Creative Director / Executive / Management

Tony Davidson

London, UK

One of the most esteemed creative leaders in British advertising. Executive creative director of Wieden+Kennedy London from 2000 to 2021, more than twenty years, joining from Bartle Bogle Hegarty, where he had been hired by John Hegarty, with earlier spells at Leagas Delaney and Boase Massimi Pollitt. He arrived at W+K with his creative partner Kim Papworth; after Papworth left in 2014, Iain Tait joined as his fellow ECD, and both departed in 2021. In 2009 he and Papworth were made global partners of Wieden+Kennedy, the first creatives outside Portland to reach the agency’s highest rank. Founder Dan Wieden on the appointment: “If you want to be a partner at Wieden & Kennedy, you’ve got to be some kind of saint and some kind of crazy. No-one exemplifies that more profoundly than Tony and Kim. They have raised the bar, broken rules, lifted hearts and shocked the world.” campaigns: Honda “power of dreams”, which took two D&AD black pencils and the Cannes grand prix; Nike “Nothing Beats a Londoner” (2018); Three’s “Silly stuff. It matters”; sainsbury’S “Live well for less” brand refresh; Tk Maxx “Ridiculous Possibilities”; Nike’s Run London; Honda “Grrr” with unit9. President of D&AD in 2007. British Arrows chairman’s award in 2016 for his contribution to advertising, and repeatedly named among Campaign’s top creative leaders, he and Tait were in campaign’s top 20 creatives of 2017. He also built the agency’s talent programmes: the Kennedys, W+K London’s In-house Creative Crash Course; Forever Curious, a local school outreach programme; and the Makers’ Residency Windows. Since leaving W+K he has worked independently on the future of creativity.