Toby Talbot

Born and raised in the UK, I have however spent most of my career in New Zealand - on and off 20 years.

My first eight years were at Colenso BBDO putting that particular agency on the map creatively. I then spent two years as a rookie CD successfully rebooting Saatchi Auckland as a creative force in the region.

Then I spent five amazing years as a less rookie Group ECD of DDB New Zealand.

I returned to the UK briefly for family reasons in 2012 working as ECD at one of the UK’s best agencies, Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R. I then returned to New Zealand working at Whybin/TBWA as CCO.

One year later I returned to the DDB family as CCO of DDB Sydney, where I led a creative renaissance of the agency over a two year period before returning to New Zealand.

I worked briefly at a small consultancy called Assignment but I missed being part of a creative agency. That's s why I have rejoined Saatchi. The agency has been through a a few challenging years but has come through it really well under the leadership of Paul Wilson. With a dynamic new leadership in place, we are attracting exciting new clients . That said, I am especially excited to be reunited with a client of 25 years standing at Saatchi, the wonderful Toyota.

Paul and I plan to take Saatchi back to where the agency was the last time I worked there: at the very top in New Zealand.

Career highlights for me would be being named Campaign Asia’s Creative of the Year for Australia and New Zealand in 2011, winning Spikes Agency of the Year for DDB NZ and winning Campaign Brief Agency of the Year ten times across three different. Laterly, being the most awarded Australian agency at Cannes in 2016 with 12 lions, including the most awarded mobile campaign in the world, was a great way to finish up at DDB.