Rebecca Adair
- Founder & Client Services Director
Rebecca Adair is co-founder and managing partner of the UK advertising agency – Kemosabe. Founded two years ago with her two business partners, Rebecca has been instrumental in the vertical growth the agency has experienced. In traditional terms, KEMOSABE has been appointed to handle Southern Comfort, Cisco, All Nippon Airways (Airline of the Year 2018), The Black Deer Festival, Deliveroo and Philippine Airlines.
Rebecca has also been developing the agency’s credentials in the social impact space with Kemosabe now working with the U.S. based Thankful Organization and Social Enterprise UK – The UK’s biggest network of social enterprises in the UK, strategically aligned with 6 government departments and have led public policy on social enterprise for 15 years.
Rebecca is also spearheading the opening of a new agency State side that operates exclusively in the ‘purpose’ environment.
She is also a partner in HOUSE OF MOGULS, an investment business that acts as an incubator for start-up brands. HOUSE OF MOGULS has invested and helped take to market an education brand aimed at the creative industry, a vodka and a natural health supplement business.
Rebecca studied Drama Therapy and the rehabilitation of women offenders through drama. This meant working in a women’s prison for six months.
Phillip Clark
- Founder and Creative Director
Phill has been in the creative industry for over 25 years. As Creative Director, his entrepreneurial spirit has lead him to set up and manage several award winning creative agencies and a TV production house over the years.
Today, as Founder and Creative director of Kemosabe, he oversees all creative output and strategic direction. In New York, he is spearheading the agency’s work with the United Nations as well as opening a purely purpose driven agency that uses the United Nations 17 SDGs as its backbone.
Phill has also worked for the international groups Ogilvy & Mather and Bates.
He has been Creative Director on brands that include ANA (All Nippon Airways), BT, American Express, Cisco, Halifax, Southern Comfort, Hyundai, Royal Mail, The History Channel, The Biography Channel, Rolls-Royce and Gourmet Burger Kitchen.
Following his work for Save The Children, Phill was appointed to an advisory board for the charity. He also has one campaign for The History Channel on permanent exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Ian Irving
- Founder & Creative Strategy Director
Recognised as one of the founding leaders of ‘Experiential’ Marketing Ian is a strategic and creative thinker. He has 23 years experience across all disciplines including, Experience and Event Marketing, Sponsorship, Amplification, Social Media Strategy, Retail Insights, Influencer Marketing, Experiential and Branded Content and Omni-Channel.
A published author & multi award winner, Ian has worked with many of the world’s largest brands – Tesco, Topshop, RBS, H&M, B&Q, WHSmith, River Island, Whirlpool, Paddy Power, 47 Brand and Footlocker, Nutristrength and Levi’s – helping them to seek out and increase global online and offline communities and utilise insight to increase consumer advocacy as well as using social media conversations to change purchase behaviours and drive ROI in the live, OOH and digital environments.
Charlotte Soper
- Client Services
Charlotte has over 5 years experience working across integrated and TTL creative agencies. She has an impeccable eye for detail, the organiser of the organised and all with a smile on her face.
Charlotte honed her craft on a variety of accounts from All Nippon Airways EMEA, to the global Rolls Royce account, International and UK property marketing, WeWantAnyCar.com, more recently Mazda and much much more.
Having worked with Co-Founders Phill and Rebecca in a past life, Charlotte has found a home at Kemosabe with her Faithful Friends once again. Must be a good sign 🙂
Richard Martin
- Brand Growth Strategist
Richard is team lead on all client related growth strategies, helping our clients to deliver return on investment. Richard is a former Managing Director at Vice Media, Global Director of Marketing at Fred Perry and lifestyle entrepreneur establishing businesses within a multitude of categories. Including digital media and marketing and creative agencies operating in the fashion, FMCG, entertainment and interiors markets. He is recognised within the industry for creating and activating innovative, purpose-lead growth strategies linking product, brand, channel and sales.
“ We know we need to emotionally connect with our audience, however the rules of engagement have changed. Businesses must now have a ‘reason to be’ and the content they create must be driven by this purpose. We have no choice…the audience expects.”
Annabelle Wong
- Account Executive
Annabelle is our Account Executive with a passion for progressing brands to reach their full potential. She has experience in marketing for a wide variety of publications, leading campaigns for a music festival, and has worked on exciting events, exhibitions and conferences across multiple industries.
