50 planners to watch in 2014 - The Planning Salon

50 PLANNERS
TO WATCH IN
2014
JULIAN COLE & LIANE SIEBENHAAR

The
Planning
Salon.

A FEW WORDS AHEAD
The Planning Salon is a platform for all planners around the world to meet and learn from
our industry's greatest minds. We started in 2013 to showcase some of the biggest stars
of the industry, guests such as Gareth Kay, Rob Campbell and Heather LeFevre. One year
and 10 hangouts later we bring the ﬁrst Planning Salon initiative of 2014:

The 50 Planners to watch in 2014. Rather than rating blog views, Twitter followers or
other unreliable performance indicators, we picked people who produce interesting
content and innovations. People we’d like to have a coffee and hangout with. The people
we think we can learn from in 2014. Thanks to Tangerine for helping collate the list.

And yes, since this is completely subjective and incomplete we put everybody in
alphabetical order. The ﬁrst 20 feature people we either already interviewed or we plan
to on The Planning Salon. And then the 31 - 50 list is more of a short and quick overview
of more planners who we’d like to pick their brains … but we ran out of ink.

1. ADAM FERRIER
Partner, Cummins Ross, Melbourne

Probably the most famous Consumer
Psychologist in the world, Adam made the
big move last year from Naked
Communications that he founded in
Australia, to join Cummins Ross - a full
service creative and media agency.

@adamferrier

2. ANA ANDJELIC
Head of Digital Strategy, Spring Studios, New York

Ana
has
made
a
lot
of
leaps
in
her
life.
The
biggest

one
was
across
the
Atlan7c
ocean.
This
was

followed
by
the
leap
from
academia
(where
she
got

her
Ph.D.)
to
the
world
of
digital
media.
Then
came

the
leap
to
adver7sing
(didn't
like
it).
Then
came

digital
brand
posi7oning
projects
for
luxury
and

fashion
brands.
Now
Ana
is
Head
of
Digital
Strategy

at
Spring
Studios,
where
she
works
with
the
top

talent
to
use
digital
technology
to
solve
business

problems
for
retail
brands
like
Target,
Armani
and

Tom
Ford.

@andjelicaaa

3. ANGELA SUN
Strategist, BBH, New York

In 2012 we lost a great planner in Grifﬁn
Farley. In his memory the ‘Grifﬁn Farley
Search for a Beautiful Minds’ program was
started to give aspiring planners a chance
at a weekend long Planning bootcamp.
Angela was the hardworker who got the
program off the ground at BBH.

@angelahsun

4. AMBER HORSBURGH
Strategist, Big Spaceship, New York

Amber is on a mission to demystify the
world of Digital Strategy for all. After
creating popular presentation, ‘Explain
Digital Strategy to your mum,’ she went on
to become a regular contributor at
Skillcrush, taking out the complexity of
digital. She teaches digital strategy and
Google Analytics for planners at Skillshare.
At Big Spaceship she helps lead the digital
strategy for Axe, Youtube & GoGosqueeZ.

@amberhorsburgh

5. BEN PHILLIPS
Senior Strategist, Work Club, London

Ben’s a senior strategist at Work Club in
London, Campaign magazine’s Digital
Agency of the Year in 2012. This year with
the team developed the global brand
strategy and launch campaign for Sony’s
Music Unlimited streaming service. In the
last couple of years he’s run digital strategy
seminars in Kenya and in the Ukraine (and
even had a 3 minute segment on the
Ukrainian business news!)

@Ben_Phillips

6. BUD CADDELL
Senior Strategist, Undercurrent, LA

Last year Bud set up Deutsch’s Innovation
Unit Invetion.st. The department gave
brands opportunities to create products in
a short burst of time. In the role he helped
create Smile Drive for Volkswagen which
was an Android App, which blended
location based data rewards and social
features. At the end of the year he moved
over to Undercurrent to help set up their
LA ofﬁce.

