More about speakers

Sam Phillips, Chief Marketing Officer and Managing Director, OMG Ethnic

Sam is CMO of Omnicom Media Group UK (OMD UK, MG OMD, M2M, PHD, Rocket plus Specialist Services such as Drum, Fuse and Annalect).  She is also MD of the award-winning OMG Ethnic (UK), heads up OMG UK’s Diversity programme and (globally) is Assistant Dean of Omnicom University, Omnicom’s talent leadership programme.  Sam is a big believer in putting back and is on the Development Board of RADA, a Trustee of ‘Adopt A Better Way’ and a member of WACL.   Sam was awarded the global ‘Women Leadership Achievement Award’ in early 2015.  She is married with 3 wonderful children.

Mark Lund, CEO,  McCann Worldgroup UK

As CEO of UK McCann Worldgroup Mark heads a 1,700 strong organisation made up of some of the UK’s best marketing services companies, with a footprint right across the country. His remit is help them come together to deliver total integration at scale in all aspects of business and reputation building.

Prior to joining McCann Mark helped co found two independent advertising businesses, one of which, DLKW, became a top 10 UK agency. He has also served as the chief executive of the COI, the government’s marketing and communications arm and behaviour change centre.

He has been Chairman of the Advertising Association and served on the councils of both the IPA and ISBA. He is currently the Chair of the AA’s Media Smart and Children’s Panel and sits on the AA council.

With Kate, he is the father of Oliver and Elspeth and lives in Oxfordshire.

Niall McKinney, CEO, The Knowledge Engineers

Niall started his career in brand management at P&G but was rapidly sucked into the dotcom boom, involved in the launch of an early social networking site in 2000. He was a Marketing Director at the age of 24 within Time Warner UK where he launched one of Europe’s biggest selling men’s magazine.

In 2006, he joined Travelocity Europe as CMO, and had a seat on the main board of this $2 billion turnover company. Niall founded The Knowledge Engineers in May 2007. The Knowledge Engineers delivers digital training for marketers, agencies and media owners that drives business results.

Ian Pearman, CEO, AMV BBDO

A graduate of Clare College, Cambridge and the Advanced Management Programme at Harvard Business School, Ian joined AMV BBDO as a trainee in 1996, and since then has worked on pretty much every one of the 88 brands that the agency works with. He joined the management team in 2005 as Managing Partner, was promoted to Managing Director in 2008, and CEO in 2010.

Since taking the helm of the agency, AMV has become the most creatively and strategically awarded agency in the UK, won the inaugural global Grand Prix for Creative Effectiveness at the Cannes Advertising Festival, and was ranked as the 17th "Best Company to Work For" in The Sunday Times annual survey. In that survey, Ian was personally ranked as the 4 ^th “Most Trusted” and the 6 ^th “Most Inspiring” leader amongst all of the UK mid-size companies that entered the survey.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos 2 years ago, Ian was one of 190 individuals nominated and honoured as a “Young Global Leader”. He will serve a five-year term working with the YGL Forum on a variety of projects.

He also serves as a trustee and Chairman of NABS, the media industry’s charity, is a trustee of The Media Trust, and more importantly, is one of the leaders (‘Baloo’) at his 8 year old son’s cub pack. He hopes to get promoted to Arkela if his knots improve.

Anneka Dew, Founder, PSR Initiative

Despite only being within the media industry for 2.5 years, Anneka has made significant impact both within Manning Gottlieb OMD and the industry as a whole, winning national and global awards.

After joining MG OMD as the agency’s inaugural PR & Marketing Manager, Anneka won PRCA’s In-House Professional of the Year Award 2014 in recognition of creating a department from scratch and bringing a reluctant MG OMD into the spotlight.

In the same year Anneka also co-founded an initiative that won the Cannes Chimera Award from 870 entries across 66 countries, and funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Her revolutionary idea, the Personal Social Responsibility initiative (PSR) aims to inspire behaviour change in millennials by recording individual acts of good. The PSR point system will be a differentiator between university candidates as a quantified personal statement. Piloting in September, Anneka and co-founder Jenny Zhao have been invited back to the Gates Foundation to pitch for up to $1m second round funding prior to scaling nationally in 2016.

