ABOUT / LONDON
CREATIVE LEADERSHIP WITHOUT LOSING THE CRAFT.
Creative Director at Sky Creative. London.
ABOUT
I JOINED SKY CREATIVE IN 2012 AS A JUNIOR CREATIVE.
Five roles later I’m a Creative Director. I arrived as a Junior Creative and have been promoted four times since, over fourteen years in which the place itself went from a promotions team to the largest multidisciplinary in-house agency in Europe. The work has covered entertainment, sport, streaming, broadband, mobile, insurance and a few products that didn’t have a name yet. Brand platforms, talent direction, campaigns across four markets, and partners including Netflix, Disney, HBO, Warner Bros. and Formula 1. Budgets up to £5M.
Same employer, but I’ve never had the same job twice.
These days I spend less time making the work and more time making sure it arrives intact. Getting an idea from a first conversation onto a screen takes a lot of people saying yes, and most of my job is keeping it worth saying yes to.
Some of that work arrived by winning it. I’ve been part of teams that have won competitive pitches against external agencies, and helped bring significant creative work in-house as a result. Ultimately, my goal has never just been to make great ads. It has been to prove that an in-house agency can originate, script, and deliver work that competes with the best external shops in the world.
collaboration
THE WORK HAS NEVER BEEN MADE IN ISOLATION.
Much of the work has been created with global entertainment partners, external agencies, directors, production companies, media owners and teams across different markets. The recurring challenge is aligning different brand systems, commercial needs and decision-makers around one clear consumer idea. The organisations and collaborators change. The need for clear thinking, strong relationships and decisive creative leadership does not.
LEADERSHIP
LEADING TEAMS OF ALL SIZES AND LEVELS
The size changes what the job is. With one creative partner you’re making it together. With twenty-five you’re making sure everyone is making the same thing, and that the idea survives everyone who has to approve it.
I’ve led multidisciplinary project teams of up to twenty-five — creatives, designers, producers, production — with up to eight direct reports.
I helped set up Sky Creative’s first graduate programme and ran it end to end for three years. Every graduate came out of it into a permanent role. Since then I’ve mentored creatives at most levels, from placement to senior.
Being clear about what good looks like, then giving people the room to get there, is most of it. The aim is a team that gets better without needing any one person in the room.
The team is my best work.
earlier career
BEFORE SKY
Sunset+Vine, Done & Dusted, Sony Television and QVC. My time at QVC learning to make a vacuum cleaner interesting in thirty seconds, which is still some of the most useful training I’ve had.
RECOGNITION
SELECTED RECOGNITION
Silver, Best Use of Talent
2019
Digital Retailer of the Year — Sky Store
2016
Gold & Bronze — Sky Broadband x Minions
2022
Best Use of Commercial Music
Ad of the Day — Sky and Netflix
2025
Shortlisted — Danny Dyer’s Proper Deal Hotline
2026
Digital Creative Competition, Judge
2025
EFFECTIVENESS
Top 4% of UK ads tested — Sky Broadband Gigafast+
NEXT
THE WORK I'M INTERESTED IN
Brands being built, and brands being rethought. Categories where everything already sounds the same. Products nobody has a name for yet.
Most of the work I’m proud of started as one of those. Happy to talk about anything in that direction.