Peter Scott, Joint CEO and Chairman of Engine
Peter is Chairman and Joint Chief Executive of Engine, having conceived and executed the WCRS buyout from Havas in 2004.
Peter has spent more than 25 years in the advertising industry. His formative years were with Ogilvy and Mather: he opened the Scottish operation in 1973. He was a co-founder of Wight Collins Rutherford Scott in 1979 and subsequently oversaw group development from flotation in 1983 through to re–positioning the company as Europe’s largest media buying group — Aegis. He remained Chairman and CEO until 1992. Prior to leading the buyout of WCRS from Havas, Peter pursued interests outside the media and marketing services sector: along with his wife Jan, he dedicated much of his time to fundraising for various children's charities.
Debbie Klein, Joint Chief-Executive
Debbie became Joint Chief Executive of Engine in June 2008. She was Chief Executive of WCRS from 2005-2008 and continues to be involved as Chairman of the advertising agency. She was a founding partner in the management buyout of WCRS in 2004 and prior to that Head of Planning at WCRS for five years.
Debbie started her career at AC Nielsen. In 1993 she joined Saatchi & Saatchi as a Strategic Planner. She was promoted to the Board of Saatchi & Saatchi in 1996. She joined WCRS in 1997 and was promoted to Head of Planning in 1999.
She is the author of Women in Advertising: 10 years on, a study commissioned by the IPA. Many of the recommendations made in her report have since been adopted by the advertising industry. She is a past president of WACL (Women in Advertising and Communications London), a network of senior women in the media, advertising and communications business.
Debbie was named one of the Sunday Times ‘Top 40 under 40 in Media’ in 2008.
Robin Wight, President of Engine and WCRS
As President of both Engine and WCRS, Robin was part of the management team that led the management buyout from Havas in 2004. Robin began his career by setting up a student advertising agency while he was still an undergraduate at Cambridge. After working as a copywriter in a number of agencies, including Collett Dickinson Pearce and Partners, he co–founded Wight Collins Rutherford Scott with Peter Scott in 1979.
Though Robin Wight has spent his whole career in advertising, he has always had a number of outside interests. From 1992 — 2002 he was Chairman of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Charter for Business, which has since raised over £40 million. From 1997 — 2005 he was Chairman of Arts and Business which encourages British businesses to invest £140 million a year in support for the arts. In the 2000 Birthday Honours Robin Wight was awarded a CVO for his services to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Charter for Business. In 2003 he founded the Ideas Foundation, a charity which helps identify and nurture creatively gifted young people from ethnic minorities through the award of Creativity Scholarships.
For the last three years he has been working on a study looking at the way the brain processes communications built on the latest learning from evolutionary psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. Linked to this, in 2007 he published “The Peacock’s Tail and the Reputation Reflex: The Neuroscience of Art Sponsorship”.
Despite a 29 year commitment to marketing BMW, once a week he walks to work as his personal contribution to a cleaner planet.
Matt Edwards, Engine Managing Director
Matt started his career in 1994 with Saatchi & Saatchi, at the time the UK’s leading ad agency.
After 6 years of launching Toyota cars and learning FMCG marketing from Procter & Gamble, Matt was hired by Lowe in 2000 where he ran the flagship Stella Artois account. During that time Stella Artois won numerous creative and marketing awards including four Cannes Lions and the Marketing Society Grand Prix.
Having been named a ‘Face to Watch’ by Campaign, WCRS hired Matt to be their New Business and Marketing Director in 2005. Together with the new, post–MBO management team, Matt helped WCRS add more than £100m of new business billings. WCRS rose from 18th to 6th place in the UK agency rankings during this period.
Matt was promoted to Managing Director of Engine at the beginning of 2009.
Alison Wright, Strategy Director
Alison joined Engine in October 2008 as Strategy Director.
Prior to joining Engine, Alison was Marketing Director of Egg, Prudential, and then Citibank’s UK Consumer business, with accountability for brand, consumer insight, e–business and marketing communications.
She spent the first 15 years of her career working in advertising and media agencies, delivering successful campaigns for a wide range of clients, including Abbey, Alliance & Leicester, Virgin, the AA, Britvic and Reckitt Benckiser.
Phil Andrews, Chief Operating Officer, Partners Andrews Aldridge
Phil is Chief Operating Officer of Engine and Chief Executive and co-founder of Partners Andrews Aldridge.
He set up Partners in 1998 with Steve Aldridge following a career path which saw him work for and run both UK and International direct marketing shops. His management roles have also spanned b2b, conference, incentive and events agencies. Phil is a fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing and sits on the IDM Education Council. He has 24 years experience in Marketing Services and has a wide range of experience in almost every sector. He is widely respected as an astute businessman who recognises great creativity that delivers commercial advantage.
Partners Andrews Aldridge became part of Engine in February 2008.
In November 2008, Phil became a Director of Engine and in December 2009, he was made COO of Engine.
Leon Jaume, Executive Creative Director, WCRS
Leon is Executive Creative Director at Engine and WCRS. Although he has also worked at BMP, FCO and O&M he is rarely away from WCRS for long.
He joined the agency as a copywriter soon after it started and is now on his third stint there. In 2004 he was part of the team that bought out the agency from Havas, so is likely to stick around this time.
Steve Aldridge, Executive Creative Director, Partners Andrews Aldridge
Steve Aldridge is Co-founder, Creative Partner and Chairman of Partners Andrews Aldridge. Together with Phil Andrews, Steve has built an agency that has won the highest creative accolades in the industry; including DMA Grand Prix and numerous Campaign, D&AD, DMA and PM awards.
In December 2008 Campaign voted him as the number 1 DM Creative Director. He is a frequent judge for the industry awards, and is passionate about excellence in creativity.
In December 2009 Steve became Executive Creative Director of Engine.
Neil Morris, Director of Innovation
Innovator, entrepreneur, digital media pioneer, TV producer, marketer, journalist, management consultant, story-teller. Neil’s job at Engine is to break the rules, something he’s specialised in all his life.
In 2002 Neil co-founded Digital Public to explore opportunities for digital thinking to form the heart of a radical re-thinking of public service delivery. The company went on to develop and launch a series of innovative new approaches in education, health and justice. Digital Public joined Engine in 2007. In 2010 Neil moved from Joint CEO to Chairman and then became Engine’s Director of Innovation.
Before Digital Public, Neil was the BBC’s first Commissioning Editor for Interactive TV, leading a pioneering, BAFTA-award winning department. He set up and ran the digital media division of multi-channel broadcaster UKTV. He produced BBC coverage in war zones in Bosnia and Rwanda and went on to be Programme Editor at the launch of the BBC News channel. He has been News Editor at GMTV/Reuters TV and a newspaper journalist.