@bud_caddell

7. CLAY PARKER JONES
Partner, Undercurrent, NYC

Clay was promoted to Strategy Director to
Partner at digital strategy agency
Undercurrent last year with the new
promotion he also dropped this amazing
knowledge bomb of How strategists can
level up. This guide was super helpful in
helping Digital Strategist map out their
career.

@clayparkerjones

8. COLEEN LEDDY
Group Comms Strategist, Droga5, NYC

Droga5 is one of New York’s fastest
growing companies with some massive new
business wins in 2013 that included
UnderArmour, Chobani, Spotify and
MakerBot. Colleen has been tasked with
setting up the Communications Planning
discipline at Droga5.

@colleddy

9. EMILY SEGAL
Co-Founder, K-Hole, New York

K-Hole did what a lot of agencies had
wanted to do for the last couple of years give the trend forecasting industry a big
kick in the nuts. They did this by creating a
youth trend forecasting report that is both
ironic and completely on point for todays
youth.

@khole_emily

10. GARETH KAY
Partner, Zeus Jones, San Francisco

Having left Goodby Silverstein and
Partners as Chief Strategy Ofﬁcer after 4
and half years, Gareth has taken up the
position of Partner at the new San
Francisco outpost of digital ad agency Zeus Jones. As more ad dollars start rolling
in from Silicon Valley expect to see more
agencies focus in on San Francisco. We did
an interview with Gareth mid last year.

@garethk

11. HEATHER LEFEVRE
Group Director, CP+B, Miami

Heather began her all famous planner
survey 8 years ago as a side project. It has
grown to be the deﬁnitive source of
information on the discipline globally.
After working in several agencies in the
United States and Europe she relocated to
Miami last year where she now works as
Group Director at CP+B on Best Buy,
MetLife and Arby's.

@hklefevre

12. HEIDI HACKEMER
Director of Brand, Motorola, SF

After years at BBH in NYC and a stint as a
freelancer for agencies like Droga 5,
Anomaly and Fallon, Heidi has recently
taken on a new role. As Director of Brand at
Motorola's Advanced Technology and
Projects group, Heidi and her team is intent
on making the future especially through the
lens of the mobile space. Heidi’s most
recent public projects have been Motorola
Spotlight Stories and Project Ara.

@uberblond

save the date 22.02.14

13. JOEL PEARSON
Innovation Director, PHD, London

Dove’s Sketches was one of last years most
successful viral campaign. Joel Pearson was
the brains behind its launch. In control of
looking after the Communication Planning
for Unilever, you know that Joel will be
looking for another follow-up hit to Dove
Sketches. We interviewed Joel about the
Dove Sketches campaign last year check it
out here.

@JoelyRighteous

14. JONAS THAYSEN
Senior Strategist, AKQA, London

After being the planning lead on the global
Adidas football social account at Glue
London Jonas is now at AKQA working
across Nike football and the Mondelez
global business. Together with his colleague
Neil Dusuki he is in the midst of writing an
article on‘the role of strategy in agile
product development environments’ to be
published in spring.

@jnsthsn

15. KATIE DREKE
Strategy, Nike, Portland

Katie Dreke has just made the move to Nike
in Portland after ﬁnishing up a stint as the
Director of Technology & Innovation for
Droga5 Sydney. Her mandate there was to
push the boundaries of what can be done
effectively with digital marketing and to
guide all clients into emerging and
sometimes uncomfortable new Brand
behaviors. We are looking forward to
seeing what she does at Nike.

@katiedreke

16. KATIE MACKAY
Joint Head of Strategy, Mother, London

Katie is a long-standing Mother strategist
running Ikea and Diageo. Besides creating
award winning strategies, Katie has drawn
attention with a range of interesting
projects. Besides whatkatiewore.com on
which she featured her retina-searingly
bright outﬁts she helped spark a
conversation about feminism, equality and
choice with the Elle‘Make them Pay
campaign. She was interviewed on BBC too.

@whatkatiewore

17. MARK LESTER
Strategist, Carat, New York

Mark began his career working with the the
UK government to help shape the teacher
recruitment and cyber bullying campaigns
winning a IPA Effectiveness award in the
process. Since moving to New York he's
handled the comms planning for new
campaigns for Crown Royal and Johnnie
Walker and worked with Diageo and
Playstation to redesign their planning
processes for the modern world.

