Leadership Team | Brainlabs

Leadership TeamBrainlabs2023-07-17T14:45:09+01:00

Central
Americas
APAC
EMEA

Daniel Gilbert

Global CEO

Global CEO

Executive Chair

Executive Chair

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Claire Lawrence

Global Chief People Officer

Claire Lawrence

Global Chief People Officer

Claire is the Global Chief People Officer at Brainlabs and oversees the execution of Brainlabs’ people strategy.. She previously spent 10 years at MediaCom, where she most recently was Global Chief People Officer, responsible for over 8,000 employees internationally.

Divya Gururaj

Global Chief Client Officer

Divya Gururaj

Global Chief Client Officer

As we continue to grow our footprint around the world, Divya is responsible for leading strategy, new business development and client service across our growing global client base. Divya has spent over two decades at GroupM agencies (Mindshare, MediaCom), working with clients such as P&G, GSK, Unilever, The Coca-Cola Company, Kimberly-Clark, Dell, Volkswagen, Rolex, DeBeers, Mars-Wrigley, Johnson & Johnson. She has lived in three countries managing local, regional and global remits, and is currently based in the US. Divya’s remit as Global Chief Client Officer will see her applying her vast experience of managing multi-market clients to drive our ambition to win more digital-first global clients that want to implement our unique formula of ‘testing, tech and talent’ to their digital business. Additionally, she will ensure these clients receive the best of Brainlabs products, services and teams to drive results.

Dan Bottiglieri

UK CEO

Dan Bottiglieri

UK CEO

Dan’s rise to UK CEO is a bonafide Brainlabs success story. Joining the company as employee number six he has risen spectacularly through the ranks. He founded Brainlabs US in 2017, growing the operation from one to 400 people within five years and securing a number of high-profile clients along the way. In June 2022 he returned to his native UK shores to become our Global Chief Revenue Officer before taking the reins as UK CEO in February 2023.

Adam Potashnick

North America CEO

Adam Potashnick

North America CEO

Adam is the North American CEO at Brainlabs. He previously spent 17 years at EssenceMediacom, where he held the role of COO spanning four years, responsible for operations, teams and clients across four offices and over 2,000 employees. Most recently, Adam was Chief Growth Officer where he led the team to work with global clients such as Uber, Hotels.com, Adidas, Hasbro, and JP Morgan.

Fernando Emilio Silva

LATAM CEO

Fernando Emilio Silva

LATAM CEO

Fernando is the Latin American CEO of Brainlabs. With over 27 years of experience in digital media and marketing across the LATAM region, he most recently served as Managing Director at Podean. He has held roles as Managing Director, Chairman, and CEO at OMD International, Publicis, and MediaCom, respectively.

Julia Amorim

Global SVP, Creative

Julia Amorim

Global SVP, Creative

Julia blends the agility of a startup founder with the professional expertise that comes with helping some of the world’s largest brands navigate the journey of digital transformation. Entrenched in the ad tech sector for more than 15 years, her track record includes contributing to the launch of an ad network, building high performance digital-first teams, and bringing customer and data centricity to client campaigns. She stands at the intersection of everything that makes marketers successful - strategic thinking, technological capability, business intelligence and user experience.

Jeremy Hull

Chief Product Officer, North America

Jeremy Hull

Chief Product Officer, North America

As Chief Product Officer, North America at Brainlabs, Jeremy is responsible for the growth and evolution of the agency's products and solutions across the region. He collaborates with platform partners and the Brainlabs in-house tech team to develop solutions that anticipate evolving consumer behavior while also increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of our products including paid search, SEO, programmatic, paid social, CRO, retail media, and others.

Prior to joining Brainlabs, Jeremy oversaw innovation at iProspect, a dentsu agency, where he spent 15 years transforming and expanding the agency's services, building & delivering impactful thought leadership, and participating in dozens of new business wins.

Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have long relied on Jeremy’s insights to improve their advertising and customer experiences. He is a regular speaker at industry events and has contributed to and written articles in industry titles such as Digiday, Adweek and Adage and business titles including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Throughout his career, Jeremy has delivered performance business results for dozens of the world’s top brands, including General Motors, Microsoft, adidas, Choice Hotels, T-Mobile, Under Armour, The Neiman Marcus Group, Hilton Worldwide, Michael Kors, NRG, and Staples

Mark Syal

Global Chief Product Officer

Mark Syal

Global Chief Product Officer

Mark defines and leads Brainlabs’ product strategy, bringing his deep expertise in digital and offline media from 7 years at Essence. Before Essence, he created and established Walker-i, the digital media division of Walker Media, and held a number of roles in digital, and TV media at Carat, EHS (Havas) and BLM.

Sophie Newton

Global Chief of Staff

Sophie Newton

Global Chief of Staff

As our Chief of Staff, Sophie works with our global leadership team to bridge the gap between vision and execution. Since joining Brainlabs in 2017, she has delivered strategic projects that span every area of the business from M&A to global operations.

Olivier de Canson

Global CFO

Olivier de Canson

Global CFO

Olivier supports our international expansion by providing commercial insight and reporting to drive performance. He has over 30 years working worldwide in corporate finance, including 14 years at Apple and most recently as Global CFO in the services sector at VFS Global. He is a big fan of hiking and has climbed both Mt. Kilimajaro and Mt. Blanc.

Neil McCarthy

Global Commercial Director

Neil McCarthy

Global Commercial Director

Neil leads our commercial practices across the business. Formerly the Global Commercial Director for iProspect & Dentsu, he boasts over 20 years’ media and performance agency experience. As a keen runner Neil’s looking forward to helping Brainlabs set the pace for the industry (and maybe break some records along the way)

Sue Unerman

Global Chief Strategy Officer

Sue Unerman

Global Chief Strategy Officer

An inspirational, results driven thought leader with a wide range of experience of driving growth, value and continuous improvement through times of change and transformation. She possesses the ability to see around the corner, and energy to deliver improvements and innovation at scale, with expertise in digital, media, marketing, strategy, culture of belonging and inclusion, client service and driving growth. Expertise includes solving business challenges through strategic breakthroughs, innovation, marketing and media and agile ways of working. She is the co-author of 3 best selling books: Belonging, the key to transforming and maintaining diversity, inclusion and equality at work (2022); The Glass Wall, success strategies for women at work and businesses that mean business (2016); Tell the Truth, honesty is your most powerful marketing tool (2012). Her new book, A Year of Creativity, 52 smart ideas for boosting creativity, innovation and inspiration at work, is published in September 2024. Sue is a fellow of the IPA and has a regular blog for Campaign magazine. She won the Cannes Lions 2022 creativity for good competition. She was a judge of Glass Lions at Cannes 2024.

Sue’s surname is pronounced “You-ner-man”.

Henry Bennett

Global SVP, Corp Dev

Henry Bennett

Global SVP, Corp Dev

Henry leads the Global M&A function at Brainlabs and oversees the legal function. He previously worked at Slaughter and May followed by a NYSE listed tech business where he served as Chief Legal Officer and was part of their growth journey from early stages through to listing. Henry's experience includes leading on complex cross- border M&A (public and private), public listings, fundraising events, new territory launches, company governance, and material B2B partnership deals.

Leo Jennings

UK Chief Revenue Officer

Leo Jennings

UK Chief Revenue Officer

Leo oversees all our new partnership and drives Brainlabs' growth. Having joined the company when it was just 30 people, she has overseen its meteoric rise from unknown start-up to challenger in every pitch. During her time, she has worked with clients such as Expedia, F1, and WorldPay. If she hadn’t joined Brainlabs, Leo would probably have been an opera singer instead.

