AMV BBDO Appoints Martin Weigel as Chief Strategy Officer

Martin Weigel will join AMV BBDO as its new chief strategy officer. Starting in April, the strategist will complete the agency's senior leadership team led by the CEO Sam Hawkey alongside Nadja Lossgott, Nicholas Hulley, Carmen Vasile, Michael Pring and Dawn Coburn.

With more than 30 years' experience, one of the most experienced planners in the industry, Martin Weigel joins AMV from Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, where he spent the last 13 years.

One of the most global strategists in the business, he has lived and worked in the US, the UK and Brazil. Agencies include Leo Burnett in London, J. Walter Thompson in New York, London, and São Paulo and Lowe Howard-Spink in London.

Martin has developed strategy and communication solutions for as he puts it, “everything from diamonds to toilet paper”, and has extensive tech and platform experience working with Instagram, Facebook, Meta Reality Labs, Samsung, Uber, and Amazon Music. He also led the global strategy for Heineken's long-running 'Open Your World' campaign, which garnered a Grand Prix in the Cannes Effectiveness Lions, and Milka's global 'Tenderness Is Inside' brand platform.

Never short of a provocative opinion, through his blog and as keynote speaker at events such as Cannes Lions, Martin dedicates time to thinking about the present and future of advertising and stimulating discussions that inspire all generations of planners.

AMV BBDO CEO Sam Hawkey says, "Martin is one of the most brilliant thinkers in our industry. He is not short of an opinion on how to move us and our clients forward and that’s why he has continually been at the forefront of the best work and the most pressing topics of our industry. 

Martin is the latest and last piece in our refreshed senior management team, and we can’t wait to see him spinning his magic around the agency”.

On joining the London agency, Martin Weigel says, "If, as somebody once said to me "the past is your competition", coming to AMV with its vast and storied creative legacy is one of the most thrilling and daunting challenges one could wish for. It's an incredible opportunity to paint on a bigger canvas and apply strategy not just to client brands and businesses but the agency's own.

This new leadership team is just beyond badass, and the invitation to join them was just too good to refuse. Even if it did mean giving up a seven-minute commute to work by bike".