Our People

OUR COMMUNITY

At Mediabrands, we are committed to creating a diverse global community based on excellence and equity. We pride ourselves in attracting and retaining the best in the industry, across all disciplines and specialties. We seek out the best talent wherever we can find it and embrace people looking for new paths to forge. We deliberately foster a diversity of experiences and backgrounds and cultivate the sharing of different ideas and viewpoints as a critical part of our promise of innovation to clients.

As part of our commitment to equity, we are honest about the conscious and unconscious barriers to success that people from diverse backgrounds experience. We are determined to eradicate those obstacles in our company and create a truly people-centered culture where everyone is able to flourish and succeed.

Our Leadership

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    Christian Johansen

    Chief Executive Officer, Mediabrands EMEA

    Christian Johansen

    Chief Executive Officer, Mediabrands EMEA

    Christian is CEO of IPG Mediabrands across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He has over 20 years of global client leadership across cross-functional businesses, as well as regions and local offices, and he is a member of IPG Mediabrands’ global board.

    Christian oversees all of the Group’s digital and media businesses across the region, including Initiative, UM, The Reprise Network, Rapport, MAGNA and Orion.  His media and marketing capability spans all areas of the industry, including marketing and brand strategy, digital strategy and activation, advertising, experience marketing and media.

    He has lived in Norway, USA, The Netherlands, and the UK and speaks Norwegian as a native, and English, French and Spanish fluently. He is married to Emily, and his two boys, Oliver and Charlie, are forever keeping him on his toes.

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    Adrian Terry

    Chief Financial Officer, Mediabrands EMEA

    Adrian Terry

    Chief Financial Officer, Mediabrands EMEA

    Adrian is the CFO for the EMEA region. He has extensive experience in the media, digital and creative sectors having held various Finance, Commercial and Trading positions with Dentsu and WPP agencies.  Adrian’s role focuses on delivering results across the region by building partnerships with our clients, agencies and Global teams. He is responsible for helping to deliver the results across over 20 EMEA markets.

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    Debbie Brooks

    Chief Talent Officer, Mediabrands EMEA

    Debbie Brooks

    Chief Talent Officer, Mediabrands EMEA

    Debbie leads HR for Mediabrands across the EMEA region. With a degree in Law, CIPD qualification and extensive experience in HR for marketing and digital agencies, Debbie joined Mediabrands in 2011 as HR Director for UK & Ireland. In 2015, Debbie moved to oversee the talent function for EMEA, with responsibility for improving employee experience throughout the entire lifecycle. A commercially focused, strategic HR leader, Debbie has led the transformation of our EMEA HR function, which successfully supports our business to achieve its goal of attracting, developing and retaining the very best talent in the industry. She understands what makes a great leader and ensures our leadership strives to create a culture within which our talent can thrive. She’s passionate about health, fitness and wellbeing and is a qualified Pilates instructor.

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    Laura Kendrick

    Chief Information Officer, UK & EMEA

    Laura Kendrick

    Chief Information Officer, UK & EMEA

    Laura leads the IT and Technology for the EMEA region.  Laura has extensive experience in leading IT strategy and teams in a variety of sectors including Telecommunications, Travel, Media and has also led international outsourced IT operations for HP and Oracle.

    Laura’s role focuses on ensuring there is a clear strategic plan for delivering robust, efficient and business enabling IT systems that support growth and a step change in business goals. A people focused, leader with a passion for building motivated and diverse high performing teams, Laura is excited by all the opportunities for technology to drive innovation in the way we work and how we support our clients.

    Laura’s twin daughters were born in Cape Town, South Africa where she and her husband worked for a number of years, so she enjoys going back to Africa for holidays when she can. She also loves taking her dogs for long walks.

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    Andy Butters

    Managing Director, Matterkind EMEA

    Andy Butters

    Managing Director, Matterkind EMEA

    Andy leads our specialist programmatic buying unit Matterkind, covering all markets in EMEA he is responsible for the growth and development of our 15 market hubs in the region.

     

    Andy has worked for Mediabrands since 2006 across a number of digital roles, including senior digital positions within UM, SBUs as a whole, and now Matterkind. He has worked closely with key clients including Johnson & Johnson, Amazon, and Coke. 

