Our Team

Fiona is the CEO of Ogilvy UK – a full service leading communications agency. She recently took on this role and has spent her career at Ogilvy and WPP, since joining as a graduate trainee. ​

She has built her career with a client centric focus. Her most recent role was Chief Client Officer for Ogilvy for EMEA - looking to help our clients succeed and grow across the region.​ Prior to this Fiona led the WPP Walgreens Boots Alliance team based in London. She built out the integrated team from 3 to 130 specialists from across WPP working across Boots and Global Consumer Brands. She was a key part of the team that successfully retained and expanded the business in the recent pitch review.  ​

She has worked at Ogilvy across her career across large global clients, challenger brands and in different geographies.  Fiona was the Group Chairman of the 400 person Ogilvy Singapore office for 5 years and during her tenure they won Creative Network for South East Agency and she was voted as leading CEO for South East Asia. ​

Fiona has also lived and worked in NY for over five years working across the American Express business and in Hong Kong leading the expansion of Ogilvy’s global clients across Asia, including in China and India.​

She sits on the Advisory board of Stella, WPP Women’s network, and is a mentor within WPP and Ogilvy and has a reverse mentor. She is passionate about growing talent. ​

Fiona has just been named on Ad Age’s Leading Women list, recognizing the forces that are leading the change across the industry.

Jo Arden is Chief Strategy Officer at Ogilvy UK.

Jo oversees Ogilvy’s strategic team of 97 experts across all 5 areas of the business – Advertising, Brand and Content, Experience, PR, Consulting and Health.

Jo brings her experience as CSO for Publicis•Poke and Mullen, having worked with a wide range of clients, and is recognised as a key driver of change across the industry through her work as Chair of NABS Fast Forward. She is also a columnist for Campaign, and is consistently listed as one of the top planners in the UK by the industry trade press.

Laura Vipond is Ogilvy’s Chief Growth Officer.

In her role, she will oversee Ogilvy’s new business teams across all five areas of business, including advertising, experience, PR, consulting and health. She will be responsible for the agency’s growth strategy, focusing on new and existing markets and key network client opportunities.

Vipond has previously worked as head of new business at Elvis and was co-chair of the IPA new business and marketing group. In addition, she is also a Wacl Future Leaders Award-winner and a founder of Futures, a network for the award’s alumni in partnership with Wacl and Nabs. 

André Laurentino, better known as Dedé, is the CCO of Ogilvy UK.
 
Brazilian born Dedé was one of Brazil's most awarded art directors for 10 years. He then became a copywriter and soon went on to win the same accolades in his new role. Over the past 25 years, he's done award-winning work for brands such as Visa, Volkswagen, Audi, Nissan, adidas, Hellmann's, Dove, Comfort and many others. 
 
Dede has over 30 Cannes Lions to his name, as well as D&AD and The One Show pencils. 
 
Alongside his career in advertising, Dede is a published author (a novel in 2005, collected essays in 2017) and also wrote TV series for Globo TV – Brazil’s largest TV network. He was a regular columnist for newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo for 10 years and has collaborated with drawings and cartoons for various magazines and newspapers.

Elaine Grell is the Chief People Officer for Ogilvy EMEA.

Prior to joining Ogilvy UK in 2022, Elaine built an impressive legacy of leading people teams, working in the UK and US at a range of companies including The Collective, IHG and IAG.

In addition to her wide experience, Elaine has an MBA and a CIPD Fellowship.

Passionate about creating an enriching employee experience, Elaine also supports others in her role as a Trustee for the Springboard Charity, who help and mentor emerging talent, young people, and those from disadvantaged groups get into the hospitality industry.

John is Chief Commercial Officer, UK, and Worldwide Commercial Director. He is hugely passionate about the creative output of the agency and ensuring that the ideas Ogilvy produces for brands which drive their businesses are valued accordingly. To ensure Ogilvy continues to service clients in the most effective way possible, John is spearheading the commercial efforts to move towards a truly integrated Ogilvy.
 
