Europe

Working with some of the world’s most interesting global tech, fintech and data businesses for over 20 years, Cat is an experienced strategic and creative lead. As a founding partner of Pink Green, she humanises the often intangible, data-driven and highly technical trading solutions at the heart of the Capital Markets – transforming them into compelling brands and commercially focussed campaigns.

At the Transform Awards Europe 2022, Cat led the Pink Green and OSTTRA teams to win Gold in both ‘Best corporate rebrand following a merger or acquisition’ and ‘Best visual identity in the financial services sector’ categories – and the accolade of ‘Best Overall Visual Identity 2022’.

Emma leads the in-house creative team at Tony’s Chocolonely in Amsterdam.  Her role is focused on people, process and projects with a purpose – growing and developing a team, building scalable structures and efficient processes to create impactful creative, and all with Tony’s Mission to make chocolate 100% slave-free, at the heart of everything. 

She has over 15 years experience working for award-winning branding and design agencies in London including Winkreative, Siegel & Gale, H+K Strategies as well as having spent the last 3.5 years as Director of Creative at HelloFresh in Berlin.  Her career highlight to date was leading the rebrand of HelloFresh launched in October 2020; and is already working on exciting projects at Tony’s Chocolonely – watch this space!

Silke is a Design Executive with 20+ years of international experience in FMCG and non-FMCG corporations such as PepsiCo, Mars, Beiersdorf, Vodafone and Colgate. Since 2011 she focuses on Design Leadership developing approaches, frameworks and instruments defining how to integrate and scale design successfully within ambiguous organizations.

She won awards for both, the way design has been integrated in organizations as well as for the outcome of it, beautiful brand designs & experiences. Silke is a seasoned leader, strategist and system thinker with diversified experience having worked at agencies and corporations, headquarters and regions, reporting to different functions from R&D, Marcom to Supply Chain, leading multi-billion icons as well as small brands, mono product as well as complex portfolios throughout the entire process from FEI to production.

Saskia has over 20 years’ experience in brand management, specialising in the cultural and commercial development of heritage and design collections including commercial brand development, product development, retail both shop and online, licensing, intellectual property rights, brand extension, marketing, events, restaurants/cafes and the commissioning, implementation and marketing of art, design and cultural programmes to raise brand profile and promote brand heritage. She established an unusual approach to commercial development in championing great design and raising brand profile through innovative brand collaborations.

Kristian Brugts is former group head of brand at Ocado Group PLC. His responsibilities include definition, management and alignment of the Group stable of brands in the United Kingdom and select international territories. He joined Ocado 13 years ago as part of a compact in-house creative team responsible for all output from web UX and emails through livery and packaging. Since the creation of Ocado Retail, Kristian’s focus has been on projection of the Ocado Group as a technology enabled automation platform developing group of businesses, reinforcing competency and communicating its ambitions.

Ian is the founder and owner of Mustard recruitment in London. As an experienced talent Scout, he is constantly connecting the best talent with iconic agencies. Prior to setting up Mustard. He had the honour to work at some of London’s top design agencies as a branding designer. Helping brands develop exciting and engaging narratives for their consumers. He was educated at Hounslow Borough College by such award-winning lecturers like Nick Wurr (The Partners). He is a passionate advocate for collaborating with individuals who challenge the norm, bring fresh thinking, and who want to do amazing things with brands at exemplary consultancies.

Babak has over 15-years of marketing experience in the sustainability sector, specialising in strategy, brand, and campaign planning. Working across the full supply chain of renewable energy and sustainability has seen Babak's role evolve from working with disruptive technology, using attention grabbing campaigns, to mainstream energy efficiency, switching focus to ROI driven strategic marketing.

Babak joined Warmup to drive the business mission to change the way people heat their homes. He oversees all marketing from the global digital presence to POS while introducing a layer of lead-generation to create measurable ROI that will fuel future brand marketing comms.

Babak's previous roles include, BELECTRIC, the world's largest installer of utility-scale solar, Ascential PLC a global player in events and exhibitions, and Pavegen, a product designed to engage people in sustainability through floor tiles that convert kinetic-energy into clean electricity using the power of a footstep.

Gwyn has over 15 years’ experience in the brand and design industry. Originally a designer, he worked agency side where he developed and led award-winning work with clients including LVMH, Associate British Foods and Diageo. Over time his focus shifted to strategy and it was not long before this interest led him to move client-side, subsequently taking-up the role at Reckitt - overseeing the global brand experience and design strategy for Dettol and later the Infant Nutrition category. Gwyn now leads global design for Dermatology at Bayer, in Switzerland, driving remarkable consumer experiences that transform everyday health.

