Great Minds

Malcolm joined Cheil Worldwide at the beginning of 2015 as the Network’s first ever Global Chief Creative Officer.

Having built and led teams responsible for award-winning firsts as diverse as Foot Locker’s Sneakerpedia, Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty and Samsung’s #BeFearless VR experience, Malcolm is a recognised industry influencer and speaker. A two time Cannes Lions Jury President, Clio Awards and LIA Awards Jury president, Malcolm was recently named one of AdAge magazine’s “World’s Top 10 Digital minds” and named by TechCity Insider as one of the UK’s leading Digital Innovators. His international industry accolades number more than 500, including Cannes Lions for Film, Print, Media, Outdoor, Cyber, Glass and Mobile.

Prior to joining Cheil, Malcolm was European Chief Creative Officer and a member of Sapient’s global leadership team where he helped build the company to in excess of a billion dollars in annual revenue, putting Sapient amongst Fortune Magazine’s 40 fastest growing companies in the world. M&CSaatchi, Saatchi&Saatchi, Ogilvy and SapientNitro have all won Agency of the Year titles during his creative leadership. With Cheil Worldwide, Malcolm has steered the network into the industry’s Top 10 Creative Network rankings and has seen the Network win their first Glass Lion at Cannes, first Innovation award at AdFest, Gran Sol at El Sol Awards, Grand Prix at Dubai Lynx, Gold at the International ANDY awards, collect their first WEBBY awards, create the Most Viewed Ad in the World on YouTube and post record new business success with Samsung along with winning global accounts including Etihad Airways, adidas, PZ Cussons, Abbot and UN Women.

A Kiwi, Malcolm is a former member of the NZ Yachting Team, recognised by KEA as a ‘World Class New Zealander’, former board member of the UK’s Institute of Contemporary Art, Patron of the Royal Academy of Arts, C.A.L.M. and a member of the Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Malcolm lives in London with his Australian wife and English daughter.

On this episode of Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome Tom O’Keefe, Creative Chairman, and Jeff King, CEO, of the newly merged BarkleyOKRP.

BarkleyOKRP is a new advertising agency formed by the merger of two prominent agencies, Barkley and OKRP. The merger creates one of the largest independent agencies in the United States, with offices in Chicago, Denver, New York, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City. BarkleyOKRP aims to be independent enough to create bold work while having the capabilities to build whole brands.

Chuck Leavell was a member of the Allman Brothers Band throughout their commercial zenith in the 1970s, he subsequently became a founding member of the band Sea Level. He has served as the principal touring keyboardist and musical director of the Rolling Stones since 1982. As a session musician, Leavell has performed on every Rolling Stones studio album released since 1983 with the exception of Bridges to Babylon (1997). He has also toured and recorded with Eric Clapton, George Harrison, David Gilmour, Gov’t Mule and John Mayer.

Jamila Wignot is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her body of work includes, the Emmy-nominated MAKERS: WOMEN IN BUSINESS; THE AFRICAN AMERICANS: MANY RIVERS TO CROSS, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, which won a Peabody, Emmy, and NAACP awards; TOWN HALL a feature-length co-production with ITVS about the Tea Party movement; and for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE the Peabody Award-winning, “Triangle Fire” and Emmy-nominated “Walt Whitman”.

Wignot’s producing credits include “The Rehnquist Revolution,” the fourth episode of WNET’s series THE SUPREME COURT which was an IDA Best Limited Series winner and STREET FIGHTING MAN, character-driven documentary, currently in post-production, about the daily lives of three men surviving in the neighborhoods of post-industrial Detroit.

Alex Collmer is the founder and CEO of VidMob, the leading creative data company. The AI-based software improves creative and media performance by helping brands and agencies derive their own custom creative best practices, and ensure that those learnings are applied across all flighted media. Vidmob counts many of the world’s leading brands and agencies as clients and helps them drive brand consistency, reduce creative and media waste, and increase overall business performance across the funnel. Since founding the company in 2015, Alex has raised more than $230M in venture funding and has received numerous awards including Ad Age’s Best Places to Work and Digiday’s Most Innovative Technology Award.

