This experience has proven invaluable in helping me consistently achieve the creative objectives, alongside strategic and financial goals, for every agency that I’ve been part of.

CAREER SUMMARY

Freelance
Creative Director | Copywriter | Consultant    Feb 2019 – present
 

Recent experiences

Engaged by an employee communication agency to support its partner – a global leader in IT digital transformation – reinvent the employee and employer experience for UK’s largest work-based pension. As part of the leadership team I helped:
 

• Oversee the creation of communications that would be sent to 10M members and nearly 900,000 employers across the country

• Set up a production communication team – SMEs, writers, designers and PMs – to deliver ‘comms at scale’

• Played a key role in redesigning the entire retirement journey for multiple cohorts, seamlessly blending on and offline communications

• Co-designed and implemented the creative product delivery process to meet the agreed brand, quality assurance and compliance requirements
   

Presently part of a boutique marketing consultancy helping both start-ups and established bioscience businesses develop their brands and marketing capabilities. Our clients include:
 

• A CRO and protein analysis lab that helps accelerate drug development through impurity analysis and analytical protein characterisation services based on mass spectrometry

• A bioproduction platform that gathers the best of plants and usual biomanufacturing in fully controlled, affordable, scalable, sustainable and animal/virus-free bioprocesses

• One of Europe’s largest CDMO’s offering bespoke bioproduction journeys for innovators to achieve successful market entry for their viral vector or RNA therapeutics

 

Other projects
 

• Copywriting consultant for a tech start-up funded by one of the world's largest automotive groups helping define the company's values framework alongside the writing of core brand communication asset

• Collaborated with a marketing consultancy to deliver a cervical cancer vaccination campaign for girls aged 9-14 (sponsored by UNICEF and Gavi, implemented by the global charity Girl Effect)

• Creative strategist and writer for one of the UK’s leading B2B experiential agencies – clients include
    HSBC, Canon, Intel and VMware

• Mentoring the Creative Director of a leading employee communications agency to help develop a
  robust creative structure that will facilitate the agency’s ambitious global growth targets

KHWS, London

Creative Director  April 2017 – Jan 2019

 

Board member of an integrated agency of 90+ people, managing, inspiring, and motivating the creative department of eight. Billing nearly £8M, the agency has a strong B2B heritage in both the energy and technology sectors.

Achievements:

• Repositioned the agency through the development of a proprietary planning model that makes

  behavioural science led marketing accessible for brands

• Defined a creative vision that aligned with the agency’s overall commercial strategy

• Raised the creative ambition of the agency by making its new behavioural-led proposition relevant to clients

• Played a key role in new business, bringing greater clarity to the agency’s new proposition and purpose

• Embedded heuristics into KHWS culture by redefining the agency’s founding values

• Created a development framework for the agency that now drives its commercial, creative and people growth through smart decision making

• Led the drive to create a more entrepreneurial spirit and pro-active way of working across the agency

• In collaboration with the Creative Services Lead, developed and successfully implemented a more effective scoping, scheduling and resource planning process for creative workflow

• In partnership with HR, standardised job descriptions for each creative discipline and developed personal performance plans for each member of the creative department 

• Led numerous pitches, winning three back-to-back

 

Key responsibilities:

• Managed the department’s productivity and financial performance

• Ensured all conceptual, design and artwork met the highest standards alongside managerial oversight of the multimedia and motion graphic disciplines

• Alongside Creative Services built productive business relationships with clients that delivered effective, inspiring creative work

• Defined and managed the agency’s creative expectations for each client alongside the strategic and financial goals

• Setting the highest creative standards during the project scoping phase

 

Freelance

Creative Director | Copywriter | Consultant  Oct 2015 – March 2017

Partnered with a senior Art Director as a freelance integrated creative team in numerous agencies.

In addition:
 

• Acted as a creative consultant to a major UK utility company helping their B2B marketing team raise the quality of their creative output

• Helped an innovation company develop effective strategies to launch and drive sales of their household products

 

WDMP, London

Creative Director   Jul 13 – Sept 15

Board member of independent integrated agency (primarily CRM) of 40 people. Annual turnover of
£2.2M across a range of sectors.

 

Achievements:

• Restructured and grew the creative department from 3 to 12 employees in 18 months to reflect the changing needs of the client base and to raise creative standards

• Oversaw the output of high-volume financial client Tesco Bank across both owned and paid for media channels

• Alongside Client Services Director and Planning Director, managed and successfully won seven pitches (50% win rate)

• Achieved highest level of nominations for the agency in five years at the MAA BEST Awards 2015

 

OgilvyAction, London

Creative Director  Dec 11 –  Jun 13

Head of Copy  Nov 09 – Nov 11

Board member of the brand activation arm of the Ogilvy Group in London with over 200 people working in shopper, trade, experiential and promotional marketing. As joint Creative Director managed a creative department of over 50 people.

 

Woo Communications, London (The ENGINE Group)

Head of Copy  May 08 –  Oct 09

 

Arc Worldwide, London

Creative  Partner  Oct 05 – Apr 08

Senior Copywriter  May 02 –  Sept 05

 

Harrison Troughton Wunderman, London

Copywriter  May  00 – Apr 02

 

OgilvyOne Worldwide, London

Copywriter  Nov 97 –  Apr 00

 

Cogent Elliott, London and Birmingham

Copywriter  Jul 95 – Oct 97

 

SELECTION OF AWARDS

As Creative Director:

MAA Best Awards 2016

Nominated: Best Effectiveness, Lansinoh

DMA Awards 2015

Gold – Best Customer Journey Wyevale Garden Centres

Chip Shop Awards 2015

Highly Commended - Best press ad without a headline, CafePod

MAA BEST Awards 2015

Nominated - Best Direct Marketing Campaign, Monarch

Nominated - Best Creative Direct Marketing, Monarch

Nominated - Best Business to Business, Freeview

 

Travel Marketing Awards 2015

Gold - Best Use of Multi-Channel and Best Direct Marketing

EDUCATION

Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education Sept 91 – Jun 93

HND Advertising

REFERENCES

Available on request