Sisomo

Kevin Roberts is CEO Worldwide of ideas company Saatchi & Saatchi, one of the world’s largest and most successful creative organizations, handling more than fifty of the world’s most valuable global brands. Heading a team of more than seven thousand people in eighty-two countries, Roberts led Saatchi & Saatchi to become both Advertising Age and Adweek magazines’ Global Agency Network of the Year in 2003. He is the author of the best-selling book Lovemarks: the future beyond brands (powerHouse Books, 2004), which has now been translated into fourteen languages. Born in Lancashire, England, Roberts’ first job as a brand manager with British sixties fashion icon Mary Quant led to the development of a philosophy that challenged business’ reliance on metrics and rational arguments. His early career featured senior positions in Europe and the Middle East with three leading, global brand marketers—Gillette, Procter & Gamble, and Pepsi. Roberts’ intense belief in the power of inspiration and his love of working directly in the market—as opposed to being in the office—are still trademarks of his style today. In 1987, Roberts was appointed President and CEO of Pepsi in Canada. It was there that he famously machine-gunned a Coca-Cola vending machine in order to remind his people of the passion they need to be Number One in a competitive market. (His team had just displaced Coke.) In 1997, he made the shift from client-side to heading up the global agency in New York, beginning its transformation as a hothouse for world-changing creative ideas. Roberts is Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Waikato in New Zealand and at the University of Limerick in Ireland. He is the inaugural CEO in residence at the Judge Institute of Management, Cambridge University’s business school.