Digerati: The 100 top people in the UK digital industry

Bhattacharya leads Accenture Interactive in the UK & Ireland and is the regional lead for Fjord (design & innovation unit) for Europe. Over the last 12 months he has been focused on leading and integrating the acquisition of Karmarama into the Accenture Interactive fold. Before Accenture, Bhattacharya ran the Financial Services Digital practice for SapientNitro UK. He says his main inspiration is making a difference and he strives to create a creative and supportive work culture that rewards experimentation. Bhattacharya loves working with innovators and disruptors challenging normal conventions and is passionate about customer experience-led strategy.

Glucklich joined the industry as a graduate trainee and says she has since loved every minute of the challenge, pace and variety it brings. As chief executive officer of Starcom, London, she has worked with clients such as Samsung, Lidl and Airbnb and been responsible for the strategic development of the business. It was recently announced that she will be stepping down from the business in December. As well as her business career, Glucklich is active within the industry and as such is a trustee of Nabs, vice president of WACL, a member of the IPA Client Group and sits on the Advertising Association Council. She has two Chelsea FC-mad sons and lives in Wimbledon.

Thompson’s background is in supporting clients to transform the way they manage their customers through technology-enabled change. Recognising that the emergence of digital technologies meant the distinction between operations, sales and marketing was disappearing, he was one of the UK founding partners of his creative digital consultancy, Deloitte Digital. Recently he's been leading Deloitte's digital transformation initiative, supporting clients to embrace the opportunities brought about by digital. He's also been working to build Deloitte Digital across EMEA, which now includes more than 2,500 people. This included bringing the creative agency Acne into its team and creating its Nordic digital creative hub.

Mead founded and grew VCCP Media from a two-person specialist search agency in 2007 to a 70-strong, full service media agency with billings in excess of £60m in 2017. He hails it as the only example of a digital agency to expand into TV and full service media. This transformation has been enacted inside a creative agency and in the last 12-months it has positioned itself at the forefront of a new generation of connected, full service agencies offering both media and creative alongside in-depth digital and technology expertise.

In May 2017, Pattison was named global chief transformation officer for GroupM. The newly created position sees her lead change initiatives across GroupM, its media agencies and specialists, and working closely with leaders across WPP to deliver the best possible communications for clients. Pattison previously served as the global chief executive officer of Maxus, a position held since October 2014. She joined Maxus in October 2009 as UK chief executive officer and in August 2012, she took on an additional role as global chief strategy officer for Maxus. Prior to Maxus, Pattison worked at PHD and client-side at Sony Ericsson, after starting out at Young & Rubicam in a full-service agency environment. She now sits on the Chime Ltd board as a non-executive director, representing WPP. She served two terms on the WEF Global Agenda Council on the Future of Media and was named one of Cranfield’s FTSE Board Report’s 100 Women to Watch in 2015 and 2016. As a passionate and vocal campaigner for gender equality, she launched ‘Walk the Talk’, an initiative to help senior women at Maxus to thrive and progress in their career – a program now adopted globally by WPP.

Farnhill is a founding partner and chief executive officer of Poke, and was recently appointed chief executive officer of Publicis London. His focus is on growing digital communications and experiences for Publicis UK clients which include EE, UBS, Google, Ted Baker, Heineken, Morrisons, NBC and Garnier. In 2010, Farnhill launched The Lovie Awards to celebrate the wonderful and inspiring things connected by the web's many tentacles, and he continues to co-chair the awards. Farnhill is also an advisory board member of indy film streaming service MUBI, non-executive director for National Citizen Service and founder of skate and surf publisher same old. In 2015, he was awarded with a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to the industry.

Nseir founded TH_NK fresh out of university in 2004, and today it is one of the leading independent digital transformation agencies. In the past year, he was honoured to be invited to be co-president of Bima as it embarks on a future-facing initiative, combining its membership with other leaders shaping business to fundamentally power Britain’s digital industry and give it a louder voice. TH_NK has won 10 new clients, its board his been reshaped, the team has grown by 23%, it has launched the world’s first telepathic bank with Atom and has transformed the cinema-going experience with Vue.

With 10 years of working in mobile, digital, and social, and multiple award-winning campaigns to his name, Whatley makes a living doing interesting things at Ogilvy UK. His remit: find new and emerging technologies, cultural insights, and consumer trends; and use them to help make brands matter. A respected thought leader in his field, Whatley is also the co-author of the annual Ogilvy Digital Trends Report. Most recently, he launched the Bots by Ogilvy planning framework for the agency with several live bot projects now out in the world.

Bullis’ career has crossed agencies to holding groups to client side, and most recently, to leading Essence in EMEA. During her time at Essence, the EMEA business grew 35%, exceeding expectations. This was testament to its digital expertise, growing existing clients, and new business wins. Before Essence, Jenny was responsible for Annalect at OMG across UK and EMEA; a job she took after years on the client side at BT and Sainsbury’s. This role took her into the centre of digital transformation for media. She says she is excited to start her next journey as chief stategy officer, [m]Platform at GroupM.