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    Léonie Koning

    President, Initiative EMEA

    Léonie Koning

    President, Initiative EMEA

    As President of Initiative in EMEA and CEO in the Netherlands Léonie is proud to be part of the Initiative community; the fastest growing agency network. Léonie believes talent is what truly enables a company’s culture, successfully building diverse and hybrid teams throughout the region. Under her leadership Initiative Netherlands acquired the #1 position (Dominant) in RECMA – an indicator for growth, new business wins, leadership and business momentum.

    Léonie was named #4 on the Dutch Media Agency Top50-ranking of most influential people in the industry. She is a passionate jury member and president at award festivals. Léonie and her husband live in Amsterdam, near the Amsterdam forest where she often goes horseback riding – the best way to relax.

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    Chris Skinner

    President, UM EMEA

    Chris Skinner

    President, UM EMEA

    Chris is President of UM EMEA, responsible for driving excellence in client service, team performance and talent across the regional network. His extensive international career has seen him working with some of the world’s most iconic brands across multiple continents – for whom he has consistently delivered brilliantly innovative work and real business growth. He has a unique visionary outlook that that has not only allowed him to transform clients’ businesses, but also turn UM EMEA into diverse, progressive and award-winning network in which all people can thrive. An avid runner and cyclist, Chris grew up in Cambridge and now lives in London with his wife and daughter.

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    Jimmy Schougaard

    President, Reprise EMEA

    Jimmy Schougaard

    President, Reprise EMEA

    Jimmy Schougaard is the President of EMEA for Reprise with over 20 years’ experience in performance marketing and customer engagement. A true champion of customer centric marketing and the integration of media and creative content, Jimmy is able to take the most holistic view of the discipline across media, strategy, technology and creative all while establishing himself as a true business partner for his clients.

    Jimmy is based in Copenhagen but travels across the EMEA region, guiding and leading up client projects in markets. His education in marketing with a Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School flows through to his purpose driven team leadership skills which are exampled daily through his curiosity and consultative mind-set.

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    Howard Norton

    Managing Director, Orion EMEA

    Howard Norton

    Managing Director, Orion EMEA

    Howard is Managing Director EMEA of Orion and is responsible for leading Orion across the region, focusing on delivering results by building partnerships with our clients and agencies, working closely with the Global Orion team.  He joined Orion in January 2016 and has served in prior roles as EMEA Growth Lead and UK Managing Director, leading the growth of the UK business across recent years and developing relationships to create significant value for our clients.  Howard has worked in the media industry since 2003 and prior to working at Mediabrands held senior sales roles at Virgin Media, Disney and Channel 5.  When not at work, Howard can normally be found with his wife, Mel, and his two kids, Eva and Jack.

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    Chris Marjoram

    Managing Director, Rapport EMEA

    Chris Marjoram

    Managing Director, Rapport EMEA

    Chris is Rapport MD, UK & EMEA and is our Out-of-Home lead across a media channel that is changing rapidly from static or classic posters to digital screens and the exciting and transformational opportunities that offers to clients. Chris joined IPG initially to set up an international Out-of-Home planning and buying agency for clients overseeing Boeing, Samsung and MasterCard and more recently has been responsible for the European roll out of Rapport offices in Italy, Germany, Spain, France and Belgium. Rapport’s latest initiative is the launch of Rapport Beyond, our scheme to offset 100% of digital screen carbon emissions with a target to be climate positive by 2022. Chris has a degree in Classics from Leicester University and started his career in account management at Grey.

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    Kevin Longhurst

    Head of Magna, EMEA

    Kevin Longhurst

    Head of Magna, EMEA

    Kevin is the Head of Magna for the EMEA region, and is responsible for managing Mediabrands’ media investment strategy for the region. Kevin’s role covers areas such as client partnerships, media standards, International trading, and he is heavily involved in the brokering and operationalising of the IPG global partnership approach. He is responsible for working with the local Magna leads in each market to ensure a consistent and forward facing approach to the ever changing world of media investment. Kevin brings 25 years of planning, buying and trading experience to his role, and has worked across multiple disciplines and client sectors in his previous roles at ITV and Zenith Optimedia.