The Communications Council reveals top line-up for 2012 Circus Festival - March 27-29 in Sydney

The workshops will be hands-on sessions hosted by experts such as planning directors Kevin Brown and Nick Kendall from BBH and David Plante, senior marketing manager for Target US.

The final event will be the industry's creative awards night, the AWARD Awards.

Says Margaret Zabel, CEO of The Communications Council: "Circus is an opportunity to glean insights on how creativity transforms businesses and contributes to top line growth.

Circus will help you stay on top of emerging marketing trends and technologies. It is also a chance to come together to network and do business with clients and industry leaders."  
 
Says Sudeep Gohil - Communications Council board member representative for Circus: "From the inception of Circus our aspiration has always been to create a truly world-class event for Australia, going above and beyond the usual industry conferences.

We are really excited about the calibre of speakers we have managed to secure this year. It will definitely be an event not to be missed."

Other speakers will be announced in the coming months.

Pictured from top - Nick Law, Vince Frost, Faris Yakob, Sarah Robb O'Hagan, Rosanna lacono

About the speakers

Nick Law - R/GA New York
As Chief Creative Officer, NA, Law is responsible for the overall creative vision of the agency.

Law joined R/GA in 2001 and has played a significant role in shaping R/GA's creative vision. In that time, his work has won numerous international awards and has been widely published in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Asia-Pacific. Within a year of joining the company, he was promoted to vice president of visual design and shortly thereafter named executive creative director on the Nike account.

Law's background is extensive and diverse, spanning multiple marketing disciplines during 20 years at agencies in the United States and abroad. He began his career in design/corporate identity and then made the switch to advertising, working on both the traditional and interactive sides.

Vince Frost - Owner, Frost Design
The British-born graphic designer made a name for himself on the competitive London design scene with projects ranging from a Spice Girls album cover to a set of stamps for the Royal Mail and redesigns of The Independent Magazine.

At 27, Frost was Pentagram's, a design firm in West London, youngest associate partner. One of his first projects was Big Magazine. In 2004, he came to Australia and now leads his Sydney company, Frost Design.

He works with local and overseas clients including the Sydney Dance Company and Macquarie Bank.  Projects at Frost Design* include a design for "interactive globes" promoting Google China that were installed in public spaces, a cookbook by Damien Pignolet and the colour-coded film-classification labels that appear on the cover of DVDs.

Faris Yakob is chief innovation officer at MDC Partners and co-founder of the mysterious Spies&Assassins - a creative technology boutique

Prior to this, Yakob was EVP Chief Technology Strategist at McCann Erickson New York and previous to that he spent five years as the Digital Ninja at Naked Communications, in London, Sydney and New York.

He has been on the juries for the OneShow Interactive, the Effies, the Campaign Big Awards, the Clio Awards, and the London International Awards. He's spoken at numerous media and technology conferences and he writes s about brands, media, communications, technology for publications such as Forbes, Fast Company, The Financial Times, Contagious Magazine and Media Magazine.

Sarah O'Hagan - Global CMO/ President, Gatorade North America

O'Hagan spent 6 years at Nike before she joined as the Chief Marketing Officer of PepsiCo division of Gatorade. As part of her new role she led the marketing operations of Gatorade in the US. In January O'Hagan was promoted to president of Gatorade North America and CMO of sports nutrition.

Since joining Gatorade in 2008, O'Hagan has been recognized by Forbes as one of the most powerful women in sports, as one of Crain's "40 Under 40" and by Advertising Age in its list of "Women to Watch."

Rosanna Lacona - Chief Brand Officer, Jurlique
Rosanna Lacono is the Chief Brand Officer at global beauty company Jurlique International, based in Sydney. Lacona is a business leader and brand strategist with 20 years experience working with icon brands in premium consumer goods.

Lacona spent 10 years with Nike at the EMEA headquarters in The Netherlands as well as in Italy and the US, before roles at Levi's as Brand Director Europe, GM for Australian brands Sheridan and Saba, and most recently as GM Women's at Mexx in Amsterdam.


MASTER CLASS - PRELIMINARY CONFIRMATIONS

Kevin Brown - Global Engagement Planning Director, BBH
Brown joined BBH as Group Media Manager in 1990, becoming Media Director and Board member in 1995. He was the founding partner of Motive (BBH's media arm) and became Strategic Development Director of Starcom Motive. In 2000 he left Starcom Motive to form the new adagency, Soul. Soul was acquired by the Asian independent agency Nitro in 2005. Brown rejoined BBH to launch a new discipline called Engagement Planning - putting channel thinking up-front in the development of brand ideas.

Nick Kendall - Group Strategy Director, BBH
After graduating from Christ Church College, Oxford with a degree in English in 1981, Kendall joined BBH in December 1986 to work on Levi's and later on Whitbread (Boddingtons, Murphy's) and Häagen Dazs.  In December 1989 he was appointed to the Board and in 1992 was made Head of Department.  He was then promoted to Group Planning Directorin September 1998, and in this role was responsible for the planning product and departments of BBH across the globe.  As well as working on global brands such as Johnnie Walker and Dirt is Good, Kendall now acts as Group Strategy Director helping define and refine BBH's future.  He received the IPA President's Medal for his 'services to the industry'.

David Plante- Target, USA, Senior Marketing Manager
Plante is a Senior Manager of Marketing for Target. With nearly 20 years of experience in brand and retail marketing at leading agencies and clients, he's worked on creating, launching and building brands, then delivering them in a retail setting. His work at Target focuses on leading strategy for the in-store experience and understanding global retail trends.

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