Marques started as a coder, became a designer and later a writer. Starting in Brazil, he moved to Toronto, then New York and finally London working at BBH, W+K and R/GA. Nowadays his focus is on making Possible a great creative agency in London, a journey he began 18 months ago. During this short period, the agency saw new clients in the form of Adidas, Aston Martin, Canon, HSBC and Specsavers to name a few. Its work for Adidas won it five Cannes Lions in its first year at the festival.

At end of 2015, Frampton became the first digital native agency executive, elevated to run an agency group. As chief executive officer of Havas Media Group and executive team member for Havas, his drive has been to re-imagine the group for a digital first world. Earlier this year, he led a Havas-wide initiative to fuse its data, analytics and CRM capabilities across media and creative into a single hub. Under his sponsorship, Havas also became the first agency group to launch a dedicated social influencer division. After 20 years with Havas, it was announced this month that Frampton will be leaving the group "to pursue a new direction". Alongside his agency work, he is an active supporter of the digital economy with NED roles for yourfeed and Groundtruth.

Bartlett is the 25-year-old chief executive officer of The Social Chain Group. The group delivers annual revenues in excess of £100m, and consists of over 20 companies within marketing, media, commerce, and technology. Bartlett founded two of the flagship companies within the group: Social Chain and Media Chain. Social Chain is a social marketing agency that works with brands like Coca-Cola, Apple, Fifa and Warner Music. Media Chain positions itself as one of the largest media owners in the world, reaching billions of people online. Bartlett is an established speaker and investor and was recently named the most influential young entrepreneur in the industry.

Having worked in digital for 18 years at the likes of R/GA and Havas, Skerrett says he has been happy more recently focussing on creative business strategy solutions, CX and ROI, and generating solutions to business problems. Seeing the pace of change this last year has been fascinating for Skerrett, having overhauled the agency's process to be uniquely collaborative, it is now working at the intersection of design, strategy and tech. Nurturing talent, be it by mentoring students at BCU along with the next generation of digital talent at Nimbletank has been a real highlight, Skerrett says.

Having joined Wunderman in November 2012 as UK chief executive officer, Edwards quickly stepped-up to become EMEA chief executive officer in March 2015, driving the business forward in 40 markets with a team of over 3,000. The past year, she has helped bring on 36 new clients including both the BT/EE and Samsung accounts, while maintaining the highest levels of creativity, winning at Cannes, Effie’s and D&AD. In addition, she was named in AdAge’s Top 30 Women to Watch in Europe and earned a spot on the Steering Committee for Gender Parity at the World Economic Forum.

Vaz leads the Publicis.Sapient EMEA and APAC business, and is also part of the Publicis Groupe Executive Committee which enables him to play a key part in the transformation of Publicis Groupe's largest clients and to spearhead its digital business transformation capability, in the transformation of Publicis Groupe. He helped to build Sapient’s business in Europe from a startup to the largest digital agency in the UK within a decade.

De Groose became chief executive officer of Dentsu Aegis Network UK & Ireland in 2014. Since then, she has expanded the agency group through both acquisition and organic growth to over 4,000 people and 20 media, technology, data and creative agencies. She announced in October that she will be stepping down from the network. Her earlier career saw her tackle some of the UK’s biggest marketing and communications challenges, both agency and client side – from the early days of revitalising the Stella Artois brand in the 90s, making it reassuringly expensive and 1998 FMCG Brand of the Year, to turning media agency Carat into the fastest growing network in 2013, and a Sunday Times’ top company to work for in the UK. A champion of WACL and a trailblazer of diversity and inclusion, De Groose regularly prioritises time to mentor, support and guide emerging female talent and pioneered a ‘Women and Leadership’ programme to help senior women find their own leadership style and reach their full potential. Earlier this year, De Groose championed the launch of The Code, a secondary schools programme which brings to life the power of the agency network to make a positive impact in society and on the next generation of talent. In 2016, she was named one of London's most influential people in the Evening Standard's Progress 1000 list, and hailed as a ‘Woman to Watch Europe’ by Advertising Age. She is also a member of the World Economic Forum's Future of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Council. Outside of work De Groose enjoys spending time with her husband, two boys and dog.

Walsh’s role within the Accenture Interactive and Fjord business is to oversee Fjord’s activities in the UK, Ireland and Latin America. In the past 12 months, among overseeing a broad spectrum of clients including banks, retail giants and telcos, she has been driving Fjord’s new offering, Living Business, which involves using design to accelerate fundamental changes to culture and processes, to set organisations up for nimble, effective change when facing advances in technologies and rapid shifts in customers’ expectations.

