Jon is operationally responsible for the integrated DDB UK group in London including DDB, Tribal DDB (digital) and Touch DDB (brand activation).

His role is to re-invent a sustainable and profitable integrated business model for the future and lead the change management programme bringing 3 specialist agencies together to operate as one for the client.

He is also the CEO of Gutenberg Networks in the UK, DDB Worldwide’s specialist production division working with large, global clients to de-couple and consolidate their production work and address the growing pressure from procurement to deliver better, faster, cheaper implementation of communication activities.

In his free time Jon likes to go to church and help the aged within his local community.

2 August 2011

Jonathan has a wealth of advertising experience, having spent twenty years (and counting) in the industry. He has worked at WCRS, Publicis and Saatchi and Saatchi, and also ran his own branded entertainment consultancy for two years. He has spent the last 4 years at DDB running Volkswagen UK, encompassing everything from website build to retailer comms. His automobile experience doesn’t end there; Jonathan has worked on BMW, the launch of MINI, the Papa Nicole campaign for Renault, and even Lotus. Jonathan’s is The Head of Account Management at DDB London.

15 July 2011

 Tom leads Tribal DDB London as Managing Director and is a member of the DDB UK Executive Board. He oversees client partners, the work and the long term business strategy of the agency.

Tom’s journey in digital began a decade ago at Billco Interactive. He joined Tribal DDB London in 2002 where he has worked on a large portfolio of local and international clients including Sony, Exxon and Barclaycard. His experience ranges from managing the delivery of an early online dating website through to award-winning interactive TV ads for Volkswagen. In 2009 Tom worked closely with Hasbro, directing the business development of key projects including Monopoly City Streets.

As Business Director on Tribal’s flagship Volkswagen account, Tom oversaw the work and long term digital strategy for Volkswagen UK, heading the team that delivered the best in class Volkswagen UK platform in 2008.

Prior to joining Tribal DDB London Tom was the founding partner of a London based record label and music publishing company. Gaining an early insight in to the potential of digital, Tom developed the business strategy which led these companies successfully into the digital space.

Tom’s experience of business management combined with his digital marketing expertise make him ideally placed to lead the talented team at Tribal DDB London.

14 July 2011

Nick has been with us for 23 years and became Chief Client Officer of DDB London in 2006.

After an earnest early stint of pulling pints, stacking shelves and delivering milk, he started his advertising career with DMB&B London in 1982, initially buying TV time before moving up to account management working on Mars and Pedigree Pet foods.

In 1984 he swapped confectionary and Whiskas for Peugeot cars and Seagrams at Havas Dentsu H.C.K. There he produced the Peugeot 405 'Fields of Love' commercial before joining DDB London in 1987 and making VW Polo 'Changes' - two of the most recalled car adverts of all time.

Nick was elected board member at BMP DDB in 1990 and became Vice President of DDB Tokyo in 1993, responsible for building the DDB office in Japan and managing international accounts across the Asia Pacific region. In 1996, Nick relocated back to London to become Worldwide Director for Volkswagen.

In 2000 he was promoted to the position of Managing Director Worldwide Accounts Europe, responsible for all multinational accounts across region Europe and in 2001 was elected onto the DDB Worldwide board.

Now as Chief Client Officer of DDB London, Nick is responsible for business growth, client satisfaction and agency management.

Key clients, past and present, Nick has managed include:

• Peugeot
• Seagram’s
• Volkswagen
• Nationwide Building Society
• IG
• Tourism Australia
• Kwik Fit
• Virgin Media
• Unilever

Outside of work Nick is happily married with two young boys and when not on family duty, can often be seen clambering up muddy banks in the early hours fishing for trout. Other hobbies include motorsports, art, great food, tennis or anything with a racquet or club!

3 August 2011

Jeremy joined DDB (formerly BMP DDB) in 1990 from Bates Dorland as a copywriter, winning awards for his work on VW, Budweiser, Sony, American Airlines and Optrex. In 1996 he was promoted to the board and made a Director of Creativity, overseeing the highly awarded affordability campaign for Volkswagen, which helped propel the agency to the top of the Gunn Report in its inaugural year.

He became Creative Director in 2002, helping DDB London achieve success at the 2003/4 Campaign Press Awards, Campaign Poster Awards and Creative Circle, as well as Cannes Agency of the Year runner up in both 2004 and 2005 and British Television Agency of the Year in 2006.

Besides winning us lots of lovely awards, Jeremy has also been on every major awards jury going, including D&AD, Cannes, Clio and recently chairing the jury at the British Television Awards. In 2005 he was promoted to Executive Creative Director and in 2009 DDB, once again, was the most awarded UK agency in the Gunn Report.

1 August 2011

Stephen was interested in advertising from his early teens, strongly identifying with the hopelessly earnest young man trying to impress the girl in the BMP Pepsi ‘Lipsmacking’ ad.

