People
This is the management team that has built Chemistry around our clients’ marketing needs.
Joe Garton
Chief Executive
Joe Garton
Chief Executive
Joe oversees the group’s direction, overall strategy and senior client relationships.
His past successes include being Direct Marketing Director at Osprey, co-founder and Managing Director of KCJB Data Limited and a founding partner and Managing Director of Manifesto, which merged with Fusion Interactive to form Chemistry. He is skilled in mergers and acquisitions and in building successful management teams.
Joe expects the best. This ideal is reflected in his approach to business, his staff and his choice of Michelin-starred restaurants for lunches. He says it’s also why a man from Surrey is allowed to support Manchester United.
Diane Charlton
Managing Director
Diane Charlton
Managing Director
Di leads the agency’s management team and provides thought leadership to all staff so that there is consistency across all Chemistry’s work.
A former editor of consumer titles at Emap and Dennis Publishing, Di has extensive new media experience. In 1996 she launched digital agency Fusion Interactive, which merged with Manifesto in 2000 to create Chemistry. She has an MBA from the Open University.
One of the best things about working with Di is her Northern sense of humour and the fact that she can always find something to laugh about. Her bubbly personality is not always apparent at first, although it doesn’t take long to filter through.
Peter Meaklim
Chief Financial Officer
Peter Meaklim
Chief Financial Officer
This is Peter, upon whose shoulders responsibility for Chemistry’s legal and financial operations sit.
He’s had good training for the pressures of running a public limited company in today’s world, having grown up in Belfast during the height of the troubles and represented his country in rugby and athletics.
He’s well qualified professionally, having spent 10 years at PriceWaterhouseCoopers and eight years in senior financial roles within the software sector, before joining Chemistry in 2000. He loves horseracing and makes an annual pilgrimage to the Cheltenham Festival.
Jason Foo
Deputy Managing Director
Jason Foo
Deputy Managing Director
Jason has spent over 15 years working in agencies after starting off client-side while based in Toronto. He has been involved in many award-winning campaigns on a local and international level and is one of those people who can breakdown complex matters into manageable tasks. This, coupled with his boundless energy, explains why he’s got such a talent for running a business and dealing with clients at all levels.
A Fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing, he says his mission is to help people produce the best work of their careers. His Chemistry colleagues say he’s got a penchant for designer brands and that he’s good at golf.
Pete Harle
Executive Creative Director
Pete Harle
Executive Creative Director
Pete’s rare in that he has genuine experience across brand, direct and digital having worked at some of the UK’s most exciting agencies, above and below-the-line.
He’s produced award-winning creative for iconic brands such as The Guardian and Mercedes-Benz, collecting many gongs (and hangovers) along the way.
Pete’s good with people and he can spot a decent idea when he sees one – whether it’s from the creative department or the wider agency. His background as an art director means he sees the bigger picture and that work produced under his watch is of the highest quality. But we suspect he’d rather be playing up front for Arsenal.
Morgan Cox
Managing Partner
Morgan Cox
Managing Partner
Morgan runs Chemistry’s Nottingham office. One of his many jobs is to develop the business while maintaining its consistency with the London agency.
Morgan’s background is in media and more recently at a film production company in Manchester. He’s bringing this expertise to add online measurement and high quality online video to the agency’s offer alongside its web development and digital production capabilities.
Morgan’s waist is fortunate that his love of food and wine is matched by his devotion to exercise. When not running, eating or working he is chasing round after his two young children.
Omaid Hiwaizi
Planning Director
Omaid Hiwaizi
Planning Director
Omaid is one of the industry’s hybrids. Not only is he a rugby-playing vegan, but he studied Mathematics at Cambridge University before starting his career as a creative. He designed i-D magazine before founding two agencies and becoming a planner. At Chemistry, Omaid generates powerful insights for UK and international brands. He oversees brand planning, digital strategy and experience architecture and believes that a simplified message is far more powerful than one that’s complicated.
Omaid is an active member of various DMA Councils and Committees and is regularly quoted in the press.
Malcolm Cotton
Managing Partner
Malcolm Cotton
Managing Partner
Malcolm is Chemistry’s managing partner. He oversees the Orange account providing strategic planning across customer acquisition and base management communications.
Malcolm’s pragmatic. He’s capable of running large scale projects and teams to enable them to deliver impressive results for clients.
He relaxes by fulfilling his passions for skiing, scuba diving and cricket. He’s a qualified English Cricket Board coach, he enjoys dinghy sailing and supporting conservation projects in the world’s tropical rainforests.
Neil Cowan
Business Development Director
Neil Cowan
Business Development Director
Neil has seen both sides of our industry having worked as a client, at Boots and the Burton Group, and as an agency man for many years.
“It’s the business of new business to know about business”, says Neil, a self-confessed information junkie whose desk is usually stacked with half-read copies of the FT and marketing mags. It’s the issues which come out of that, he argues, is what marketing exists for.
A member of the IDM, the DMA, an occasional blogger and a fully paid-up Chelsea supporter, you won’t find Neil numbers amongst ‘the great ignored’.