@Lestermarky

18. MARK MACSMITH
Digital Planning Director, VML, Sydney

Mark was one of the founding members of
Aden Hepburn’s Australian off shoot of
digital global agency VML. The agency has
put Australia on the map for a breakthrough digital work like Nutri-Grain RFID
Skate Park and more recently Ajax Social
Wipes which Mark has been a big part of.
With Commonwealth Bank switching over
digital duties to VML this year look for
more great work to.

@culturepicnic

19. ROB CAMPBELL
Head of Strategy, W + K, Shanghai

Needless to say Rob is one of the most
famous brains in our industry. In his blog
The musings of an opionated sod he writes
about his day to day experiences. He has a
special gift to frame facts, insights, tips and
observations in amusing ways. Special tip:
he also has a fantastic Instagram feed.
Follow him for daily laughs. We had the
honor to interview Rob in 2013 on
‘Prostitutes, Priests and Planning’

@Robertc1970

20. RORY SUTHERLAND
Vice Chairman, Ogilvy UK, London

Rory is one of the leading thinkers when it
comes to bringing the discipline
Behavioural Economics into Planning. He
has continued to help both the planning and
business world understand the beneﬁts of
looking at business problems through the
lense of behavioural economics.

@rorysutherland

21-30
Aisea Laungaue
Agent, CAA, LA
@aisea

Dino Demopoulos
VP, Strategy & Innovation, Tribal DDB
@chroma

Anibal Casso
Strategy Director, W+K, Portland
@anibalcasso

Dylan Williams
CSO, Mother, London
@dylanwil

Antony Young
President, Water Cooler Group, NY
@antonyyoung

Edward Cotton
Strategy & Innovation, Butler Shine, NYC
@cotton

Amber Finlay,
Director of Comms, Converse, Boston
@its_amber

Emma Brooks
Digital Strategist, Zulu Alpha Kilo, Toronto
@ejbrooks

Christine Chen
Director of Communication Strategy GSP,
San Francisco

Gareth Goodall
CSO, Anomaly, NYC
@GarethGoodall

31-40
Gerald Hensel
Strategy Director, S&F, Hamburg
@ghensel

Kirsty Saddler
Head of Strategy, BBH, London
@keava

Iqbal Mohammed
Digital Strategy Director, Publicis, Munich
@misentropy

Leon Phang
Teaches Planning at Berghs, Stockholm
@theplanninglab

Jonny Bauer
Head of Strategy, Droga5, New York
@jonnybauer

Martin Weigel
Head of Planning, W+K, Amsterdam
@mweigel

Justine Feron
Planner, TAXI, Toronto
@justinecferon

Mel Exon
Co-Founder @BBHLabs, London
@melex

Katy Alonzo
Senior Strategist, Anomaly, NYC
@plingyplang

Michael Goldstein
Creative Digital Planner, Chi & Partners, NY
@MickeyG77

41-50
Michael Paredrakos
Strategic Planner, Bold Ogilvy, Athens
@mpared

Shawn Shahani
Social Strategist, Havas, NYC
@shawnshahani

Mike Arauz
Partner, Undercurrent, NYC
@mikearauz

Sarah Watson
Chief Strategy Ofﬁcer, BBH, NYC
@Sarahmwatson

Nick Barham
CSO, Chiat Day, Los Angeles
@NickFBarham

Theo Erasmus
Strategy Director, Gloo Cape Town
@FlyingParamedic

Nina Rieke
Exec. Strategy Director, DDB Tribal, Berlin
@ninarieke

Tim Malbon
Co-founder, Made by Many, London
@malbonster

Rebecca Stambanis
Global Strategy Director, W+K, Portland
@rstambanis

Tom Morton
Chief Strategy Ofﬁcer, GSP, NYC
@tommorton

The
Planning
Salon.
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50 planners to watch in 2014 - The Planning Salon

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