BBH London Names Client Managing Directors
BBH London is promoting Bobbie Gannon and James Rice to client managing directors. In the newly created roles, the pair will be tasked with driving growth, nurturing the agency’s talent and culture and keeping up the momentum of great creativity to deliver iconic work across BBH’s client portfolio.
Between them, Bobbie and James will work across all BBH clients and disciplines, working closely with business, strategic and creative leads to help shape BBH for a new generation.
The promotions follow a year of creative and commercial success for BBH London, with wins from UK favourites Ribena and Häagen-Dazs; culture-leading work for Paddy Power, Tesco and Burger King and impactful campaigns for Audi and Barclays.
Karen Martin, CEO BBH, “The impact Bobbie and James have had on the growth of BBH during their time with us has been monumental. They’ve put out fires, they’ve built people up, they’ve launched their clients into outer space. They are deadly. And now they are helping shape BBH for a new generation. What a team.”
Bobbie started her career at Karmarama before a brief stint at DLKW Lowe followed by almost 11 years at AMV BBDO. Bobbie joined BBH in November 2021 as Business Lead to run the Barclays account and subsequently won, and went on to run, the Barclaycard account in early 2022. During her tenure, BBH and Barclays won an IPA bronze effectiveness award, was highly commended by the Marketing Society awards and won at the Financial Services Marketing Week Awards.
After being promoted to managing partner in 2023, Bobbie took the lead on the agency’s Audi and Paddy Power accounts. In the last year alone, BBH brought the romance back with Audi with ‘Love At First Light’ and launched Paddy Power’s first Christmas campaign, ‘A Shirt Is For Life, Not Just For Christmas’, which lamented the perils of following a team while roasting fans on their home turf with eye-watering OOH executions. BBH also won at the Euro’s with the Danny Dyer fronted ‘Europe’s Favourites’, named the tournament’s most effective ad by System1, and created and launched Paddy Power’s Ballon D’Art at the World Dart Championship.
Bobbie Gannon, client MD, BBH, “BBH is on a roll and it's a real honour to be part of the next chapter. Our goal is to maintain our legacy of creative excellence and award winning effectiveness in today's everchanging landscape. To be taking on this challenge with James, a true black sheep, makes it all the more exciting."
James started his career at TBWA\ London as a graduate trainee, before joining BBH as an Account manager in 2012. In his 13 years at the agency he has worked on and led accounts including Persil, Britvic, Experian, Audi and Weetabix, helping the brand win a Silver IPA Effectiveness Award in 2018.
He led the agency’s Homegrown internship programme between 2016 and 2018 and was made Head of Account Management in 2022 before being promoted to managing partner in early 2023.
Under his leadership of the Tesco and Burger King accounts in the last two years, BBH has produced acclaimed campaigns including 2024’s Burger King Bundles of Joy featuring photos of real mothers enjoying a Whopper as their first meal post birth, Campaign’s 2024 OOH Campaign of the year, Tesco Icons, and Tesco’s recently launched new Food platform “It’s Not A Little Thing, It’s Everything”.
James Rice, client MD, BBH, “60 Kingly Street is full of brilliant people making some genuinely brilliant work so it’s a privilege to be entrusted with continuing and accelerating that creative trajectory. It’s also a thrill to be partnering with Bobbie in our new roles. My only regret is that her surname is Gannon, not Gammon. Gammon & Rice sounds like a formidable food-based duo, but you can’t have it all.”
Bobbie and James will both report directly to Karen Martin, CEO. Former managing director Holly Ripper has resigned after 10 brilliant years at the agency.