Maxime is a Brand Strategist at Twitter, passionate about creating meaningful ideas & campaigns on behalf of the world’s top brands, such as adidas, Mondelez, Square Enix, as well as organisations making an impact for good.

After five years working at Twitter, both in Paris and London, Maxime has led on campaigns that not only had a substantial business impact and won industry awards, but also genuinely sparked conversations and interest, within their audience and beyond.

Jules's background is in advertising, where she has worked on brands large and small to create campaigns that produce world-class content and storytelling. She has a passion for mentoring young creatives and has even won a Transform Award herself! Jules is honoured to work in-house at The Body Shop. 

Andy is Global Director of Digital & Brand at SGS, the world’s leading testing, inspection and certification company, with more than 96,000 employees across a network of more than 2,600 offices and laboratories around the world.

Andy has been at SGS since 2013. Since initially specialising in web, he moved through several different management positions, and his current role covers the whole spectrum of digital marketing and brand communications. He previously spent time working in the creative agency sector in a career spanning more than 15 years.

Jason Hesse is Head of Corporate Brand and Experience at Channel 4. He leads a team of corporate communications and event professionals, delivering strategic messaging, assets and experiences that enhance Channel 4’s reputation among corporate stakeholders.

A former business journalist and editor, Jason is passionate about storytelling and how brands demonstrate their positive impact in order to build their reputations and drive overall business strategy and performance.

Rachel is a creative strategist whose professional background spans industries from tech, to burgers, to beauty, and is well versed in consumer facing media like traditional advertising, experiential design, and digital platforms. Raised along the West Coast of the United States and based in the Netherlands, she's worked in-house and with agencies to transform some of the world’s most ambitious brands. Her perspective is drawn from a keen eye for culture, business opportunities, and best-in-class creativity that is both insightful and actionable. Rachel has an omnivorous appetite for creative energy—living off jazz shows, playing music, science & culture podcasts, hustling cocktails, swing dancing, and illustration.

For over 25 years, Kirsten has been a practising designer and creative industries leader. She launched her brand design firm, JWDK, in London in 2003 before expanding it to Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2015. Under her leadership, JWDK has won more than 30 international awards for place brand strategy and design. Kirsten graduated from her International MBA with Distinction in 2019, having conducted extensive research into Placemaking and its influence upon China’s cities and urban environments. She believes that design has the power to inspire communities, enrich local culture and to support a more sustainable quality of life in China.

In addition to her work as CEO & Founder of JWDK, Kirsten is the Vice Chair of the British Chamber of Commerce Shanghai and is the Chair of BritCham’s Creative Industries and Marketing Committee.

Helen has over 20 years' experience in the creative industry. From starting up ad agencies to working at the big hitters, her career has covered all areas of advertising, experiential, film and social content. More recently she has gone in-house to set up a creative agency for Shelter, where she leads a team of talented creatives, producing work that rivals the very best out-of-house agencies.

Steve Keller is Sonic Strategy Director for Studio Resonate, XM Media’s in-house, audio-first creative consultancy, offering support to brands that advertise on the Pandora, SiriusXM, Stitcher, and Soundcloud platforms. He is recognised as one of the world’s leading authorities in the field of audio branding, blending art and science into award winning audio strategies and creative content for a variety of global agencies and brands. With a degree in psychology and over 30 years of experience in the music and advertising industries, Steve’s work explores the ways music and sound impact consumer perception and behaviour, and his research can be found in the Journal of Advertising Research, Frontiers in Psychology, WARC, Music and Medicine, the Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, and the Journal of Food Quality and Preference.

David Kimpton is the founder and Creative Director of Kimpton Creative. Among his 35 year career highlights are working at The Partners (now Superunion) for 10 years, the most awarded UK agency in the 80s and 90s, co-founding Hat-trick Design, rebranding the Natural History Museum and being awarded the creative agency of the year at West London Business Awards. He also won the Grand Prix at Transform Awards Europe in 2022.

Kate has over 30 years experience in design and brand management for the education and children’s publishing sector, and has previously held design leadership roles at Pearson Education, Heinemann and the New Zealand Ministry of Education. She has worked both with her talented inhouse design teams and with key design and brand agencies to develop many leading global brands including MyMaths and Oxford Reading Buddy. Kate’s current area of focus is brand architecture, strategy and implementation. She is also passionate about design for learning and accessibility for all.