Annabelle achieved her MA Advertising and Marketing degree whilst studying at the University of Leeds, although unconventionally, her background is in Linguistics. She has a deep curiosity about other languages and cultures, which in turn propels her enthusiasm when working on our whole host of international clients!
Always at her happiest when busy taking on side projects, Annabelle is also conducting the marketing activities for The Move Mag, a quarterly print magazine telling the story of underground music and club culture. She does love a good party.
Steve Wright
- Head of Video - (Videographer & Digital Content Creator)
Steve Wright is a multi-award-winning video creator with over a decade of experience in film, television and video craft. Steve has worked with many high-profile broadcasting agencies including the BBC, ITV and Channel 5, and has also worked on international commissions for global brands. After graduating with a Masters degree in Television Production in 2009, Steve set up his own Production Company offering bespoke marketing videos to businesses and brands.
After years of experience of running his own production company, Steve joined the team as ‘Head of Film and Video’ and has since worked on a vast array of moving image projects for our clients. His work spans from brand videos and corporate films, commercials, documentaries, social media content, interviews and event filming for our clients all over the world, and notably his recent documentary series for Japanese airline All Nippon Airways which was shot over two weeks on location in Japan.
Sharon Hewitt
- Global Event Production Manager
As an independent, dynamic senior event and project manager with over 15 years of experience, managing 100+ events all over the world, with budgets ranging from US$5000 – US$2,500,000 per event, from corporate to boutique, incentive to training, festivals to cruises, targeting from 20 to 2000 guests, Sharon understands that success in events rests on the ability to create excellent experiences for clients and their delegates. First, by caring about every detail of each event experience, second by leading a team of event professionals to deliver a successful event and third with imagination and creativity.
Fortunately Sharon has been able to travel the world managing cultural, complex, rewarding, engaging and exciting programs. Being born in The Netherlands, raised in Suriname, the Caribbean and the USA, Sharon brings a global and multicultural perspective, a unique sense of style and diversity when creating and executing her projects. Sharon is both a Dutch and US Citizen.
Alex Rebbeck
- Trend Analyst
Alex is a global trend expert combining perceptive analysis with a strong design eye. Formerly senior editor for global trend forecasters WGSN, Alex now runs her own creative consultancy, alongside soon-to-launch lifestyle brand Studio Kyn.
Her experience as youth editor then senior editor, creative direction and think tank for WGSN has informed Alex’s specialism in ‘bubble up’ trends and future-forward design, with knowledge spanning fashion, interiors, graphics, technology and lifestyle.
Andrei Goea
- Digital Marketing Manager
With over 10 years of experience of working with digital media, Andrei has made a name for himself as an expert developer as well as experienced digital marketing strategist. This unique combination of skills has allowed him to plan, develop and deliver large-scale, technically ambitious, yet efficiently achievable digital campaigns.
His desire to share his experience with others led to Andrei leading the digital marketing of one of the largest Digital Media Training centres in the UK where he also passed on his skills through training and consultancy to brands such as: Sky TV, BBC, Red Bull, English Heritage and many others.
Steve Lacey
- Head of Kemosabe Insight
A recognised figure in both the research and advertising industry, Steve is seen as one of the UK’s leading lights in strategic communications research with a wealth of international expertise and knowledge.
A Senior Account Planner at Farm Communications and Head of Planning at Baby Creative, Steve has successfully run accounts for clients such as the Action For Children, BBC, IPC, Goodfellas, Greenpeace, Department of Education, Department of Health and Merlin Entertainment. As a former head of qualitative research, Steve has led several high profile projects for clients including: Asda, Tesco, BA, Google, Sainsbury’s, Camelot, CH4, ITV and Save The Children.
Recently he worked on a number of award winning ads including Boots, Frank, Nivea, Moneysupermarket, B&Q and IKEA. Steve has extensive experience in brand and communication research including proposition development, and his skills are often used to help determine and build growth strategies.
Steve’s big passions are understanding cultural drivers and behavioural change.
He is a trained moderator and ethnographic researcher.
Jarod Smith
- Partnerships Director
Whilst Jarod runs a successful and growing interior design business, Jarod’s role within Kemosabe has naturally fallen within the property arena, in which Kemosabe hold much experience themselves.
Having worked client side for many years with Co founders Phill and Rebecca, their is a strong and trusted relationship which is helping both parties grow and succeed.
Having worked on branding, design and launch-to-market, Jarod is clearly a multi-disciplined design professional, with a proven track record working on complex projects focusing on practical, intelligent design.
