David thinks of himself as half agency and half client-side man although not a product of his education. He came into marketing with a PhD in genetic engineering.
He quickly forsook life in the laboratory and started his career at Brann Worldwide, now part of Havas, before joining insurance giant Zurich as a sales and marketing executive. There he was part of the team that launched Direct Insurance, first on the phone and then online supported by the creation of brand advertising campaigns and customer acquisition, retention and recommendation programs.
After several years, he moved into telecoms at Vodafone where he launched the UK CRM program, leading the team responsible for the creation of next generation customer propositions across corporate, small and medium enterprises and consumers (do you remember Vodafone live?). As global core brand executive, he successfully took that thinking across 22 markets in Europe.
In 2006, he joined Golley Slater and became CEO in 2013. He sees his role as helping to bring the client perspective and strong client-side commercial understanding to the Golley Slater team in order to create solutions that actually work for clients. So that the agency can provide the advice and execution to better fulfill clients’ marketing and commercial objectives, Golley Slater has created a family of agencies led by experienced specialists who care deeply about their clients’ business.
David is most proud of three things: (1) The creation of agencies that help clients build sales over night and brands over time; (2) the adoption of a simple philosophy of “if it were my money …how would I spend it?”; and (3) the agency’s collaborative culture that fosters helping one another solve problems and working together to achieve more.
At 50 years old, he’s more excited about the future than ever.
David serves on the ICOM board as Europe Regional Director - International Operations.