After graduating from City University in London with an economics degree, he started as grad trainee at Nestlé in 1980, working on Nescafé. He started his advertising career in 1982 at Lintas and then worked at a small DDB breakaway called Waldron Allen Henry and Thompson. He went on to join Leo Burnett as Deputy Managing Director and Head of Account Management, winning the Mercedes-Benz car account, before becoming CEO at WCRS from 1999 to 2006.

Throughout his agency career, Stephen looked enviously at the outstanding creative work emanating from Bishop's Bridge Road. And in his role as President of the IPA from 2003 to 2005, he saw DDB’s dominance of the Effectiveness Awards and developed a new regard for the agency’s ability to produce excellent business results.

In January 2007, Stephen realised a long-held ambition to work for the agency, when he joined us as Chairman and CEO. Twenty five years is a long time to wait, but from his point of view it’s been worth it and he sees it as the cherry on the career cake.

Stephen is a great supporter of the DDB Running Club – “a terrific group of people who try to go out and run together twice a week” – and also enjoys riding, tennis and spending as much time with his family as possible.

20 December 2011

Jeremy has been helping clients to deliver digital communications since the late ‘90s. He joined DDB in late 2011 after being at McCann Worldgroup for 7 years, where he was Head of Project Management at its digital arm MRM.  He had originally started out in the McCann network at Zentropy Partners, which was twice-named Digital Agency of the Year in the UK. Progressing to Program Director on the Intel account, he oversaw the delivery of the global ITM3 interactive platform which won numerous awards including Intel’s first global digital innovation award. Other clients have included the BBC, NatWest, Microsoft, J&J, Vodafone, Vauxhall and the United Nations. Jeremy’s university degree was in Information Systems, and he is PRINCE2 practitioner certified. He originally hails from Cape Town, but has been in London for the last 12 years as he prefers the weather of course. And he would say his favourite hobby is without a doubt his son Jake. 

13 December 2011

Rachael’s background is truly media neutral; she started out in ATL 14 years ago and has covered off Direct Marketing and Digital in the years since - working with agencies such as TBWA, GGT and Claydon Heeley.

Initially joining Tribal DDB back in 2008 as a Business Director on the Guinness Global and Guardian and Observer digital accounts, Rachael now works on a mixture of both digital and non-digital clients, is a key member of the digital Operations Team and is Deputy Head of Account Handling across DDB UK.

She’s an amateur science geek, and currently studying for a physics degree in her spare time. 

13 December 2011

Chris is Head of User Experience at Tribal DDB London. He introduced usability and user-centred design principles to Tribal over 12 years ago and remains one of its strongest supporters.  Having trained in classical graphic design and interaction design as well as being a proficient self-taught programmer, Chris has spent many years designing and refining Tribal’s working practices and bridging the designer - developer gap.

Chris has been working with Flex since the launch of Flex 2 in 2006 and has developed a number of Flex applications including the multi-award winning Volkswagen.co.uk website in 2008. He leads the Flex development and User Experience teams responsible for a vast range of UK and global accounts including Volkswagen, Guinness, Philips and Hasbro.

Chris is a great believer in solid development standards, design patterns (both as a designer and developer) and in never being satisfied with your work. He is currently entering the world of iPhone development.

13 December 2011

Howard joined DDB UK in 2008.  Since joining DDB UK, Howard has worked across Flora, Virgin and Unilever ice-cream accounts.

Howard began his career at Laing Henry in 1990, working as a copywriter on the Del Monte corporate business, United Biscuits corporate account and Frizzell Insurance and was soon hired by Saatchi & Saatchi.  He went on to become a Creative Director and board member there during his 13-year stay.  Working on the UK launch of T-Mobile, the Royal Bank of Scotland, the British Army, Proctor & Gamble, Toyota, Sony, Carlsberg, Visa, British Airways, Lexus, General Mills and Monster.com, Howard helped Saatchi’s to become Agency of the Year at Cannes twice. In his final year he created the NSPCC “Cartoon” TV spot, which became the most awarded commercial of that year.

In 2003 Howard was lured to Publicis by David Droga and became Executive Creative Director of Publicis New York.  During his three-year tenure the agency won more awards than ever before in its history. It was the most awarded New York agency of 2004 and won two Gold Effectiveness awards for Heineken and TBS Superstation. Howard was reunited with the T-Mobile account there, helped launch the UBS global “You and Us” corporate campaign and also oversaw work on Siemens, Ernst & Young, Coca Cola, MTV, Allied Domecq and L’Oreal.

Returning to London in 2006, Howard joined JWT as a Global Creative Director. Principally responsible for the Vodafone business Howard oversaw their worldwide rebranding and the launch of the “Make the most of now” positioning and participated in many successful local pitches for the brand including in Egypt, Netherlands and Spain. He also worked on a number of the network’s international clients including, Nestle, Kellogg’s, Shell, Unilever and Kraft.