Andre sets the brand vision for Skyscanner leading all creative across the globe working closely with the product design team. Previously he was Chief Creative Officer at R/GA EMEA and previous to that built Google Brand Studio EMEA, an in-house award winning creative team based in London. Before landing in London he was fortunate to spend over 2 years at 72andSunny in Los Angeles working on the Google account. He has 17+ years of global brand, product and design experience, creating award-winning work in both traditional and digital channels across the world.

Andre sits as an Advisor on the Board for Hubbub and is a Founding Member for the United Nations Creative Nations Collective working to inspire brands and business to embrace change through meeting the UN’s 17 SDG’s.

Andre has lead agencies and creative teams working on national and global brands including Amazon, McDonald’s, Eurosport, Google, Nike, Xbox, General Motors, MSN, Nokia, Disney, Lexus, Square, Dyson, Wrigleys, Mastercard, Mitsubishi, T-Mobile, Old Navy and Samsung.

Matthew is a branding specialist.  With a background in PR and sponsorship, he has extensive experience creating go-to-market brands for large and small businesses.  He has led brand, CSR, PR and sponsorship teams for a number of blue chip companies, including British Gas, Centrica and Lexis Nexis (Part of RELX plc).  He has also led global brand for the US tech giant, RingCentral Inc.  Matthew is a non-executive director of the European Sponsorship Association – furthering the role of sponsorship across Europe.  

Rose spent almost 17 years in ‘the world of brand’ and has found her tribe early in her career. Brand strategists are a curious bunch who need to delve, unpick and get as close as possible to a brand. It’s this innate curiosity that’s led her to work with businesses including Google, Three, and Orange.

Now placed as Group Head of Brand Development at BSI, the National Standards Institution for the U.K. (with Royal Warrant; initial founding goes way back to 1901), BSI have shaped and developed so many standards and certifications which have evolved to become best practice globally. With a purpose focussed on Inspiring Trust For A More Resilient World, she focus on key challenges (which arguably, all businesses: B2B, B2G and B2C face) around sustainability and digitisation on a global level.

When not discussing the intricacies of brand strategy and explaining how it’s really ‘the glue’ of any business, away from work, you may find her pondering life in all the rooms at Tate, or very likely hanging out with hersuper-groovy dog, Louis (100% Poodle).

A marketing veteran for more than 20 years, Gabriel is responsible for Landor & Fitch’s Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, LA, San Francisco, NY, Canada and Mexico offices. He thrives on creativity, which inspired ground-breaking work for McDonald’s, Coca Cola, FOX Sports, Toyota, Nestlé, Neutrogena, Jet Blue and Bacardi, among others. He’s an award-winning executive with a record of building best-in-class digital and physical experiences. Miller served as executive partner and NYC studio leader at IBM iX, IBM’s digital and design agency. Prior to IBM, he was president of Resource/Ammirati and co-president of Avrett Free Ginsberg.

Yasmin started her career agency-side, and spent a number of years in account management with clients such as Linda McCartney Foods, Lloyds Bank, Aviva & Premier Inn. In 2015 she went client-side to pursue a passion in hospitality brand strategy & marketing at London’s largest hotel owner-operator in 2015, working on a number of hotel openings such as Amba hotels, Thistle Express and Hard Rock London. In 2017, she joined Premier Inn to specialise in Brand Strategy. Since then she has gone on to lead the brand marketing agenda for the FTSE100 brand, launching the new brand platform and repositioning ‘Rest Easy’ which won YouGov’s ‘Advert of the Month’, achieving the highest uplift in Ad Awareness of any brand in the UK with a 9-point rise to 16%. During her time at Premier Inn, she’s also co-created branded concepts such as their new upgrade rooms, Premier Plus, the trial super-budget hotel concept, ZIP, and Premier Inn’s bedding range, ‘Premier Inn at Home’. She heads up a multi-disciplinary team of 14, which includes an in-house creative team. Yasmin is committed to building an inclusive brand strategy and is part of Whitbread’s Race, Religion & Cultural Heritage Steering Committee, and also participated in the inaugural WiHTL (Women in Hospitality, Travel & Leisure) ‘Ethnic Minority Future Leaders’ programme.

Sarah works as a Strategist at Design Bridge London. In her short time in the industry, she has shot up from graduate to strategist – and most recently won Transforms Young Contender of the Year. She is always seeking out opportunities and making the most out of working on new categories. Across her projects, she blends up-to-the-minute pop culture insights with intuitive category understanding. Over the past 4 years, she has been involved in our industry outreach activities, as she’s passionate about inspiring the next generation of creatives.

