Along with DPR&Co MD, Dom Brasacchio, I spent an amazing late-June week in London attending the 2025 AMIN Worldwide Global Leaders’ conference.
Held at the Hiatt Churchill in the heart of Mayfair, the conference attracted AMIN members from across the world. And the content of the conference was among the most actionable and insight rich I’ve ever come across.
The host agency, Strategiq, did an amazing job bringing together a cohort of leading thinkers from the UK, Europe and, yes, Australia, including:
Jon Evans – The Uncensored CMO and Chief Customer Officer for System1 the world-leading provider of advertising and innovation testing. Jon’s focus was on helping agency leaders better relate to the emerging challenges faced by CMOs and being more highly valued partners in the process.
Simon Mottram – Founder of Rapha and former marketing director and head of brand consulting at Sapient. Simon’s story of single-minded focus and tenacity in developing what is arguably the world most desirable bike accessory brand was nothing short of inspiring.
Sophie Devonshire – Business leader, entrepreneur, marketer, and bestselling author. Sophie talked about the changing role of soft skills in business and the evolved ways they’re contributing to the creation of high-performing teams.
Will Anderson OBE – Former British Army Major and Chief Growth Officer at StrategiQ. I was fortunate enough to spend some time one-on-one with Will, the leader of the British commando teams that participated in the Gulf war with incredible effect. Those leadership skills are now applied powering the growth ambition of host agency, Strategiq.
Shingy (David Shing) – Digital “Prophet” fresh from Cannes. Shingy is in love with advertising. He’s an advocate for the profession at its best and an advocate for excellence in its delivery.
Russell McAthy – Co-Founder and CEO of Ringside Data. Not being a data geek, I was nervous about this one. I shouldn’t have been. Russell makes data make more relevant and usable than ever.
Across a riveting two and a half days, interspersed with amazing London-inspired fun, both Dom and I drank deeply from a well of inspiration and allyship. An amazing event hosted by an amazing firm, led by the incredibly charismatic Strategiq CEO, Andy Smith.
The conference was also a pivotal time for DPR&Co, as it hosted the launch of our global AI-driven brand health monitoring platform, Ubiqitum. I’m thrilled that so many of our fellow members are now active with the platform, leveraging it for both existing and prospective clients. It has contributed a lot to the current momentum of our start-up.
AMIN London 2025 was also a personal landmark for me as my two year term as President of the AMIN Worldwide Global Board ended and I handed the leadership mantle to Ali Mahaffy, joint CEO of Kansas City agency Signal Theory. Ali is a powerful leader who, I’m sure, will make a massive difference in the coming year.
In a short ceremony, I was able to reflect on a period of significant change within the network reflecting my leadership objective of making AMIN relevant to a greater depth of people within our agencies through personal development and high-quality knowledge exchange and to leverage that point of differentiation into a more compelling network value proposition.
Another changing of the guard was the hand-off of the Presidency of the Americas region of AMIN Worldwide from Kelly Ferguson (Meyocks, Des Moines Iowa), to Misty Klobucher of Simantel (Peoria Illionois). Simantel is a fellow Cat agency, an skilled leader and powerful strategic thinker.
The good news is that I have a further two-year term as past president to continue to assist the AMIN strategy leadership team to create even more change for the better for the network.
My abiding thoughts about the conference lie in the depth and warmth of the allyships DPR&Co’s membership of AMIN have brought us. It’s an amazing thing to have genuine friendships now a decade old in cities all over the world. The different insights and experiences they bring to me as an individual and professional have left me immeasurably better off.
As for London… the weather was perfect (really!), the city extraordinarily alive, and the people incredibly welcoming.