Chief Creative Officer
DDB WW
Amir Kassaei is one of the most lauded creatives in the world.
He likes to say "Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion." He firmly believes that if one has passion, will and courage, one can change the world for the better. Of our business, he says, "It has never been just about advertising. Our business is marketing products, companies and relevant services - and one of our vehicles is advertising." Born in Iran, raised in Austria, and educated in France, Amir settled in Germany in 1997, gaining experience early in his career in a variety of roles ranging from Account Manager to Strategic Planner to Art Director and Designer at agencies such as TBWA, Barci & Partner and Springer & Jacoby. At Springer & Jacoby, Amir advanced from Copywriter to Creative Director and finally to Executive Creative Director on the global Mercedes-Benz and smart accounts.
In 2003, Amir joined DDB as Chief Creative Officer and Associate Partner of DDB Germany, where he quickly helped reshape the agency. After joining the agency as the youngest DDB Chief Creative Officer in Europe, he quickly transformed it into one of the most creative and successful agencies in Germany. Under Amir's leadership, DDB Germany has also been ranked the most awarded German agency in the Gunn Report.
In February 2011, Amir was appointed DDB Worldwide Chief Creative Officer.
Amir has worked on behalf of an impressive range of the world's major brands, including Allianz, Apple, Adidas, Bosch, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Nike, Reebok and Volkswagen. He and his teams are the recipients of more than 4,000 national and international awards, including 140 Cannes Lions in the past five years. He was named The Big Won Report's Top Chief Creative Officer" in 2009, and has been one of The Big Won's Top 3 Chief Creative Officers for each of the last three years.
A past President of the Art Directors Club of Germany and a member of ADC New York, CCA and D&AD, he has served as a judge in some of the world's most famous award shows. He was President of the Jury at Eurobest and Meribel in 2007 and judged the Dubai Lynx 2010.
Amir has taught at such famous advertising schools as the Miami Ad School, spoken at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership and served as a Professor at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences. His most celebrated presentations include "Digital Thinking" and "Manifesto of Successful Marketing."
Global Co-Executive Chief Creative Director
Wieden + Kennedy
Colleen DeCourcy is one of the most influential figures shaping the future of advertising and marketing in the digital age. She has worked at the forefront of digital technology and entertainment for most of her career, from digital postproduction and motion-graphics design to creative campaign development across digital platforms. Colleen champions innovative methods to create experience touchpoints for online social networks, consumer-activated branded entertainment, and word-of-mouth marketing.
Before founding Socialistic, Colleen was Chief Digital Officer for TBWA Worldwide, where she developed and implemented a global digital strategy throughout the TBWA network. Prior to TBWA, she was Chief Experience Officer at JWT, developing integrated, multiplatform storytelling strategies for a variety of client campaigns. As Vice President and Chief Creative Officer at Organic, Colleen was responsible for leading nontraditional and award-winning creative for DaimlerChrysler.
In 2006, she sat on the Cannes Cyber Lions Jury and was named one of Advertising Age's and the Advertising Women of New York Association's '25 Women to Watch', honoring the most savvy, empowered, accomplished, and innovative women in the world of advertising, marketing, and media. In 2007, Colleen served as a Titanium and Integrated Jury Member at the Cannes International Advertising Festival. In 2010, she was named Cyber Lions Jury President. She sits on the boards of the IAB and several startups.
Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer
AKQA
James Hilton is one of the world's most recognised and widely respected creative directors.
Since co-founding AKQA in 1995, James has been at the forefront of an industry which has seen the company grow to become the world's largest independent agency. AKQA has offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Shanghai.
As a world leader in design and creativity, James has collected a multitude of global awards including Grand Prix and Gold Cannes Lions, and has also served as a judge for Cannes Lions, Webby Awards, D&AD, and as Jury Chairman for the Clio Awards and EuroBest. He was recently appointed into the Creativity 50, a list of the world's 50 most influential and inspiring creative personalities alongside Apple's Jonathan Ive. Often speaking on the international circuit, James is also a visiting lecturer at the world's most recognized and respected creative schools.