In an ever-changing industry, he relishes the challenges ahead and is highly skilled in negotiating with procurement and securing terms that work for all parties. John has personally managed many key global client relationships (commercially) throughout his career including Kimberly-Clark, Ford, IAG and American Express.
 
John’s career at Ogilvy began when he joined in London as a Management Accountant – more than a few years ago! Since then, he ascended to a variety of different roles across the network in both London and New York, with his remit including regional and global responsibilities.
 
After his time as Finance Director for OgilvyOne and Director of Commercial Strategy and Operations for EMEA, John became Worldwide Commercial Director. Managing a team of Commercial Directors based throughout the world and responsible for managing global client relationships commercially, he has been integral to driving the adoption of commercial best practice across the globe, including pricing, negotiation, procurement strategy, new business and commercial training.

Karla Smith is the Chief Financial Officer of Ogilvy UK.

A commercially minded chartered accountant, Karla has over 20 years experience in the industry. Karla leads the UK’s commercial and finance communities across all areas of the business driving strong client relationships which enable our creativity to drive impact for our clients.

Karla is an advocate for workplace well being, driving multiple DE&I and anti-racism initiatives across the business. Karla is the honorary treasurer for the industry charity NABS and a member of the IPA Council and the IPA Finance Committee.

With over 25 years of brand communications experience across agency and in-house, Nicola has been a Managing Partner and part of the Ogilvy PR leadership team since 2019, leading new business, overseeing operations and corporate and consumer work for clients including Nestlé, Johnson & Johnson, UNESCO and Aldi.

Prior to Ogilvy, Nicola was Deputy Managing Director of Karmarama PR agency, Kaper.

Nicola has a broad spectrum of experience across commercial, not-for-profit and government and has worked with leading organisations including Barclays, IKEA, Unilever, Virgin Trains, London Underground and Dyson. She appears in the 2021 PR Week Power Book.

Clare is CEO of Ogilvy Experience EMEA, and also leads Ogilvy UK’s Experience business, which is focused on delivering strategies that drive growth and long term customer value for brands. With over 20 years experience in the direct to consumer space, Clare has lead consumer and business brands in telco, finance, hospitality, CPG, and entertainment.

Prior to this role, Clare was the Chief Customer Officer of Ogilvy UK, and prior to that Managing Director of OgilvyOne  - Ogilvy’s Customer Experience arm. She is a data geek at heart and has a passion for all things precision and performance. 

Alongside her current role, Clare is an active member of WPP’s mentor programme and mentors three up and coming ladies, along with being a sponsor of Ogilvy Equals. Ogilvy’s equality network - not to be confused as a women’s only network, champions the need for equality in the workplace. She is also Chair of the IPA 44 Club.

Out of work, she is an avid sports fan, and saves that passion for performance for standing on the side-lines of her eldest son’s football training and matches that somehow consume the whole weekend! 

Paul English has spent the better part of the last 20 years helping global companies find the intersection of digital technology, customer insight, and business impact.

As Managing Director of Ogilvy Consulting, Paul helps businesses understand how to best leverage new technologies, channels, and behaviours across the enterprise. Working across sectors and geographies, from startups to global enterprises, Paul is focused on how businesses can best leverage the digital opportunity for growth. He is fanatical about innovation and understanding today’s mutating consumer and B2B habits to find new ways to build customer equity in volume, value, and advocacy. Before joining Ogilvy Consulting, Paul helped lead Digital Transformation for brands including Samsung B2B, Hewlett-Packard, Dulux, Star Alliance, and RichemontGroup on transformational digital initiatives.

Caroline Howe is the CEO of Ogilvy Health and also leads the UK’s health business.

Along the journey to becoming CEO, she has been a practice lead for advertising and digital and a client lead for medical education and PR. This has allowed her to build a wealth of experience in integrated health communications across numerous campaigns and brand launches.

Working across both promotional and educational disciplines, she has created communication strategies for many clients in the healthcare industry (pharmaceutical companies, professional societies, health innovators and NGOs) across a variety of therapeutic areas including infectious disease, mental health, women’s health, vaccines, respiratory disease, cardiology, immunology, dermatology and oncology.