Lara Ponniah

UK Chief Client Officer

Lara Ponniah

UK Chief Client Officer

Lara is responsible for building best-in-class digital marketing teams and client partnerships. She has 15 years industry experience in global, regional, and local agency roles with the likes of Publicis Media & Mindshare UK, spanning both multi-channel comms strategy and activation for brands including Nespresso, Depop, and Carwow. She’s a big fan of movie marathons and tries to go surfing any chance she gets!

Virginia Hanchar

Americas, Chief People Officer

Virginia Hanchar

Americas, Chief People Officer

Virginia joined Brainlabs as Chief People Officer for the Americas as part of the region’s senior leadership team to help drive client and revenue growth by putting people and culture at the heart of the agency.

A real collaborator and team player, bringing positivity into everything she does, Virginia ensures that we continue to
build an inclusive, high-performing and engaging culture that empowers our people to accelerate their careers in digital marketing.

Tom Hootman

US SVP, Managing Partner

Tom Hootman

US SVP, Managing Partner

Tom builds client relationships in the US using his 15 years of experience. Before Brainlabs, Tom was the VP of Revenue at Hanapin Marketing where his efforts assisted in six consecutive Inc 5000 honors. Tom is passionate about helping businesses grow and volunteers as a mentor in the local startup community.

Gyn Ang

Singapore SVP

Gyn Ang

Singapore SVP

Gyn is the Senior Vice President for Brainlabs’ APAC operations. She has over 20 years’ industry experience at some of the world’s biggest media agencies, most recently at Carat where she led growth in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. Prior to that, she spent time as Managing Director at PHD.

Morris Bryant

Founder, Sparro by Brainlabs

Morris Bryant

Founder, Sparro by Brainlabs

Morris Bryant founded Sparro in 2013 with his brother Cameron. Following acquisition they now both lead the Australian Brainlabs business across new business and client strategies. Outside of work, Morris is a keen Aussie Rules footballer and is attempting to complete a novel (that is, writing - he has read several novels).

Vivek Kulkarni

India SVP

Vivek Kulkarni

India SVP

Vivek is Senior Vice President at Brainlabs India. He has 25+ years of experience in IT delivery, sales, pre-sales and consulting, having worked and managed clients across North America, UK, Europe, Nordics, Africa, China, Japan and India, and has excellent exposure in working with and setting up global delivery models.

Most recently, Vivek was Business Unit Head at a Media Agency where he built and scaled operations in India, comprising of 500+ team members, to service to clients across the globe.

Cameron Bryant

Founder, Sparro by Brainlabs

Cameron Bryant

Founder, Sparro by Brainlabs

Coming soon...

Simon Prior

UK & APAC Chief People Officer

Simon Prior

UK & APAC Chief People Officer

Simon is Chief People Officer for EMEA and APAC charged with leading the our people strategy across these regions that unleashes the potential of our people and our business. Simon brings 15+ years of experience in Organisational Development & Talent the majority working in large, global, dynamic, fast-paced, digitally-led matrixed organisations having held roles at market, regional and global levels across industries such as Marketing/Advertising, Publishing, Outsourced Contact Centres, Airlines and Music/Entertainment.

Dan Paget

Global Chief Solutions Officer

Dan Paget

Global Chief Solutions Officer

Dan leads our global operations team at Brainlabs, making the execution of our vision a reality by connecting people, structure and process. Dan previously spent 13 years at Jellyfish where he played a key role in overseeing the agency's growth from 60 to 2,200 people across 23 countries. Dan loves sport! You'll normally find him in the gym, playing football or on the golf course.

Sean Seamer

Global Chief Operating Officer

Sean Seamer

Global Chief Operating Officer

Sean brings over 20 years of global media experience. Originally from New Zealand, Sean has held digital and growth positions in the US, UK, Asia and ANZ.

A digital native, Sean has rounded out his global experience with CEO roles in market leading media agencies, sport and broadcasting organisations.

With this unique experience, Sean is tasked with ensuring our high-performance philosophy is delivered and built on for the benefit of our people and our clients around the globe.

In addition to leading global operations, Sean is responsible for expanding our footprint, both organically and through acquisition.