Simon White To Join Draftfcb

 

Draftfcb has further strengthened its European team with the appointment of Simon White as European Chief Planning Officer. As a key member of the team, White will be based in London and report into Kate Howe, president of the London agency. He will join the agency on 3rd September.

 

“Simon’s appointment is an important strategic move for Europe and I’m confident his integrated skills coupled with the experience he’s gained with a very diverse group of clients make him the business leader needed to completely round out our team,” said Kate Howe. “He is a pioneer and the right person to deliver well-crafted creative solutions for our clients and help grow our local and regional business.”

 

White joins Draftfcb from Grey where he was joint managing director and head of planning. With the agency since 2002, Simon has been a key driver in Grey’s strategic output and helped to develop a whole new way of working to encourage a faster and more innovative way of working with empowered multi-discipline teams.

 

Simon was the planner on the award winning Hands Only CPR campaign for British Heart Foundation starring Vinnie Jones and his multi-channel work for the AOL ‘Discuss’ campaign won multiple awards including a Cannes Silver and Bronze, a Campaign Press Awards silver and an APG silver paper.  His latest work includes the famous and highly effective Johnny Rotten Country Life campaign as well as the Crafted for the Moment campaign for Greene King IPA.

 

“Draftfcb's dedication to strategy is evident through the investment they've made in hiring expertise across all the planning disciplines, including shopper marketing, social, brand, communications and digital planning,” said White. “They're also employing the latest learning from sociology, psychology and neuroscience through the Institute of Decision Making they created a couple of years ago. I've been working in this area for a number of years and I look forward to the chance to apply it across all the communication disciplines.”

 

Very active in new business Simon has an impressive track record and he has also been behind Grey’s recent success in planning awards as evidenced in 2009 when Grey won more IPA awards than any other agency.

 

Prior to Grey, Simon worked client-side as an international brand manager for Pedigree Petfoods and also worked for Clairol and Unilever before taking the planning route in 2002.