Our People

Ben Wood is one of digital marketing’s industry veterans. Now driving the vision for the agency globally, Ben previously oversaw phenomenal growth of the UK business since its launch in 2010. Within Aegis, Ben has previously been Managing Director of Carat Digital, Managing Partner at Vizeum and Managing Director of Diffiniti.
 
Approachable, authoritative and always with a view on the fast pace of change in the industry, he’s a regular commentator for the BBC, the FT, and the Daily Telegraph on all manner of digital media issues – from the value of social media engagement to the challenge of the modern media agency.

Once Australia’s youngest stockbroker, Chris spent his early years in finance working for Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. It was in digital marketing, however, where he really flashed his entrepreneurial edge, founding I Spy Marketing – one Europe’s of fastest-growing agencies, which Aegis acquired in 2012.
 
While this drive has earned him a string of accolades for award-winning businesses including The Sunday Times Tech Track 100 for Britain’s top 100 private tech companies, it’s also spurred a string of outdoor adventures: Chris has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Everest base camp and Three Peaks, as well as running the Paris 2012 marathon. He’s currently Chairman of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) Search Group, responsible for best practice and industry standards.

Jim Brigden joined iProspect as Chief Client & Commercial Officer in August 2012, following its acquisition of I Spy Marketing – where he was CEO. He’s among the few seasoned professionals to have worked in search marketing from the early days, and founded the first UK specialist search agency The Search Works in 2004, growing it to a £100m turnover in just three years. Since then, he’s been director of a breath of digital media, ecommerce and technology agencies. Focused and level-headed, and a perfect mix of country gent and businessman, Jim has been known to turn his hand to a golf club on occasion.

Mark started his digital media career at Overture (now Yahoo! Search Marketing) during the early days of pay-for-performance marketing, before moving on to launch Green Cathedral search and media division in London. At iProspect, he leads the product teams across bought, owned and earned media responsible for innovation and ultimately driving performance for clients including Kellogg’s, GM and American Express. Mark was one of the founding members of the IPA Search Group and was elected Chairman in 2009. In 2012, he was recognised for his work to professionalise the UK search sector with a Fellowship of the IPA.

Nishma Robb’s extensive experience stretches back to the nascent days of digital media at Teletext. It was there, she launched the ground-breaking Teletext Holidays website, before turning her attention to Sky’s first interactive service. Fast-forward more than ten years, and several fashion and travel business ventures later, she joined I Spy Marketing, where she was later made partner. After Aegis’ acquisition of the agency in 2012, Nishma became Chief Client Officer, and she now leads the dynamic client management team. Her experience from all perspectives – media owner, client and agency – gives her rare insight into digital strategy. It’s little surprise she’s fearless on industry panel debates and adept at public speaking. One of Net-a-Porter’s first-ever ten customers, Nishma’s an incisive fashionista whose sharp shopping skills have provided some of her clients’ most successful business solutions.

Chris is responsible for the operational management of iProspect’s media and data channels, including Paid and Natural Search, Affiliates and Lead Generation, Social Media, Analytics and Conversion Optimisation.
 
His digital marketing career began in 1999 when he co-founded an SEO agency servicing local SMEs. As the business grew, he branched out into Paid Search, web design and analytics. After leaving that business, Chris worked client-side for VisitBritain, where he ran global paid and natural search and web analytics across 45 markets.
 
Chris joined I Spy Marketing as its fifth employee in 2007, initially as Head of Paid Search, before taking on the role of Operations Director, working as part of the leadership team which drove the agency’s success prior to its acquisition by Aegis. A passionate sports fan, Chris’s dream client would be the Lawn Tennis Association and Wimbledon.

Brett heads up Strategy at iProspect, setting out the vision for integrated and performance delivery, and ensuring that technology and data are used in the most effective way to support our clients’ business objectives and leverage their consumers’ digital behaviour. With over 20 year’s industry experience in building and managing integrated direct response campaigns, and with key data planning and strategic skills, Brett has worked across verticals including utilities, finance, FMCG, technology, publishing, travel and automotive. More than ten years at Aegis, he has led iProspect sister company Carat’s Direct team before moving to iProspect in 2011. Originally trained in both forensic chemistry and customer service, this highly unusual combination somewhat explains his relentless drive to unlock value from data – and why he’s a stickler for detail.

Since joining Aegis in 2011, Neilson has revolutionised iProspect’s approach to search, placing social media and content at the heart of strategy and underpinning all campaigns with data and technology to deliver best in class services for some of the world’s largest brands – British Gas, RBS Bank, Thomas Cook, SDG group, Adidas, Monarch, The AA and AMEX. Under Neilson, iProspect’s SEO team is now the UK’s largest, and one of the most respected. Media Week highly commended him as one of its 30 under 30 in 2012. Notoriously competitive, he has been selected to run for Team GB both on the track and in cross-country.

Angus has managed search campaigns since 2006, and for an enviable list of clients including BSkyB, LOVEFiLM, WWF, BBC Worldwide, The Royal Navy, The Royal Marines, the Home Office, and many others. He joined Aegis Media in 2009, directing the global search marketing efforts of Nokia in over 80 regions. iProspect’s pragmatist, he has been instrumental in developing the agency’s international search capabilities in London. More recently, he’s helped develop our crucial Facebook advertising proposition. A classist and historian by training, he’s been moved to bloodlust by apostrophes in the wrong place in PowerPoint slides, while his occasional floral shirt has been known to brighten up the office on a Friday.

With more than 13 years commercial experience Brandon started his career in software engineering working at SonyBMG and Channel4 before opting for the more glamorous world of digital media. Previously working at European affiliate network TradeDoubler he helped to drive technology and agency sales and in 2010 joined iProspect shortly after its UK launch.  At iProspect, Brandon is responsible for driving new revenue growth both externally and across the Aegis group of agencies including Carat, Vizeum, Glue Isobar and Carat Enterprise. He has been instrumental in iProspect’s rapid growth working to win accounts such as Monarch, Thomas Cook and Asda. Originally from Texas, Brandon is most comfortable in his jeans and trainers minus the Stetson.

Helena Snowdon leads iProspect’s regional growth strategy, supporting expansion of the network capability. She is also responsible for driving network consistency across EMEA for the benefit of iProspect’s multi-market clients, which include Kellogg’s, adidas, Nokia and GM. With over 10 years’ agency experience in new business and marketing, Helena has coordinated global and regional pitches for the world’s largest advertisers including Unilever, Renault-Nissan and Barclays. She has driven agency brand strategy, design and packaging, online and social channels, network collaboration and knowledge management. Most recently Helena has held similar roles at Mindshare and PHD at WPP’s Maxus. A self-professed perfectionist, she has honed her half marathon skills, getting her time down to just one hour, 38 minutes.

Elodie develops the effective financial and commercial support that underpins iProspect’s dynamic and fast paced business. With over 12 years’ experience in blue chip companies, she leads a team of five, driving the continuous improvement in process efficiencies and consistent implementation of strong financial controls and processes that provide the agency with its firm foundations.
 
Prior to joining the agency, she spent nine years with Lagardère (now Hearst) a French-based multinational media group with operations in over 40 countries. Whilst there she held 4 different roles undertaken in 3 different countries (France, Russia & the UK). Truly multicultural, Elodie is fluent in French (her mother tongue) as well as English and has a working knowledge of Russian. Despite living in London for 9 years, Elodie admits to still being puzzled by the British sense of humour.