Gavin McLeod is Executive Creative Director of Ogilvy Sydney. He believes his job is to foster creative and collaborative cultures and has done so at some of the world’s most innovative creative agencies such as R/GA and AKQA. Prior to that he learnt his craft at M&C Saatchi and Whybin TBWA. He’s been fortunate to live, work and indulge his passion for surfing in Cape Town, Auckland, Sydney and San Francisco.

His experience has given him a deep understanding of modern marketing and he is equally comfortable executing across traditional media channels as he is across the full spectrum of digital and social channels.

Gav has won over 250 industry awards for his work at creative festivals such as the Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show and Effies. It’s true that a lot of his awards are from shows that most people have probably never heard of, but there are just enough Gold Lions and D&AD Yellow pencils amongst the list to make it respectable.

As a consequence, he has been invited to chair award panels at a number of shows and has been a somewhat awkward speaker at many industry events. He was once described by a journalist as ‘classy and charming’ when chairing an overseas award show. His Mum was much more impressed by this than all the award stuff.