2012 Speakers

In 1967 he joined the Cramer Saatchi consultancy which became Saatchi & Saatchi in 1970, where he was a founding shareholder.

John left in 1973 to co-found TBWA, London as Creative Director. The agency was the first to be voted Campaign’s (the UKs leading advertising magazine), Agency of the Year in 1980.

In 1982 he left to start Bartle Bogle Hegarty which was soon to become one of the most talked about and awarded advertising agencies in the world. The Agency has won every Agency of the Year accolade and every creative award possible and has been at the forefront of the industry for 27 years.

In the first two decades of BBH’s history, John was responsible for campaigns for Levi’s such as the ground breaking commercial starring an unknown model called Nick Kamen who stripped off down to his boxer shorts in a launderette and introduced the British to the phrase 'Vorsprung Durch Technik' for Audi. He was the first to pick a young model/actor called Brad Pitt to star in a commercial and he also pioneered the importance of music in Levi’s commercials. The result being the soundtracks from seven Levi’s commercials getting to the UK number one spot. John also oversaw the phenomenon Flat Eric, who kicked Eminem off the number 1 singles slot in 1999.

BBH now has offices in London, New York, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Mumbai and John oversees the creative output of all these offices. This unique global structure also contributed to the company winning the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement twice, in 1996 and 1997.

John has won Golds at every industry awards including D&AD, Cannes and British Television. He has been given the D&AD President's Award for outstanding achievement and was admitted to the US One Show Advertising Hall of Fame. He has also been voted as one of the most influential people in fashion thanks to his work with Levi’s.

In 1998 he was given an Honorary Fellowship from the University of the Arts, London.

In 2006, he was awarded honorary doctorates from Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College and Middlesex University and sits on the Board of Trustees of the Design Museum.

John was awarded a Knighthood by the Queen in 2007 in recognition of his services to the advertising and creative industries.

He was also invited to be an Honorary Fellow of The Marketing Society for his contribution to outstanding communication campaigns.

In June 2011, John successfully launched his book ‘Hegarty on Advertising – Turning Intelligence into Magic’.

In the same month, John was honoured for his creativity at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, being the first recipient of the inaugural Lion of St Mark’s Award.

Initially trained as a graphic designer and illustrator, Richard moved quickly through advertising and film production design, before setting up Seymourpowell, with Dick Powell, in 1984.

Since then, the consultancy has risen to the forefront of product and Innovation design, with a string of world-firsts amongst its achievements, including designs for the world’s first cordless kettle, pocket mobile phone and privateer spaceship for Virgin.

More and more of his time now is spent helping large international companies understand what lies before them in the future, and finding ways to ‘rewire’ them to better face these challenges.

He is a formidable public speaker, creative director (a role he undertakes for several of Unilever’s global brands), futurist, foody and occasional musician. Richard is a Board Director for the Writtle Group and the sole Director of Vision across all of the Group.

Michal joined Huge in 2004 as one of its first interaction designers and has been instrumental in growing the company's User Experience and Strategy practices. She also helped develop Huge School, a discipline-specific, paid apprenticeship program designed to give talented individuals the skills required to be successful in a career at Huge.

Previously, Michal worked at IDEO and Applied Materials, where she designed user-centered products in the physical world.

Michal earned an MS and BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. She has also studied, taught and performed improv comedy for more than 15 years.

Matthew’s background is in communications strategy, spending 12 years at Draftfcb San Francisco as Director of Strategic Planning. During that time he helped companies such as Electronic Arts, Levi Strauss & Co, Del Monte, Hilton Hotel Corporation, AT&T and MTV make more interesting and effective connections with their audiences -- often with remarkable commercial success -- resulting in the agency winning eight Effie awards in the last three years.

Prior to Draftfcb, Matthew spent 12 years at Ogilvy, first in London, and then as Strategic Planning Director in Bangkok, working on global clients such as American Express, Nestle, Unilever and Shell.

Matthew is a frequent contributor on consumer decision making in both the marketing media and has spoken at marketing and communication events in four continents, including the Cannes Lions festival and Adtech.

He joined the firm in 1984 and rose through a number of leadership positions -- including general manager of the St. Louis headquarters office and regional president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa -- before assuming his current duties in 2006. As CEO, Senay is transforming the agency to respond to major trends such as the convergence of social media with traditional communication channels; the need to integrate communications across paid, earned, shared and owned media; and the growing globalization of client communications needs. His first initiative was to "switch on" the agency by fully infusing social media into its approach to communications.

Today, Fleishman-Hillard is widely heralded for its leadership in this growing field. In 2012, Senay’s leadership earned him a Top 20 spot on PRWeek’s “50 Most Powerful People in PR” list. He is a member of various public relations organizations, including the Public Relations Society of America, the Public Relations Seminar and the Arthur W. Page Society. He also serves on the boards of the Council of Public Relations Firms and the St. Louis Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, in addition to the International Board of Junior Achievement and Jazz St. Louis.

Prior to Fleishman-Hillard, Mr. Jursa spent two decades creating new and reinvigorating existing image-driven brands at Foote, Cone & Belding, The Coca-Cola Company and The Interpublic Group of Companies. He founded one of the first influencer/word-of-mouth marketing agencies, Liquid Intelligence where he created the most talked-about packaged goods comeback story in over 50 years: Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer; hipsters became united the very next day.

Mr. Jursa has reinvigorated existing brands in the U.S. and globally through the pragmatic use of real time insights-driven data, instinct and a respect for marketing disciplines prior to his existence. He has a breadth of experience innovating across traditional, digital and social communications as well as classic CPG training, planning and the commercialization of his own liquor brands in the United States.

Mr. Jursa also plays a lead role in thought leadership in the word of mouth/influencer marketing services. He writes for several industry trade publications and frequently lectures undergraduate and graduate students at The University of Chicago, Columbia College, Loyola University and DePaul University.