Peter Scott, Chairman
Peter is Chairman 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, Chief Executive Officer
Debbie became Chief Executive Officer 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
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 Dickenson 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.
Peter Harris, Finance Director
Peter is Finance Director of Engine having joined the company in March 2010. His responsibilities include Engine-wide financial reporting, corporate governance and mergers and acquisitions.
Peter qualified at Price Waterhouse before spending five years in the City with Lloyds Merchant Bank and NatWest Markets. He then joined Capital Radio's strategy team in 1994 before being promoted to Group Finance Director in 1996 where he helped expand the group from its London base into being a national broadcaster. He then joined Simon Fuller’s media and entertainment company, 19 Entertainment, in 2005 and helped develop the business in London and Los Angeles into a creator and exploiter of global content. 19’s portfolio of products included the TV brands, American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, and the Group also managed the careers of David and Victoria Beckham and Andy Murray.
Peter is married with three children and is passionate about all sports, music and travel.
Phil Andrews, Chief Operating Officer
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
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
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.
Nina Jasinski, Chief Marketing Officer
Nina Jasinski joined Engine in September 2011 as the newly created post of Chief Marketing Officer across the group.
Jasinski's prior career has seen her work at some of the best known agency brands in the UK including advertising, direct and digital agencies Dare, MCBD, RKCR, Wunderman and a seven year stint at Partners Andrews Aldridge - now part of Engine. Before joining Engine, Nina worked as Group Marketing Director at EDC, the parent company of Dare and Elvis.
Responsible for marketing and new business generation for Engine, Jasinski works across its range of marketing and communication disciplines, in the UK and globally. Nina also sits on the IPA New Business Committee, as a Business Leader at the Marketing Society, and sits on the executive committee of WACL where she is responsible for Gather - the training event for rising stars in the industry.
Matt Edwards, Chief Executive Officer, WCRS
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 from Managing Director of Engine to Chief Executive of WCRS in June 2011.
Sacha Deshmukh, CEO MHP Communications
Sacha is CEO of Engine’s PR and public affairs business MHP. Before this he was CEO of one of MHP’s predecessor consultancies, Mandate, from its foundation in 2008.
Sacha started his career in the world of pressure group campaigning, at the Campaign for Freedom of Information. He moved on from this into the world of public affairs, joining AS Biss & Co as its first graduate trainee and rising to Managing Director when AS Biss & Co joined Engine in 2005. Sacha has kept his interest in policy campaigning alive, serving on the Board and as Communications Director for the pressure group Stonewall, and currently as a Board Trustee of Citizens Advice, the organisation bringing together the 438 Citizens Advice Bureaux across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Dan Bobby, Chief Executive Officer, Dave
Dan is CEO of Engine’s brand consultancy, Calling Brands.
He is a highly skilled brand consultant with nearly 20 years’ experience of advising CEOs and senior management teams at some of the world’s biggest businesses on a range of strategic brand and marketing issues. His clients have included Nokia Siemens Networks, Intercontinental Hotels Group, British Gas and Munich Re amongst many others.
Dan was a founder of Dave, the leading brand consultancy that launched in 2003. He subsequently led the integration of Dave with Engine’s Asian brand consultancy business to create Calling Brands in November 2011.
Prior to Engine, Dan spent 10 years working at Wolff Olins, the Omnicom owned brand consultancy, where he was responsible for clients including Orange, Booz Allen, Base (part of KPN), Sky, Goldfish and Hutchison Whampoa (3).
In October 2004, Dan was appointed to The Board of Engine, then the WCRS Group, to help drive the diversification into wider marketing and communication services.
Simon Clark, Chief Executive Officer, Transform
Simon is CEO of Engine’s strategic and digital consultancy Transform.
Simon is a channel shift specialist with over fifteen years’ experience working across a range of sectors including Retail, Media, Telco and Professional Services and has worked with key clients including Argos, Tesco and Arcadia. He co-founded management consultancy CVL in 1998, advising leading retailers on the commercial exploitation of technology – particularly channel diversion and customer engagement.
In 2010 CVL was acquired by Engine and merged with Engine-owned Digital Public to create Transform, a new management consultancy combining pragmatism and award-winning innovation with market-leading skills in digital technology, business strategy, logistics and service design.
