Working in South Africa for three years in the mid nineties changed my life and my career. I witnessed a country with divided, separate cultures come together to create one new South Africa. To see such dramatic social change happen first hand was life affirming stuff. It made one think anything is possible. You need to keep that belief if you’re going to create anything meaningful in this business.

In the 4 years preceding the launch of BETC London I was the Worldwide Chief Creative Officer for Philips. The high points were launching the first 21:9 Television with the online film Carousel. It was an Internet hit. Ashton Kutcher tweeted about it, 50 Cent and CSI copied it.

Following that up with an integrated campaign was an even bigger challenge. But with Parallel Lines we created not one but 6 films, all using the same dialogue. Budding filmmakers around the world then created a further 620 films (over 2,500 minutes of high quality content).

Matthew and I met when I was Joint Creative Director on Johnnie Walker. We wrote ‘Fish’, effectively re-launching the Keep Walking Campaign. We also wrote ‘Car’ for Levis USA and came up with ‘The Record’ – The concept for the Bee Gees all time greatest hits album.

Before that we worked on Volkswagen, Marmite and American Airlines to name a few. We created ‘Wedding’ (amongst many other ads) for the VW Surprisingly Ordinary Prices Campaign. We Wrote ‘Milk’ for Marmite and ‘Seats’ for American Airlines.

I began my career by winning my first job in a Young Copywriters Competition.

I’ve recently been struck by a speech I saw on TED. It is by Sir Ken Robinson and is entitled –
How Schools Kill Creativity. It finally made me understand why school was such a struggle!