Grey London Promotes CCO Nils Leonard to Chairman

Grey London has signalled its commitment to creative excellence and innovation, promoting Chief Creative Officer Nils Leonard to Chairman.

The news comes in a month that has already seen Leonard’s role as an industry leader recognised by D&AD, which appointed him to the Board of Trustees and The Hospital Club, which named him one of the most influential and innovative 100 people working in Britain’s creative industries today. He now adds Chairman to his role as Chief Creative Officer of Grey London, with a brief to drive innovation across the whole business.

Leonard joined Grey London in 2007 and since taking the reins as Executive Creative Director in 2009, has overseen themost profitable and creatively awarded years in the agency’s 52 year history.

In this time, the agency has doubled in size and been awarded numerous accolades including the Cannes Black Lion for its work on The British Heart Foundation, Adweek’s global agency of the year in 2013 and one of D&AD’s most awarded agencies in 2014. With his vision to impact culture, Grey London is also one of very few agencies to be awarded outside of its industry, picking up a British Comedy Award alongside British comedienne Victoria Wood for The Angina Monologues, a comedy that aired on Christmas Day to an audience of seven million.

Leonard began the transformation of Grey London with a spate of work including the globally recognized Spacechair for Toshiba and Lucozade’s Louder campaign, which brought dubstep to the masses and created the most pre-sold single on iTunes ever. More recently, Leonard penned the emotive Kiss for Vodafone, voted Marketing magazine’s most shared romantic ad of all time. His latest work for McVitie’s is famous the world over, with Time magazine calling it ‘the cutest thing ever put on television’.

Chris Hirst, CEO Grey London said: “At the end of by far our best creative year ever, we want to make a clear statement of intent to our clients and to the industry at large of our single-minded commitment to even greater creative ambition and excellence.”

Tor Myhren, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of Grey added: “Nils is the most ambitious creative person I've ever met. And his ambition translates into a relentless work ethic and an absolute refusal to stop at good, when he knows it can be great. 

“Nils understands that building a creative culture that everybody in the agency buys into is the only way to create sustained success in this business. Do it for one year you're lucky, do it for five years you're good, do it for 10 years and you're the best. Nils is a competitive animal and he won't sleep until Grey is the best.”

Leonard’s career also includes running a design consultancy for high profile fashion and music clients.  His non-traditional background has informed the remarkable cultural change at Grey London, which saw the controversial removal of agency conventions such as the sign off system and offices for senior members of staff. 

Nils Leonard, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Grey London said: “I'm proud to be a part of this agency and where it’s going. For me, being chairman is about continuing to partner Chris, Lucy and everyone at Grey London in making a different sort of creative company.”

David Patton, CEO and President of Grey EMEA added: "It's a genius appointment. I want Nils to use his new expanded role to drive significant creative innovation across our whole business. We've got a fantastic leadership team in place and tremendous momentum across the whole agency – these are very exciting times for Grey London, our people and our clients."