About me

Simon started his career in advertising in 1994 working at Bainsfair Sharkey Trott. After a few years he left to join BBH to work on Boddingtons, Lynx and Olivio, before moving to Engine's creative agency WCRS in 2000 as an account director on BMW and RAC. Simon was part of the management buyout of WCRS from Havas in 2004 which lead to the founding of the Engine group. He became managing director of WCRS in November 2010, before taking on the role of group managing director of Engine UK in March 2015.

As managing director, Simon is responsible for driving Engine's integrated offering and ensuring that all thirteen of its businesses maintain a high quality of creative and strategic output across the board. He also oversees its UK marketing and business development function, working on new business opportunities as well as the organic growth of existing clients.

This year, following Engine's restructure into four client-centric business units, Simon took on the responsibility of leading Engine's PR & Activation business unit and now oversees the individual agencies and consultancy brands within this area.

Under his leadership, Engine has won a number of high profile accounts including E.ON's digital, content, CRM and advertising business. Simon was heavily involved in the launch of the London arm of Hollywood-born content and entertainment marketing agency Trailer Park and Engine's on-site agency NuFu.

As the lead on Engine's government business, Simon has overseen a number of highly successful integrated campaigns for the likes of the RAF, Royal Navy and NHS Blood and Transplant including 2015's Missing Type Campaign—created by agencies WCRS and MHP—which went on to win Gold at Cannes and become the UK's most awarded campaign of 2016.

Simon has been heavily involved in driving the diversity agenda forward, both at Engine and in the wider industry. Not only did he devise and implement Engine's industry leading Better With Balance initiative—a five part programme designed to the organisation achieve a 50/50 gender split at the top tier of the business by 2020—he also helped the group launch an LGBT+ network this summer and has forged partnerships with Creative Equals, Speakers for Schools and a number of government apprenticeship schemes on its behalf.

During his career Simon has judged awards including The Drum Network awards and the IPA's Women of Tomorrow awards. He has spoken on panels for Campaign and WACL and written for the likes of Campaign, Creative Pool Magazine, Little Black Book, and PR Week. He also sits on this year's creative pool advertising jury.