1 August 2011

Guy studied at Leeds College of Art and Design before starting his career in a small agency in Leeds.

He went on to work at a number of award winning agencies where he honed his skills in a range of disciplines including sales promotion, digital, advertising and experiential. This included Wunderman, George Patterson Bates (Sydney), Saatchi and Saatchi and JWT. With over 20 years in the industry, Guy has worked on a huge range of brands in different sectors, from automobile to charity to FMCG, and everything in between.

He joined DDB in 2007 as Executive Creative Director of Touch DDB with a brief to drive integration across more channels. During this time he has headed up projects for Tourism Australia, Esso, The FT, Right Guard, Getty Images, Volkswagen, Changing Faces and Sellotape. Winning close to 30 awards for effectiveness.

In 2010 Guy helped win the £10 million Virgin Media account for DDB UK,  which went on to win awards for best Brand Building.

Outside of work Guy divides his time attempting to coach his daughters at tennis and his other love film.

31 July 2011

Lucy read History at Oxford, and casting around for something more interesting and creative to do than working in the City, she joined what was then called BMP as a graduate trainee planner in 1993.

Since then, she’s become very attached to glamorous Paddington and has worked on pretty much all of the agency’s business, including Vodafone, Barclaycard, the Meat and Livestock Commission, Tropicana, Marmite, Knorr, Budweiser, London Transport, the COI, the Guardian and the Financial Times. 

In 2002, she was made head of the planning department and subsequently DDB won the title of ‘IPA Effectiveness Agency of the Year’ a record breaking three times in a row.

She has run innumerable training courses for DDB and the IPA, as well as writing articles, essays and DDB Yellow Papers.  She was a Campaign Face to Watch and has frequently featured at the top or near the top of Campaign’s top 10 planners in the UK.

She’s been part of many winning pitch teams and, today, heads up the planning on our global Unilever business – Flora, Marmite and Ice Cream - as well as overseeing Virgin Media, FT and COI business.

Lucy is now Executive Strategy Director for the London Office and oversees what must be one of the largest and most diverse strategy departments in the world – with strategists from traditional brand and advertising planning, digital and direct strategy, social and comms planning, data, research and econometrics. She also co-chairs DDB’s global Planning Futures Group and sits on DDB’s global executive committee. 

In 2010, she presented a new positioning – Social Creativity – for the network.  After that, she had a 6 month break to have a baby, but now she’s back with a vengeance.

29 July 2011

Managing Partner who joined DDB in 2010. Currently running the Virgin Media business. Xav started his career as a Product Manager/Buyer at Boots.

Since 1996, he has worked across advertising, digital, direct and retail disciplines at agencies including BBH, JWT, Claydon Heeley, Archibald Ingall Stretton and Wunderman.

In particular, Xav has a wealth of experience in telecoms (3, O2, Vodafone, One2One and now Virgin Media) and automotive (Audi, Ford and Skoda).

Married with 3 daughters, he is a pathologically optimistic Crystal Palace fan (one of many afflictions) and obsessively collects music & books.

14 July 2011

Drew has spent almost 15 years in digital, helping create and deliver strategy for great brands like Coca-Cola, Nintendo and eBay. With a Fine Art degree tucked under the duvet and a background in the music and design industries, Drew can often be found halfway between Creative and Planning departments.

After living in Japan for a year straight out of University, Drew’s first job was as creative assistant to Brian Eno, Working with artists like Bowie, U2, Elvis Costello and Laurie Anderson in both recording studios and installation spaces. It was down hill all the way from there, learning how to plan, program, design and sell interactive things in an emerging industry later to be known as digital advertising.

He can now be found running DDB’s digital strategy arm, mostly drawing Venn diagrams and things with arrows attached to them, this is juggled in between married life with three kids, an unhealthy passion for anything with an engine and a disturbing addiction to extreme DIY.

13 July 2011

Matt has recently moved from being Technical Director of Tribal DDB London to head up the new Creative Technology department across DDB UK, further enabling the combination of Technology and Creativity.

Matt began his digital career as a developer at DDB way back in 1998, since then he has worked on local and international clients including Volkswagen, Virgin Media, Hasbro, Philips, Guinness, Unilever and Exxon. Matt is proud of his team and their multi award-winning work and ideas, most note worthy of late are Bud Ice Cold Index, Monopoly City Streets, Guinness RFID and the Volkswagen UK website.

Matt has a huge amount of energy to give to work and learning the latest technologies, outside of work that energy is directed at a wide range of sports and a passion for cooking.