Campaign magazine has named James as the UK's number one Digital Creative Director for two consecutive years.
Founder/Chairman
Jung von Matt, Germany
Jean-Remy von Matt was born 1952 in Brussels, raised in Switzerland and started his advertising career in Germany where he still lives.
After various copywriting jobs and later on as a creative director, he founded with his partner Holger Jung the agency Jung von Matt in 1991.
Today the agency has a headcount of over 1000 colleagues with offices in seven countries in the heart of Europe as well as in Beijing.
When it comes to awards for creativity and effectiveness, Jung von Matt has been the most successful German-speaking agency in Europe for the past 20 years. Since 1994 Jung von Matt has consistently hit the German ADC's top three and has been ranked first twelve times. In the three last years the agency finished the Cannes Lions among the top-three independent agencies worldwide.
In 2012, Jung von Matt was the only European agency ranked in the top-five of the Gunn report and No. 3 in the worldwide efficiency ranking.
Thank to its strong creative culture, the agency still attracts the most ambitious people in the industry.
The agency's symbol is a dark-green Trojan horse and its mission statement is: To open doors others only knock on - with the power of daring creativity.
Chief Creative Officer
JWT
In 2012, Jeff joined JWT as Chief Creative Officer, North America. Before JWT, Jeff served as partner and Chief Creative Officer at At CP+B, where he worked on brands such as Kraft, Microsoft, Domino's Pizza, Coke Zero, and Best Buy. Prior to CP+B, Jeff worked at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners where he worked on HP, Saturn, and Goodyear.
Jeff has been recognized nationally and internationally by every major industry award show. He has won the Grand Prix at Cannes in three different categories, the Best of Show at the One Show, and the Grand Clio at the Clio Awards. His work has been showcased in several publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Communication Arts, Time, and Newsweek. Jeff has also been a featured commentator on CNBC.
During his free time, Jeff competes nationally in yogic flying high-jump competitions.
Chief Creative Officer
Leo Burnett
Mark is one of the most awarded creative directors in the industry. Most of his time is spent crisscrossing the globe, finding and cultivating the best creative talent and spreading the word about our commitment to HumanKind communications.
Mark oversees the work of Leo Burnett Worldwide, which, under his creative leadership, continues to be recognized for its new-world thinking,consecutively topping the 'All Gunns Blazing' categoryin the annual Gunn Report for the past three years.
Prior to becoming Worldwide Chief Creative Officer, Mark was Executive Creative Director ofLeo Burnett London, the United Kingdom's number one creative agency. It was the World's Most Awarded in 2001 and during his time there, two of his clients-McDonald's and Heinz-were named Advertiser of the Year in the UK.
In addition to personally winning every major creative accolade, including the prestigious Cannes Grand Prix and 45 Cannes Lions, Mark has had the honor of chairing the world's greatest award shows, including the Clios, International Andy Awards, D&AD, ADFEST, Eurobest, YoungGuns, Addys, Sharks, and Spikes. He was President of the Cannes Titanium and Integrated Jury in 2008 and, in 2010, served as President of both the Film and Press juries at Cannes.
Mark is a member of the Royal Society of Arts and coauthored a 2010 book on Leo Burnett's 'HumanKind' philosophy. When not on an airplane, Mark can be found at home in Chicago or London, following the game of football (the one you play with your foot), or spending time with family.
CCO/Founder
Mother
Mark Waites was born in Leeds, England. There he got an education, and accent and a football team. He is Joint Creative Director of Mother-Campaign magazine's 'Agency of the Decade'.
Mark started his career in London, where he worked for several agencies, including BMP, Legas Delaney, and Ogilvy & Mather. In 1992, he moved to New York and worked for a couple of agencies, taking a six-month break in between shops to ride his motorcycle from Alaska to the tip of South America.
In 1996, he moved back to London and became one of the four founding partners of Mother. They opened offices in New York in 2003 and Buenos Aires in 2005.
