James has nearly 30 years of experience in the advertising and communications industry, ranging from large International Networks to start-ups and scale-ups.
He spent 4 years as a member of the IPA Client Service Group Committee; Is a member of the IPA and the Marketing Group of Great Britain (MGGB); A public speaker on creativity and contributor to Campaign magazine.
He was a partner at Karmarama, growing and diversifying the business from 30 to 300 people, culminating in its sale to Accenture.
Post-sale he undertook various roles including leading the creative communications agency. Delivering ideas that thrive within culture. His shared awards include IPA effectiveness (Gold); Cannes Lions; DMA (Grand Prix) and Campaign BIG. Many of these came from the turnaround British Army recruitment campaign that merged high end creativity with data science.
After December 2016 he was also appointed a Managing Director of Accenture, continuing to fuse right brain with left brain, consultancy and creative thinking.
As Karmarama CEO in 2022, he fully integrated the company into Accenture Song providing full end to end brand and business growth.
His latest position as CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi saw the agency once more hit the front pages of the nationals and once more become the UK's largest creative agency by billings.
He also sits on the board of the SAE Institute and the ICMP. His passion is promoting the creative industries and establishing trackable pathways into industry within schools and government.