About me

Carren O'Keefe is the Chief Creative Officer at Digitas UK. She has always believed creativity and technology are the two greatest forces for change the world has ever seen. And that's never been more true than in the intelligence age.

Her career spans two continents and three countries, leading award-winning work for global brands including Nike, Diageo, Google, Hyundai, L'Oréal and Netflix. She began her career at AKQA in New York before relocating to Portland, Oregon, where her decade-long partnership with Nike delivered a series of category-defining firsts, including the brand's first mental health-focused platform Mind Sets, its first AirDrop-powered shoe drop, the launch of its inaugural podcast Trained, and its first Air Max Day in Roblox with Magic's in the Air.

In 2015, Carren established AnalogFolk's Portland office as Partner and Executive Creative Director, with Nike as its flagship client, becoming the only female founding partner in the agency's network at the time. In 2019, she relocated to Amsterdam to open and scale the European hub. During her tenure, the agency was named Campaign's Global Innovation Agency of the Year in 2020 and Contagious Magazine's Best and Bravest Agencies on the Planet in 2022.

Today, she is reshaping Digitas UK around a clear agenda for reinvention in the intelligence era. The impact is visible across categories, from implementing Formula 1's first atomic design system across F1, F2 and F3 to create a unified and scalable digital foundation, to leading transformative initiatives for EE, including helping parents navigate the complex decision of when to give their children a phone in an increasingly uncertain digital landscape. Under her leadership, the agency secured and shaped a landmark partnership with the International Olympic Committee to reposition the organisation from a once-every-four-years event into a daily catalyst for global movement, launched the new Cadillac F1 team during the Super Bowl, and relaunched Arthritis UK using finger tutting to destigmatise the disease among younger audiences and reframe physiotherapy for a new generation. Together, these initiatives signal a broader ambition to redefine how brands operate, behave in culture and build relevance in an intelligence-driven world.

At the centre of this shift is her leadership of the agency's AI transformation. She is embedding intelligent systems into operations, product development and client strategy, ensuring the business is built for an agentic future. She has led first-party research with the University of Bath exploring the intersection of human creativity and artificial intelligence and continues to advance the concept of "B2AI", recognising agents as an emerging audience. As an early advocate for agents as an audience, she was at the forefront of this evolution with her 2025 SXSW London talk, The Future of Your Brand in an Agentic World. Building on this foundation, she has since pioneered a proprietary human-agent design methodology, "The U", a modern evolution of the double diamond that provides a practical framework for human and agent collaboration in creative problem solving. She is regularly quoted on AI in both industry and mainstream publications, including The London Standard.

Carren is a regular speaker at global industry events including Cannes Lions and The One Show, a contributor to Campaign and Contagious, and a mentor through programmes such as LIAsons and Next Creative Leaders. She has been recognised in Adweek's Creative 100 and Creativepool's Top 100 Creative Leaders, sits on the BIMA Awards Council, and has served as Jury President or juror across every major global awards show.