Now working within MG OMD’s Planning Support team, Anneka is dedicated to ensuring excellence in planning throughout the agency, supporting the Client Team, Investment & Activation Teams and SBUs, from the development of media recommendations, to providing up to date insight and trends from the media landscape, and relevant ideas to bring campaigns to life. 

Paul Phillips, MD, AAR

The best job in the world? Quite possibly!

18 years as a consultant working with brand owners who take our counsel and support in striving to get the best from their agency partners.

Seeing the very best that agencies have to offer, led and staffed by super intelligent creative, articulate and entertaining people, both at home and on the international stage.

Coming into work looking forward to what might happen almost every working day.

Following 16 years in working in agencies I joined AAR in 1998, originally to set up the media consultancy.

Today I consult to clients across their creative agency requirements, commercial relationships and working practices with their agencies.

I also work with agencies helping them to get match fit to be the best they can, in the highly competitive and rewarding world of new business development and pitching.

Not bad really when you take a moment to think about it.

Debbie Klein, Chief Executive, Engine UK

Debbie began her agency career as a strategist, becoming Head of Planning at WCRS in 1999. Not content with leading on clients including BMW, MINI and Sky, she was a founding partner in the buyout of WCRS in 2004 that eventually led to the creation of the Engine Group.

She took charge of WCRS a year later, and ran the agency for three years before moving on to become Chief Executive of Engine UK in June 2008. During her time in the role she has welcomed a number of new companies into the group, with head count now numbering more than 850 in the UK alone.

Debbie is fiercely passionate about the role of women in the communications industry, and is a member and former president of WACL (Women in Advertising and Communications in London). She was named as one of Campaign’s AdLand Trailblazers in 2013 and the Drum’s Woman of the Year in 2014. In 2011 she was awarded Business Leader of the Year by The South African.

Russell Place, Managing Director, UM London

In an exciting, but challenging, communications landscape, Russell leads the UM London office and is responsible for ensuring the UM London product is continually evolving.

Previously as Chief Strategy Officer, he was a driving force in building the new agency structure and operating model, creating diversified services to meet future needs.

In his time at UM, Russell has managed a number of longstanding client relationships and overseen the creation of highly effective award winning work. He has also been pivotal in a number of successful new business pitches including, Burton’s Biscuit Co, Nickelodeon, Dairy Crest, General Mills, Rockstar Games and Gallo Family Vineyards.

His 25+ years of media experience gives him a holistic perspective of marketing communications and how they contribute to meeting a client’s business objectives.

Howard Kingston, Co-founder, CMO, Adludio

Howard is co-founder of Adludio ( www.adludio.com ), creators of next-generation mobile advertising. An active member of the UK start-up scene, he is a regular speaker in London TechCity and in the city’s digital marketing events. He was named in this year's 'Silicon 60' - a who's who of London's tech scene. Howard has a MBA from the University of Durham and a BA (1st class hons) in Marketing and Public Relations.  He advises the University of Durham on matters related to entrepreneurship and innovation education. Find Howard at:  startupremarkable.com  and @howardvk. ver. 

Peter Cowie Founding Partner, Oystercatchers

Peter is one of the Founding Partners at Oystercatchers and is the powerhouse behind Pitches and our international footprint.

Peter began his career in the time-honoured role of post boy at Ogilvy & Mather. Since then he has gained almost thirty years’ experience in the marketing and communications industry. He was a Founding Partner of revolutionary interactive TV service Two-Way TV, and was invited to join the start-up team of Sharepeople.com which brought share trading to a broader audience and was successfully sold to American Express. Prior to joining Oystercatchers, Peter spent five years with WPP where he was Managing Director of FITCHLive, a design business specialising in live events for blue-chip clients. He was Head of New Business at JWT and has also worked at Brunswick PR, WCRS, and AMV BBDO.

Peter, who is married with three children, likes to live life to the full. His passions range from rowing to cycling to fishing at his home in France

Michael Sugden, CEO, VCCP

Michael joined VCCP on its first day of business in 2002, becoming Managing Director in 2006 and CEO in 2012. In recent years VCCP has built itself a reputation for business transformation as evidenced by the likes of O2, comparethemarket.com and easyJet.

Michael started his career at Claydon Heeley before moving to HHCL. During his career he’s been privileged to work on brands such as O2, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Telefonica and British Gas amongst others. The proudest part of his career is being part of the team that has built VCCP to a 700 strong agency in 13 short years.

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