She works in partnership with her teams and clients, driving agency transformational change and guiding clients through their ever changing business needs.

She sits on the EMEA Exec Committee and UK Board and is a member the health council for EACA (European Association of Communications Agencies).

Vicky has nearly 30 years' experience in the brand industry and has been at Coley Porter Bell for 25 of these, promoted to CEO in 2005. 

She has led on many of the world’s largest branding projects for companies including LEGO, Post Office, Fremantle media, Unilever, Nestlé, Tesco, and RAF.

Whether it’s delivering brand strategy and architecture solutions, visual identities, brand experiences, naming or innovation, Vicky is particularly interested in the role of Neuroscience in branding to deliver more powerful solutions for our clients. And she believes that brands today need to be truly immersive to in order to deliver rich experiences across their ecosystems. 

She sits on the Ogilvy UK Board, is a member of WACL and the Marketing Society, and is also a Design Business Association (DBA) Board Director. In 2019 Vicky was awarded the Fellowship Award from The Marketing Society for her outstanding contribution to the industry and in 2020 was re-elected to sit on the Design Business Association.

As CEO, Ogilvy Consulting EMEA and Chief Consulting Officer, Ogilvy UK, Ann leads the strategic consulting team in the UK and across Europe, based in London. Ogilvy Consulting is the strategy and innovation arm of Ogilvy, helping clients find new paths to growth as they navigate an increasingly complex environment. 

With her team, Ann delivers Growth & Innovation, Brand & Customer Experience and Digital Transformation solutions and also oversees our specialist practices in Corporate & Sustainability and Behavioural Science.  With over 20 years in WPP in strategy and client leadership roles spanning New York, Paris and London, Ann has been instrumental in developing our IP in modern marketing and applying it with clients across a wide range of industries – from Financial Services and Technology, to FMCG, Retail with brands including American Express, British Airways, Unilever, Mondelez, Nestlé, IBM, Cisco, SAP and Louis Vuitton.

Prior to joining Ogilvy, Ann worked for what is now Kantar Consulting, developing and using qualitative and quantitative consumer research to inform long-term marketing and brand strategy scenarios for clients including Lloyds TSB. Following this she worked in brand and advertising planning for what is now Wunderman Thompson and in Digital Media at Mindshare. Ann is a BIMA 100 member and is a graduate of University College Dublin and Université Pierre Mendès-France.

Rory is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, an attractively vague job title which has allowed him to co-found a behavioral science practice within the agency. ​

He works with a consulting practice of psychology graduates who look for ‘unseen opportunities’ in consumer behaviour - these are the very small contextual changes which can have enormous effects on the decisions people make - for instance tripling the sales rate of a call centre by adding just a few sentences to the script. Put another way, lots of agencies will talk about "bought, owned and earned" media: we also look for "invented media" and "discovered media": seeking out those unexpected (and inexpensive) contextual tweaks that transform the way that people think and act. ​

It is a hugely valuable activity - but, alas, not particularly lucrative. This is because clients generally do not have budgets for solving problems they have not noticed. ​

Before founding Ogilvy Change, Rory was a copywriter and creative director at Ogilvy for over 20 years, having joined as a graduate trainee in 1988. He has variously been President of the IPA, Chair of the Judges for the Direct Jury at Cannes, and has spoken at TED Global. He writes regular columns for the Spectator, Market Leader and Impact, and also occasional pieces for Wired. He is the author of two books: The Wiki Man, available on Amazon at prices between £1.96 and £2,345.54, depending on whether the algorithm is having a bad day, and Alchemy, The surprising Power of Ideas which don't make Sense, to be published in the UK and US in March 2019.  ​

Rory is married to a vicar and has twin daughters of 17. He lives in the former home of Napoleon III - unfortunately in the attic. He is a trustee of the Benjamin Franklin House in London and of Rochester Cathedral. ​ ​