With over 10 years experience in the creative industry, Alex is a self-taught designer with a keen eye for detail and consistency. He is passionate about aesthetics and breaking down barriers in design.

During the last 5 years, he has found a home at Temenos where he enjoys success in creatively directing the company's campaigns and events, amongst sharing and collaborating with professional agencies across the world. He believes that good design is timeless, and we should all aspire to leave a visible mark on this Earth. Inspiration can be found in all aspects of life, whether past, or present. He finds inspiration in nature, so in his free time he enjoys hiking but also painting and a good video game from time to time.

Chanelle has delivered globally awarded creative communications campaigns and built a diverse portfolio of local and international brands leading internal and external strategies for both in-house and agency teams.

Bruno is a Brazilian designer and currently the creative leader for all Global Food Brands at Nestlé. Having graduated as a product designer, his professional and academic paths have eventually converged into roles with a strong focus on branding and strategic design management.

Working with major brands that range from Beautycare to Food&Bev, Bruno believes in the essential value of anthropology and human-centric innovation to develop stronger design cultures and build long-lasting brands. During the 4 years he has been at Nestlé, he has challenged iconic global brands to reinvent themselves, while also pushing Nestlé to empower and enable start-up-like initiatives, achieving positive business results through design-led innovations.

Frances Sue is a brand and marketing specialist with over 15 years’ experience in brand strategy, marketing communications, and creative campaign development. She has worked across the UK, Europe, China, USA and New Zealand, leading global brand transformation projects and creating world-class campaigns, for well-known brands such as Decathlon, Currys, Harrods and Subway.

Cherry Tian is a senior brand marketing leader with over 15 years’ experience in brand strategy, comms planning and creative campaign development. Having worked on both client and agency sides, she has led transformational projects for well-known brands such as Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Ladbrokes, eBay, NatWest and Coutts. Now working as a Senior Brand Consultant/Head of Marketing for the scale-up brand UNiDAYS, she has a passion for all things brand transformation, and is looking forward to reviewing all the wonderful award entries this year.

Stephanie is a Client Services Manager at BuzzFeed, project managing branded campaigns from start to finish, and ensuring client satisfaction at the highest level. Using her experience in both Sales and Marketing, she works on a wide range of projects, from mouth-watering recipe videos with Tasty, the largest global digital food network, to larger-scale productions with talent such as Big Narstie, she is known for keeping calm under pressure, as well as having strong relationships with blue-chip companies such as Disney, Diageo and Mondalez.

During her 5 years at BuzzFeed, she has made a huge impact, by using her passion for problem-solving to change multiple processes, that have not only increased productivity in the UK office but have also been implemented worldwide. She also finds time to organise multiple office events throughout the year and is known for hosting epic quizzes that get more elaborate each year.

Danielle Venne is a creator of sound and music. As a queer and trans-feminine person, she is proud to break boundaries in the fields of media and marketing. As Made Music Studio’s ECD, she has created audio identities for brands such as AT&T, IMAX, HBO, AMEX, Southwest, Smile Direct Club, Doritos, Ruffles, Wondery, Cricket, Nature Valley, Amazon Music, Wells Fargo, NBA on ESPN, the Super Bowl on NBC, and more.

Danielle has been featured in numerous publications, has led talks at various conferences and panels, and collected several awards for her work and leadership.

Ursula has over 22 years of experience working in global agencies with both Fortune 500 companies and boutique clients. Twelve years ago, Ursula was headhunted by TBWA to move to the UAE, to manage the Etihad Airways global account and hasn’t looked back since.

balcony8 was founded in 2010, and Ursula’s aim was to create a consultancy that offered the craftsmanship of a talent-centered atelier and the service of a strategic multi-disciplinary boutique agency. This still holds true today. balcony8 is about designing experiences that enhance people’s lives at multiple points of interaction. Today more than ever is is necessary for brands to adopt a human approach to create meaningful experiences for their audiences. Past agencies include The Jupiter Drawing Room (SA), Network BBDO (SA), M&C Saatchi (UK), Lowe (UK), Lowe (UAE), before setting up balcony8 in 2010.

Ursula also holds a Marketing Degree from Cape Town University and is a Level C Certified Brand Specialist by Brand Guru and Author, Marty Neumeier out of Silicon Valley.