Hilton has worked in digital since its inception and launched one of the first mobile agencies in 2006, which he still leads today. This has given him the opportunity to be at the forefront of the mobile era. His current and continual focus is pushing the boundaries of what is possible, an essential in this rapidly evolving mobile-first landscape. He says one noticeable focus this year has been working with his clients on detailed forensic analysis of their owned and earned data. Through advancement in technology, the insights gleaned by connecting all the dots are deeper than ever.

Read joined Wunderman as chief executive officer in February 2015 and since then has transformed it to become one of the leading global digital agencies in the world. Recognising that clients are seeking deeper expertise and simplicity, Read has focused on expanding Wunderman’s offer into data and marketing technology beyond its traditional creative focus. In 2017, Wunderman added to its offer in e-commerce (Salmon), business transformation (The Cocktail), marketing technology (Pierry and Pmweb) as well as investing in AI in partnership with Microsoft. The result has been strong growth and new business wins from clients including BT, GSK and Samsung. As a result of his standing in the industry, Read was named Individual of the Year at the Dadi Awards this year, becoming the first person to collect the accolade twice.

In 2005, Pierre left a secure role to co-found Jellyfish, with a small team of 15. 12 years on, it's now a 400-strong agency spanning three continents – so he likes to think that risk paid off. Pierre’s vision was to grow Jellyfish into the world’s biggest boutique agency, offering clients an alternative to bigger network agencies. This last year it's added yet more major brands to its portfolio and expanded its global reach further with new offices in The Shard, Barcelona and San Francisco. The agency has also won The Drum’s Performance Agency of the Year, in the UK & US.

Over the past three years, Wieynk has led the transformation of Publicis UK’s broad client offering, and the business has experienced some of its biggest wins from the last decade including Morrisons, Heineken, and the IOC (International Olympics Committee). As management consultancies have entered the digital sector and holding companies have felt the pressure, Wieynk has equally been focused on helping a wider transformation at Publicis. With his digital DNA supplanted in a traditional agency world, he has led the collaborative offering between Publicis Communications and Publicis Sapient. Sapient Inside launched just over a year ago to fuse the brand narrative from creative agencies with connected experiences enabled by technology and data capabilities. Wieynk has demonstrated that the model can work, with the right talent and collaboration, Publicis has avoided the pitfalls that have dogged the industry in previous attempts to provide a seamlessly integrated service. Prior to Publicis, Wieynk spent 17 years at AKQA, building the agency globally. While he was International vice president, the agency trebled in revenue; opened five offices; and won over 300 major awards, including 18 ‘agency of the year’ titles.

Davies is managing director of independent digital creative agency AnalogFolk. He has been a driving force behind the agency’s growth including the wins of Nando’s, BT, Booking.com, Costa, Unilever, Nike and PepsiCo. AnalogFolk placed 12th in The Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200, ranking Britain’s private companies with fastest-growing international growth. Davies has also been recognised as Bima’s ‘Champion For Good’ for his work at AnalogFolk and as co-founder of Stripes, creating opportunities for people from the Bame community across the creative industries. He previously held roles at AKQA, Tribal DDB, Modem Media (Digitas) and SixandCo.

Olaye started off as a web developer with nine programming language skills across client and server side, and was a founding member of digital creative agency U-dox. He is currently chief executive officer of digital agency Dare and group chief technology officer of Inside Ideas Group, overseeing and leading the long-term technology vision of the group's agencies (Oliver, Oliver Media, Dare/Dare West, Adjust Your Set & Aylesworth Fleming). He's responsible for the group’s technical collaboration, industry thought leadership and advanced technology incubations. He also facilitates the technical community within Inside Ideas Group, harnessing the power of its specialist digital agencies Dare and Adjust Your Set.

Candy is vice president, UKI & Europe leader for IBM iX, a global business design practice. Working at the intersection of progressive strategy, creative vision and transformational technology, IBM iX’s proposition is that it revitalises the core of clients’ businesses and realises opportunities that will define their future. In 2016, Candy was named ‘Individual of the Year’ at The Drum’s Dadi Awards, and this year he was elected onto the Central Council of BIMA, to take-up the role as the chair of the BIMA Technology Community and Council.

Boswell is a change enabler. As head of innovation at Adam and Eve DDB, she helps brands and organisations evolve their business from both a strategic and implementation perspective, weaving together people and ideas to create and maintain cultures of innovation and agility. With 15 years’ experience specialising in digital, working as part of the wider marketing mix she uses technology as an enabler to keep up with customer demand, shaping transformational strategies that disrupt in the right way but click together seamlessly. Having instigated a culture of positive disruption and rapid innovation at Adam and Eve DDB, she helps teams and clients alike look at things differently; constantly challenging the norm, lifting the bar and breaking the rules. Boswell also sits on the advisory boards for the VR Creative Summit and Immerse UK, charged with setting and pioneering the standards for emerging and enabling technologies such as AR, VR and MR. She also advises the agenda for Data and AI adoption, progression and standards for the KTN.