Mark won an EMMY award for 'Best National Public Service Campaign' for an HIV awareness TV campaign created for MTV North America. In 2008, the British Television Advertising Awards presented him with the 'Outstanding Contribution to the Industry' distinction. He has also served as Honorary Chairman of the Advertising Club of New York ANDY Awards.
When he's not writing ads, Mark is working on screenplays-although he hasn't finished many. A short film he wrote and directed was accepted into over 60 film festivals around the world in 2003/2004 and picked up 'Best Short' in six of them. He lives in London with Kate and their daughters Alice and Edith.
Chief Marketing Officer
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Michael is a serial entrepreneur whose last company, Buddy Media, was acquired by Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) for $745 million. He currently serves as the Chief Marketing Officer of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
Marketing Cloud unites the capabilities of Buddy Media, the world's #1 social marketing solution, with the world's #1 social analytics solution, Radian6, and the world's #1 cloud computing CRM provider and 5th largest software provider, salesforce.com. It is the world's only unified suite for social marketing, empowering businesses to make better decisions in marketing, sales and service.
Michael and wife Kass founded Buddy Media in 2007, which pioneered a new category of software-as-a-service - the social media management suite - that became a must buy for the world's largest brands and agencies. Before Buddy Media, Michael founded Student Advantage, University Wire, Lazerow Consulting and GOLF.com, which was purchased by Time Warner's Time Inc. in January 2006.
Michael is widely recognized as one of the most innovative leaders in digital media and marketing. His byline has appeared in Fortune, Advertising Age, Dow Jones' AllThingsD. Fast Company and Inc., among other publications, and he is a frequent guest on CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, the BBC and other broadcast outlets.
Michael is regularly called upon to speak at prestigious industry events, including the Consumer Electronics Show, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), Procter & Gamble Signal, Monaco Media Forum, Bloomberg Empowered Entrepreneur Summit, Mashable Connect and iMedia Brand Summit.
Michael and his companies have won numerous industry awards and accolades.
Michael is an active investor in digital media companies through Lazerow Ventures, an investment fund he launched in 2011. Current investments include Tumblr, Saving Star, Scopely, Namely, Tagman, ChatID, Twice, Bitium, Have to Have, Social Touch and Copious. He sits on the board of directors of Harmonix, one of the world's leading independent gamedevelopment studios that created the blockbuster Rock Band and Dance Central franchises, and were the original developers of Guitar Hero.
Michael is active in many non-profit organizations, including Charity: Water, Cycle for Survival, and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. Michael believes in living without fear and uses his two near-death experiences as a cardiac surgery patient to inspire others to do the same (VIDEO: http://bit.ly/lazerowfear).
He lives in New York City with his wife, Kass, two sons, Myles and Cole, daughter Vivian and Bernese Mountain Dog Brownie. He graduated from Northwestern Universitywith a B.S. and M.S. in Journalism in 1996.
Michael lives online at http://www.facebook.com/lazerow, http://www.twitter.com/lazerow and http://www.michaellazerow.com.
Global Chief Creative Officer
R/GA
As Global Chief Creative Officer, Nick is responsible for the creative vision of R/GA, the New York-based agency for the digital age. He guides teams of visual designers, copywriters and interaction designers as they create award-winning work for a many of Fortune 500 companies. He also ensures that R/GA stays true to the company's unique legacy of collaboration between world-class creative and groundbreaking technology.
Since 2001 Nick has played a significant role in shaping R/GA's creative vision. In that time, his work has won numerous international awards and has been widely published in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Asia-Pacific. Within a year of joining the company, he was promoted to vice president of visual design and shortly thereafter named executive creative director on the Nike account, an account responsible for some the industries most innovative and high profile work.
Nick's background is extensive and diverse, spanning multiple marketing disciplines during 20 years at agencies in the United States and abroad. He began his career in branding and corporate identity and design before switching to advertising, and then ultimately, focusing on digital marketing.
Nick has won every major industry awards, including a Titanium Lion and Grand Prix Cyber Lion at Cannes, and a prestigious Black Pencil from D&AD. Three times he has been named in Creativity Magazine's "Creativity 50", a list of the world's most influential creatives.