13 July 2011

Allan has been with DDB/Tribal DDB since the beginning of 2010 and leads all the social media programmes, consumer PR integration and word of mouth campaigns for a wide variety of clients including Volkswagen, Virgin Media, Diageo, Nestle and Mars.

Allan joined DDB/Tribal DDB  from News Corp where he was International Consumer Communications Director for Fox Interactive Media (MySpace, IGN, Rotten Tomatoes) and has over 12 years experience of working in comms and PR roles both in house and agency side for brands including Motorola, Philips and BlackBerry.

In addition to his role at DDB, Allan can be found listening to weird noisy music, geeking out over comics and skateboards and editing  www.slamxhype.com, one of the original and most influential global street fashion and art blogs.

13 July 2011

Les graduated from Edinburgh University with an M. Phil. in Artificial Intelligence, focusing on computer modelling. Then in 1987 he just popped into the agency to do three days' analytical work as a favour for a friend. And he liked it so much that 21 years later, he’s still here.

Over the years, Les has worked for a wide range of clients, including Unilever, Heinz, Nestlé, Volkswagen, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, Sony, AXA, and Anheuser Busch. As head of our in-house econometrics consultancy, DDB Matrix, Les has played a key part in establishing DDB’s reputation for effectiveness, having won more IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards than anyone else in the history of the competition.

He has served on the IPA’s Value of Advertising Committee since 2001, was elected an Honorary Fellow of the IPA in 2004 and was Convenor of Judges for the IPA Awards in 2005. In 2007 he also successfully published his book “Marketing in the era of accountability”. Yet, despite this impressive list of achievements, he claims that the highlight of his career was getting invited to the agency’s Secretarial Awayday. Twice.

12 July 2011

Shorful Islam is Head of Data at DDB UK. After completing his PhD in Psychology he spent the last decade working across the public and private sector in the area of data and analytics. Before joining DDB UK, Shorful worked at ITV in the Online and On Demand department as Head of Business Information and Customer Data Strategy. His spare time is taken up mainly by his 2 children, but when he can Shorful enjoys reading and playing football.

11 July 2011

After leaving university in 1977, Shirley joined one of the Big 5 Accountancy firms (Ernst & Young) and qualified as a Chartered Accountant.  Unbelievably she stayed on in Audit for 7 years, up to manager level, before taking the plunge and joining a Marketing Consultancy Company which was one of her clients, as Finance Director. That company was bought by BMP Plc in 1986, and Shirley moved into the Group Company, where she stayed, until the acquisition of BMP by DDB in 1989.

She is one of the longest serving Omnicom Finance Directors and served on the IPA Finance Committee for 11 years.

On the rare moments when she isn’t working, she spends time with her family, including trying to get back to Northumberland as much as possible.

10 July 2011

Managing Partner who joined DDB in 1991, with 30 years' experience in advertising. Currently  running the ExxonMobil business for  Europe & Africa. Working for the finest strategic agency in town,  20 years later it still feels exciting and rewarding. 

10 July 2011

Anna started at BMP DDB as a graduate trainee far too long ago to mention and apart from a year out studying for an MA has been at DDB ever since. She started in account management, moved into planning where she was a Strategy Director and then onto head of account management before taking her current role of managing partner with responsibility for Unilever, Tropicana and the Financial Times.

10 July 2011

Simon has over eleven years of creative industry experience. Before joining Tribal permanently in 2007, he operated as a freelance consultant, working with brands including KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Sensodyne, Star Alliance and Getty Images.

At Tribal he has created digital campaigns for Volkswagen, Philips, The Guardian and Hasbro. In 2009 he was awarded DDB’s Webster Award for ‘outstanding creative contribution’, and in 2010 his online game Monopoly City Streets received major awards in almost every single industry forum. 2011 saw Simon promoted to the dual role of Head of Creative for Tribal DDB and Digital Creative Director for DDB UK.

Coming from a print graphic design background, he has no idea how he ended up a digital copywriter, game-designer and art director. He's not complaining.

9 July 2011

Victoria was happily enjoying being a student at Bristol university studying Geography when she realised that in 3 months she’d be finished and then what....what do you do with a Geography degree? Be a weather girl?

Unfortunately, the Met office wasn’t meant to be but a place on the Grad scheme at Brann Worldwide (Global Direct Marketing Agency) came calling. Great friends, great learnings and a passion for the creative product came from that and from there she went on to join M&C Saatchi group initially as part of LIDA (Direct Marketing Arm) but eventually running a large integrated piece of business across the group. She has been following an integrated path ever since. She spent 5 years at Partners Andrews Aldridge as Head of Account Management and from there moved into Bishops Bridge Road. Initially working as MD of Touch DDB and now in the brave new world of DDB UK as a Managing Partner across a number of key clients.

Victoria likes England when its sunny, funny people & her little man Will. She dislikes Brits who are negative about the 2012 Olympics.

5 May 2011