Simon Francis - CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi

SPEAKER PROFILES
Simon Francis
CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi

Simon Francis was appointed EMEA CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi in August 2007.

Francis joined Saatchi & Saatchi from OMD where he was EMEA MD with responsibility for 34 markets reporting directly into the CEO of Omnicom Media Group. At OMD, Francis worked as part of a team that presided over a business turnaround resulting in 32% revenue growth and doubling profits across the region.

At OMD, Francis was responsible for the agency winning major new client assignments worth €1.6bn including Vodafone, Sony, Sara Lee, Kia, Carlsberg, Bridgestone and Danone. He was the architect of Fuse OMD’s join venture in experiential marketing and branded content with the Radiate Group of companies.

Prior to OMD, Francis was director of futures at MindShare. While there, he established innovative new structures which included founding Shine: M, a TV production company, with Elisabeth Murdoch and Lord Waheed Ali. He also ran business for IBM, Lotus, Guinness, Bulmer’s, Thomson Holidays and Wilkinson Sword, and won £140m new business including Nike, Pepsi, Hutchinson 3G, Heineken and Handbag.com.

Before MindShare, Francis was at Leo Burnett joining as a board account director and leaving as director of integration. There he ran the Kellogg’s business and was responsible for stewarding the production of the Kellogg’s brand campaign, "Serving the Nation’s Health", as well as launching Kellogg’s Bitesize. He joined Leo Burnett from Leo Burnett Media where he was group media director responsible for P&G, United Airlines and Pillsbury Foods accounts.

During his career Francis has won awards for his media work on Nike (Run London, Freestyle, women’s campaigns and World Cup), Heineken, IBM (City of London), United Airlines and others. He is the credited writer of press and outdoor ads for Kellogg’s, Hoover and Nike.

Francis began his career at Zenith Media. He has a degree from Exeter University.

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