Derek Robson

Derek started his career in direct marketing at Ogilvy & Mather Direct in London, initially as an account manager and then as an account planner. He was the first account planner in London to move from a direct-marketing agency to a traditional advertising agency.
He moved from Ogilvy & Mather to Bartle Bogle Hegarty, where he spent the next 13 years of his career as the agency’s deputy planning director and then as managing director, working on Levi’s, Xbox, Murphy’s Irish Stout, Boddingtons Pub Ale, Audi UK, K Shoes, Levi’s Japan, Cointreau, the Independent and Independent on Sunday (newspapers), Cadbury (Boost, Picnic and Roses), Hugo Boss, Coca-Cola and Google.
Under his leadership, the agency twice won Campaign magazine’s Agency of the Year award, and the agency grew its income by 30%. As a result he was, rather comically, voted one of the 40 most influential men under 40 in 2004 by Esquire in the UK. Somehow he was more influential than Jenson Button and Christian Bale.
Derek joined GS&P in 2005 and helped the agency position itself for the future, restructuring GS&P for the digital age, which resulted in several Agency of the Year and Digital Agency of the Year awards from 2006 to 2010.
Derek lives in a house in Tiburon with his wife, Sarnia, and his two daughters, Millie and Evie, and a cat named Teddy.