Issa Jouaneh is President, Connections, at Emerald, and is responsible for leading the strategic oversight and growth optimization of the company’s core business, comprised of 140+ leading events, trade shows, and conferences.

Issa joined Emerald in March 2021 as Executive Vice President of Emerald Xcelerator, leading the company’s market diversification strategy through new shows, partnerships, and sub-expo launches.

Issa has over 20 years of experience leading multidisciplinary, cross-functional teams across a wide range of industries.

His professional journey includes leading technology, application, and web development teams at Electronic Data Systems and a 14-year tenure at The American Express Company and American Express Global Business Travel. He ultimately served as Senior Vice President and General Manager, leading American Express Meetings & Events globally, where he successfully led the transformation of the business, tripling its size and reaching over 2,400 employees in 25+ proprietary countries.

Issa holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from McGill University and a Master of Business Administration from Schulich School of Business at York University.

Heidi Dangelmaier is an inventor + designer + scientist (Quantum Physics & Artificial Intelligence). She has a track record of inventing first to market mass-appeal products, technology, entertainment & brands. Her gift at activating mass-scale growth in the female market is peerless. She’s generated billions in revenues for many global brands. She’s the most recognized leader at the frontiers of Market Growth X Gender X Design.

Robert E. (Bob) Hope is a veteran of the public relations and event marketing business. He is co-owner and president of Hope-Beckham, an independent agency based in Atlanta.

Hope and longtime friend Paul Beckham started Hope-Beckham 25 years ago.

Clients have included Chick-fil-A Foundation, Turner Broadcasting, Belk, The Coca-Cola Company, Southern Company, Home Depot, Comcast and a variety of sports teams and leagues as well as non-profit organizations.

He is author of two books – “We Could Have Finished Last Without You” about his early days with the Braves, and “Greater Late than Never” about people who achieved their life’s success after age 50.

Will Rogers once said there are two kinds of people on earth – those who march in the parade and those who sit on the curb and watch. If you march, you have only one view your entire life. However, if you sit on the right curb, you see marvelous things.

Bob Hope has spent his life on a marvelous curb observing remarkable people and events. He started working for the Atlanta Braves while in college and became the team’s director of public relations and promotions at age 24. He managed the Major League Baseball All-Star Game at age 25. And he was with Hank Aaron during the chase to break the all-time home run record of Babe Ruth.

When Ted Turner bought the team, he was promoted to vice president at age 29 and worked not only for the Braves but also the Turner-owned Atlanta Hawks and for Turner’s TV station, handling marketing for the Braves and the TV station.

He left Turner to work on sports, particularly the Olympics, for The Coca-Cola Company and then decided to go into the public relations agency business so he could work for both Coke and Turner, which led to a career in New York in a top job of the world’s largest public relations firm.

Along the way, he has been involved in many Olympics, including Atlanta. He helped several cities with their campaigns to land major league sports franchises – Charlotte in the NBA, Miami, Denver and Washington in Major League Baseball, Ottawa in hockey, and Atlanta in the WNBA.

He also attempted to open the doors to girls and women as baseball players, creating the Colorado Silver Bullets professional baseball team of elite women athletes, which traveled the world for four years playing against men’s amateur, college and minor league professional teams. The team was managed by former Braves star pitcher Phil Niekro. His involvement with the Silver Bullets led to a 14-year stint on the board of Billie Jean King’s Women’s Sports Foundation and six years as the only male on its executive committee. The WSF is the chief lobbying organization in favor of equal education opportunities, including sports, for women in colleges and universities.

With 20 years of tech experience, and after witnessing the explosion of marketing data and its potential to inform business decisions, Alexander saw a clear gap in the market that he was determined to fill. This led to the founding of Adverity, an intelligent marketing analytics platform, which he co-founded with colleagues Martin Brunthaler and Andreas Glänzer in 2015.