CCO/President
Publicis
Rob is Chief Creative Officer and President of Publicis Kaplan Thaler.
To get there, Rob spent the formative years of his career at Chiat/Day in Los Angeles where he created award winning work for Porsche, Nissan and Eveready. Rob was then lured back east where he served as ECD at Ammirati & Puris. Previous to joining Publicis, Rob was ECD and Vice Chairman at Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners where he created memorable campaigns for Target, Mohegan Sun, Citi and Liberty Mutual.
Rob's work has received hundreds of awards, including Cannes Lions, One Show Pencils, Effies and Andy Heads. In his four years at Publicis, the agency's work has won over 350 awards. Rob is on the board of The Art Directors Club of New York and has been a regular juror for the industry's top award shows.
Rob and his wife Mary have two daughters and live in Connecticut.
Partner/ Worldwide Chief Creative Officer
CPB
Rob joined CP+B in 2003, after spending a decade at a number of New York ad agencies. He began as a copywriter, creating some of the most talked about campaigns in history, and then went on to serve as the Global Creative Director on Burger King, helping to transform the burger chain into one of the most culturally relevant companies in the world. In his current role as Chief Creative Officer, he drives the creative vision for all of CP+B's clients around the globe including category-leading brands such as Microsoft, Domino's Pizza, MetLife, Old Navy, Best Buy, Unilever, SAS, Arby's, Philips, KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese, JELL-O and Under Armour.
Rob's work has been recognized at Cannes with four Grand Prix and five Titanium Lions, while in 2012, he was named the third most awarded creative director of the year by Creativity. Rob has participated on a number industry awards juries including the AICP Show, Art Director's Club, D&AD, New York Festivals and most recently as President of the Cannes Titanium and Integrated Jury.
Rob lives in Colorado with his lovely wife, Laura. In his spare time, he can be found trying to keep up with the younger employees on the company soccer team.
Chief Creative Officer
Grey
Tor Myhren is President and Chief Creative Officer of Grey New York, which was just named one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World by Fast Company Magazine. In the five years under Tor's leadership, Grey's flagship office has more than doubled in size, from 400 to 950 employees.
The E*Trade Baby, the Oprah car giveaway, Obama's astoundingly viral 'Race Switch' poster and making Ellen DeGeneres a CoverGirl at age 50 are some examples of Tor's culturally relevant work. Fortune Magazine just named Tor to their prestigious '40 Under 40' list, and he was placed along with James Cameron, Dave Eggers and Lady Gaga on the elite 'Creativity 50' list honoring the 50 most influential creative minds of 2010. Tor's first feature-length documentary film, 'City Lax: An Urban Lacrosse Story' aired on ESPN and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Sonoma International Film Festival.
Tor grew up in Denver, is a journalist by trade and loves skiing and basketball (which he played for Occidental College). His favorite life experience was taking five months off work (twice) to travel around the world (twice). He married Tomoko Higuchi in Kyoto (once). They have a little girl named Reika.
CEO ECD
777 Interactive
Toshiya Fukuda began his career in mass media advertising in the creative department of the Japanese agency Hakuhodo Tokyo in 1982. In 1996, he decided to change his business focus from traditional media to networked media, moving to an interactive creative division in the agency. He has served as head of creative and Chief Creative Officer, and has worked energetically to innovate ad communication in his own style.
In 2003, he founded the creative directors' unit 777 Interactive in Tokyo, where he is now President and CEO. Their motto? "We love changes." The 777 team specializes in interactive media, developing ads, websites, and interactive campaigns. They are constantly seeking something new in a field where the media, market, and communication are rapidly changing.
Over his career, Toshiya has won many awards, including D&AD, Cannes, One Show, New York Art Directors Club, London International, and Webby Awards. In 2000 and 2002, he was a judge at Cannes. He has also served as a judge for the Clio Awards, DA&D, New York Festival, One Show Interactive, New York Art Directors Club, and as judge and president for the Tokyo Interactive Ad Awards. He has also taught at Musashino Art University and Tama Art University.
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