Rob Smith

Rob started his career in the U.K. working for Comcast around the start of the U.K. cable TV and telephone boom. After a few years working with and running the agency relationships, he realized that his heart lay in the agency world, and he moved to an agency called Rapier, where he worked with clients such as Cable & Wireless, eurostar and Barclays Bank. Within a year, Cable & Wireless won Integrated Campaign of the Year.

Seven years at Ogilvy followed, during which time he ran local, pan-European and then global pieces of business for both IBM and Motorola. He left Ogilvy New York as a senior partner and worldwide account director.

In 2005 he finally saw the light and joined Goodby Silverstein & Partners. He says he can’t believe his good fortune to have discovered these people at this place.

A couple of years later, GSP beat Ogilvy to the giant, $1B-spending-a-year Sprint business. Rob created and lead a team of 150 people to refocus the brand away from it’s failed merger with Nextel and reposition it around the data-oriented future. “The Now Network” campaign was a huge success and was rewarded by a Cannes Gold Lion for Best Integrated Campaign in the world in 2009.

In 2011 he was asked to lead our new-business efforts. Since then, we’ve picked up Ameritrade, Google, National Geographic, Modelo Especial, Corona Light and Tsing Tao, amongst others.

Rob is a passionate traveler and a frequent flier. He recently achieved U.S. citizenship and calls San Francisco home. He lives with his wife, Amy, their six-year-old son, Elliot, and his daughter, Ava, who’s four. When he’s not working, he likes to spend the weekends on the slopes in Tahoe, increasingly chasing after his kids.