KEVINROBERTS
BIOGRAPHY
Kevin Roberts, Chairman Saatchi & Saatchi, and HeadCoachPublicisGroupe
Kevin RobertsisChairman of Saatchi & Saatchi – one of theworld’s leading creative organizations –and Head Coach of PublicisGroupe,the Paris-based global communications groupactive in 108 countries andemploying80,000 professionals.Kevin’s newbook 64
Shots: Leadership in aCrazy World(June 2016) offers frameworksand solutionsfor winning in a business world thathasbecome volatile, complex, uncertain andambiguous.
Born and educated in Lancaster in the north ofEngland,Kevin Robertsstarted hiscareerin the late 1960s with iconic London fashion houseMary Quant. He became a senior marketing executive for Gillette and Procter &Gamble in Europe and the Middle East. At32,he
became CEO ofPepsi-Cola Middle East; and later Pepsi’sCEO in Canada.In 1989,Kevin moved to Auckland, New Zealand,to becomeChief Operating Officer with Lion Nathan. From 1997until 2014 he wasCEOWorldwide atSaatchi & Saatchi based in NewYork.
Kevin Roberts advisesnationalorganizations andglobal brands acrosscommerce, media and sport.He has honorary appointments and doctorates at anumber of universities. Presently he is Honorary Professorof Innovation and Creativity at theUniversity of Auckland Business School, Honorary Professor of Creative Leadershipat LancasterUniversity, and Honorary Professor of Leadership and Innovationatthe University ofVictoria (B.C.) School
of Business. He teaches at the Judge BusinessSchool, Cambridge University, where he was CEO in Residence for adecade. With academic colleagues,he wrotePeak Performance: Business Lessonsfromthe World’sTop Sporting Organizations,aninspiration-driven business theory and practice. In 2004, hewroteLovemarks: the Future Beyond Brands, a ground-breakingbusiness bookpublished in18 languages,showing howemotioncaninspire businessesand brandsto deliver sustainable value. Lovemarks wasnamed oneof the ten Ideas of the Decade byAdvertising Agein 2009.
In 2013, Kevin, aNewZealand citizen,was made a Companion of theNew Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM)for services to business and thecommunity. Currently,he is business ambassador for the New ZealandUnited States Council, andChairman ofAustralasian home delivery service, My Food Bag. He is a former director of the New Zealand RugbyUnion and formerchairmanof USA Rugby. Kevin has homes inCarefree Arizona,New York, Auckland, and Grasmere intheEnglishLake District.
KevinRoberts has an international reputationfor an uncompromisingly positive, inspirational leadership style,and anabilityto generate ideas and emotional connections that accelerate extraordinary value. He hasmade presentations to business audiences in 60 countries,with a San Franciscotechnology reviewer noting,“KevinRoberts was arguably more entertaining andmore informative than any otherspeaker, speaking about any other subject, anywhere.That is sayinga lot, but during the hour of his speech, there was nowhere else in theworld that I would have rather been than inhis audience, soaking up everything he wassaying.”
Roberts shares his thinking on saatchikevin.com,krconnect.blogspot.com and 64Shots.com.
KevinRobertsBio–June2016