SPEAKERS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Andrew Davis, features editor, Financial Times

 

 

Andrew Davis graduated from Oxford in 1989 with a degree in English and spent five and a half years as a reporter and editor on local newspapers before starting at the Financial Times in 1995

 

 

 

 

 

His first post at the FT was as a sub-editor and since then he has held various editing positions on the paper, including assistant UK news editor from 1999-2000. He was appointed editor of Creative Business for its launch in October 2000 and continued in that post until February 2003, winning a nomination for Supplement of the Year at the British Press Awards 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

Since March 2003 he has been features editor of the FT.

 

 

 

 

 

website: www.ft.com

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

John Griffiths, planningaboveandbeyond.co.uk

 

 

This month John Griffiths reaches his 20th year in the communications business. During the first 10 he worked as an advertising researcher and an advertising planner. In the last 10 he has worked across most communication disciplines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He is a former planning director of the Carlson Group and Grey Integrated and speaker, trainer and shortlisting judge for the Account Planning Group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He went freelance 3 years ago and started a website, planningaboveandbeyond.co.uk to promote account planning in all its forms. As a freelance account planner and researcher he has worked with over 10 integrated communications agencies. He writes articles regularly for the UK business press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

website: www.planningaboveandbeyond.co.uk

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tracy Darwen, Naked Communications

 

 

After graduating from Brunel University with a Law Degree, Tracy began her career in research at AGB and then moved into brand marketing at Interbrew UK. During her 7 years at Interbrew, Tracy was Marketing Manager on the Labatt brands, Marketing Manager New Product Development, rising to Marketing Controller on Stella Artois.

 

 

 

 

 

Tracy was involved in launching a new communication strategy for Stella Artois in 1997. Introducing a new focus around film helped to drive Stella Artois growth to new levels. It moved the brand from outside the top 20 to a top 10 FMCG brand in the UK , winning Marketing Society FMCG brand of the year in 1998.

 

 

 

 

 

In November 1998 Tracy moved to Starcom Motive Communications as Group Account Director developing innovative media solutions across a number of accounts including Interbrew, Levis, Diageo and Lego. Tracy was responsible for running the Johnnie Walker business globally and Lego business across Europe. In her time at Starcom Tracy won 8 Campaign Media awards for her work on Stella Artois and Johnnie Walker, 2 Media Week awards for Levis and Stella Artois and a Cannes Lion for Stella Artois.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In November 2002 Tracy moved to Naked Communications. Tracy works across a broad range of clients from the COI (UK government campaigns) to Playstation, Honda and MTV and has been closely involved in developing communications strategy for emerging brands in the Heineken portfolio in Holland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

website: www.nakedcomms.com

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jon Leach, Chime Communications

 

 

Jon grew up in Rickmansworth, the same North London suburb as George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. This was as close to chart success as he was ever going to get. Fortunately he fell into advertising in 1984 as an account management trainee at BMP. This inevitably led to his indoctrination in the mysteries of planning.

 

 

 

 

He became a planner, and later head of planning in the 90’s at HHCL with campaigns for Tango and the AA leaving the biggest impression. He participated in the re-launch of the agency as a 3D communications agency in 1993 and stayed on through boom and bust.

 

 

 

 

Since 2002 he has variously launched an HR agency, been a freelance strategist and acted as Head of Brand Strategy at Barclaycard. This week he starts a major assignment at Chime Communications with a working title of Head of Integration.

 

 

 

 

 

It is not known what ever happened to Andrew Ridgeley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

website: www.chime.plc.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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