Essential Planning Skills

Shekhar has led local and global Planning roles for JWT in three continents. He is passionate about mentoring and developing young talent.

I was, perhaps, destined to end up in advertising. Son of a planner and a qualitative researcher, my early years were spent watching ad-reels instead of postman pat. This was followed by a wasted youth of computer gaming, programming and tinkering. And then jobs in research, digital and integrated agencies. Now working at The&Partnership as Head of Innovation. As a Philosophy graduate, I worry about the ethics of advertising and think the industry is at an important turning point with digital marketing. I explored this theme in my 2016 Admap Essay, "The Uncanny Valley of Personalisation", which explored the pitfalls of personalisation in advertising and how to avoid them. I have since written a Dissertation for the IPA Excellence Diploma on “Unleashing Cyborg Creativity”. I also like trains, obscure walking tours, police procedurals and buying books that I will never get round to reading. I also cook a fabulous bolognese.

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James Caig is a planner, trainer and facilitator who has led strategy teams in media, creative, digital and CRM agencies. He has won IPA Excellence Awards, started APG West and has been a judge for the APG Creative Strategy Awards and IPA Excellence Diploma. Recently he's devised and run Persuasive Presentations training for more than 70 people.

David has spent over 20 years in the creative discipline and has previously worked at agencies such as JWT, BBH, Fallon and DDB UK. This gives him the unique insight of having received many briefs from planners over the years.

Julian Saunders has worked as a strategist in most disciplines and recently in The Zoo at Google, where his role was to advise clients about effective marketing on digital platforms. He works directly for clients and specialises in running strategic workshops for them. Previous roles include: CEO of Red Cell, Non-Executive Planning Director of Good Technology, Executive planning Director of McCann-Erickson and Planning Director of Ogilvy. He publishes regularly, mostly in Market Leader (the quarterly journal of The Marketing Society), blogs at joinedupthink.com and was editor of The Communications Challenge (APG 2004) a pioneering textbook for planners about the impact of the digital revolution”

Neil is a top planner, formerly of BBH and JWT London. He is now Executive Planning Director at Wunderman Thompson, along with an IPA Fellow and Chair of the IPA Effectiveness Champions. He is multi-awarded for at APG Creative Strategy Awards and a winner of the Grand Prix for Dixons in 2011 and an expert in all things effective.

Phil has over 25 years client-side brand management experience. After 16 years with Unilever, rising to Marketing VP, he worked at Diageo and T-Mobile. Whilst responsible for T-Mobile’s brand positioning and development around Europe he became a client of decode marketing consultancy and first encountered 'decision Science‘. He is now one of very few experts to combine a practitioner's perspective with a profound knowledge of decision Science.

Greg is a Strategist at Craft. He has 13 years' experience in the industry wearing all sorts of hats - performance media buyer to head of department and everything in between - before finding his home in Strategy.
He's worked in the UK and Australia, and led strategic thinking for the country's biggest hitting and fastest growing advertisers. Greg's loves solving problems and watching people in equal measure. His work has been awarded at Cannes, and by the IPA, WARC and Spikes Asia. When not working he can be found chasing his son around a soft play or watching West Ham through his fingers at the London Stadium.