David Carr
Digital Strategy Director
David Carr
Digital Strategy Director
David is Chemistry’s digital expert. He obsesses about the role of communication strategies in a digital world. He’s a bit of a visionary and is often asked to impart his insights at speaker events, recently flying to Romania to talk at a seminar for one of our clients. He’s an Advisory Director to the ISP and a guest lecturer in interactive marketing at Westminster University Business School.
One of David’s early triumphs as a digital strategist was leading the award-winning integrated Army Jobs account.
A personal triumph was being the first official health and safety accident at Chessington World of Adventures.
Russell Cavell
Group Technical Director
Russell Cavell
Group Technical Director
Russell’s the man who makes sure that the most up-to-date technology is behind the digital work Chemistry creates for its clients. And let’s face it digital is in everything we do now.
Russell built his first website in 1993 (before most people knew the internet existed). He’s a rare individual in that he is able to take the gobbledygook that most techies speak and translate it into language that the rest of us are familiar with.
He’s a dark horse and in a former life travelled the world as a trance DJ. He organised a big rave in the New Forest, which was attended by thousands.
Becky Groves
Client Services Director
Becky Groves
Client Services Director
Becky heads the Diageo and Kraft accounts making her queen of Chemistry portfolio of drinks client brands including Baileys and Tassimo. Possibly unintentionally, Becky has carved herself a bit of a niche in the alcoholic beverages market, with experience working on Tennents Lager, Gloag’s Gin, Macallan whisky, Budweiser and Michelob across all disciplines.
Becky’s an Ironman, triathlon and marathon enthusiast and she says this passion and energy is reflected in her work. She loves Jo Malone perfume and recently shook her chocolate addiction.
Ingrid Purcell
Client Services Director
Ingrid Purcell
Client Services Director
Ingrid oversees the integrated accounts for Premier Foods and SCA with a focus on experiential, promotional and digital strategy.
One of Chemistry’s Australian contingent, Ingrid’s 14-year career has been spent on both sides of the world, agency and client-side, including setting up an office of an Australian agency in New Zealand.
She loves dining out and retail therapy as well as defending or celebrating her homeland’s sporting achievements.
Philippa Bolton
Client Services Director
Philippa Bolton
Client Services Director
Philippa’s career in Relationship Marketing stretches back over 12 years, including stints at agencies in South Africa and in the UK.
Philippa joined Chemistry in 2007 and heads up key accounts in both the public and private sectors such as Aviva, Unilever and McNeil’s Johnson & Johnson. She has experience in the retail, financial services and transport sectors, having previously worked on accounts such as VW and Audi, Old Mutual Insurance, Citibank and Land Rover.
She loves hiking and horse riding she says she does yoga, often, in an attempt to stay sane and even-tempered. It’s no wonder she is always the picture of calm and serenity.
Robin Garms
Digital Creative Director, Nottingham
Robin Garms
Digital Creative Director, Nottingham
Robin was hired as the Digital Creative Director of Chemistry Nottingham after working as a freelance in the London agency. He has over fifteen years experience as an interactive creative having worked on a vast array of clients such as Renault, Cadbury, LG, EasyJet, Garnier, Zurich Insurance, The Post Office and The Army . His awards cabinet is packed with some of the most prestigious gongs, from D&AD Silvers to Golds at Cannes and the DMA Awards and Silvers at the Campaign Direct and Digital ceremonies. Among his most high profile work was as art director on the highly-acclaimed, multi-channel ‘Hype’ campaign for Hewlett Packard.
Rob Trono
Interactive Creative Director
Rob Trono
Interactive Creative Director
Rob oversees the digital creative output across all of Chemistry’s clients such as Aviva, Diageo, Dove, SCA Hygiene and Tesco. He has a natural instinct for knowing what works and an impressive way of articulating why. He’s a rare creative in that he can hold a meeting together, present ideas in a compelling way and use humour to diffuse potentially heated situations. He also has a no-nonsense attitude that gives him an ability to get issues resolved and moved on, but without appearing heavy handed. In addition to all these people management skills he’s an outstanding award winning creative.
Claire Elworthy
Creative Director
Claire Elworthy
Creative Director
Claire is one of the original team that formed Chemistry when it was created out of the merger between Manifesto, where she was a senior art director, and Fusion Interactive. Claire has 15 years experience as an integrated creative, across a broad range of clients in all media and sector; FMCG, leisure, public sector, financial and charity barely touches the surface. She has collected some of the most highly regarded creative awards including Gold at the DMA, ISPs and MCCA ceremonies to name a few. Claire is passionate about insightful, effective and creative ideas and helps ensure they are delivered across all Chemistry’s clients.
Seb Hill
Creative Director
Seb Hill
Creative Director
An award-winning art director, Seb is responsible for overseeing Chemistry’s direct marketing output and for ensuring that the work is eye-catching as well as effective. Seb has been responsible for some high profile campaigns at Chemistry, including Transport for London’s London Eye vinyl wrap and the multi-award winning Oyster iTunes activity. He’s won the ISP Grand Prix as well as DMA Golds and a Campaign Direct Silver, among others. He also developed an iPhone App, which measures how many calories people burn off during sex. It was written about in The Sun and shot to the top of the iTunes App chart.