Alex Myers founded Manifest just over a decade ago. In 2021, he led Manifest’s growth across three areas: people, planet and profit. Fees grew by over 50%, driven by a mixture of strategic projects, including expanding existing briefs into multiple creative disciplines, and attracting new clients through an evolved proposition. Myers works with brands including Samsung, Virgin and Pernod Ricard.
With the opening of Manifest Melbourne, the agency’s first studio in the southern hemisphere, Myers realised his long-term strategy to create a 24-hour creative service, with other studios located in London, Manchester, New York and Stockholm.
The agency’s global team also more than doubled, while the business embarked on a corporate reporting structure that augments typical revenue and profit targets with gender and ethnicity pay gaps, CO2 balance, development investment per head and campaign impact. This structure not only makes leadership teams in every Manifest studio accountable for improvements in people, planet and profit; it also builds a decision-matrix whereby actions that support one field can only be taken if there is no detrimental impact on the others.
Myers has also driven the diversity agenda, building an all-female managing partner team across the group, bucking the trend for male-dominated agency boardrooms. He is an influential industry figure, contributing to numerous industry guides and speaking to universities and schools about creativity.
Judges said that Myers had shown "impressive creative delivery and great delivery on the omni-channel data analytics framework".
Shortlisted:
Aaron Starkman, chief creative officer, Rethink, Canada
Andrew Dimitriou, chief executive officer, VMLY&R EMEA, UK
Anish Daryani, founder and president director, M&C Saatchi Indonesia, Indonesia
Burcu Özdemir, CEO, TBWA\İstanbul, Turkey
Chris Hirst, global CEO, Havas, United Kingdom
Jonathan Emmins, founder and global CEO, Amplify, UK
Zak Mroueh, chief creative officer and founder, Zulu Alpha Kilo, Canada
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