APG Night School

Ally is a self-confessed 'recovering perfectionist' who, having experienced both the rough and smooth ends of this weirdly wonderful industry over the course of her career, regularly advocates for wellbeing in advertising. She teaches at two top creative universities alongside her role as a Strategy Director at BBH London where she also co-leads their early careers programme, Homegrown.

Gillian spent 15 years working in advertising agencies (Saatchi & Saatchi, WCRS, Lowe and M&C Saatchi), before moving into Strategy Headhunting at McLure James 14 years ago.  As a headhunter/recruiter, Gillian works with strategists at all levels from those seeking their first job to CSOs. She is an advocate for diversity in the industry and is keen to help and enable people to thrive in strategy, so is proud to be the Sponsor of APG's Arrive & Thrive & Night School.

Gemma fell into planning as a happy accident and, having worked at some tiny agencies and also 800-strong VCCP, has seen and learned from all kinds of planners and planning departments. Whilst she was at VCCP she was involved in VCCP Stoke, which aims to get a more diverse range of young talent from all over the country into the industry.

Rob is the Global Strategy and Insight Director for Grey Goose at Bacardi Global Brands. He has 10+ years of agency experience for some of London's best independent and network shops, most recently with Ogilvy London. 

His work for the likes of Argos, Diageo, Heineken, Vodafone and Relate has won him Gold awards at Cannes, the DMAs, the Campaign Big Awards and most recently a Silver Effie and Bronze APG. When not at award shows, Rob is a mentor and coach for his childhood sports club.

Kit is a Senior Planner at adam&eveDDB, where he works on Great Western Railway and BT. Before that, he worked at Ogilvy, learning the tricks of the trade across loads of different disciplines. His work has been recognised by the APG, Effie UK and The Marketing Society. 

Xanthe is a Senior Planner at VCCP, working on the Cadbury account. She shimmied into planning after a stint in account management. She is the planning lead on the VCCP Stoke Sixth Form Challenge, where 16 -18 year olds are given an insight into the advertising industry. 

 Jasper looks after Agency Partner relationships at Tracksuit in the UK and has a strong passion for the creative industries and the agency landscape. His background includes working at the intermediary Oystercatchers, specialising in marketing agency search & selection and pitch processes, as well as at the award-winning international creative agency TBWA\London. Jasper has been recognised in The BD100 as one of the UK’s 100 most influential business developers driving new business and growth in the marketing agency sector. At Tracksuit, he champions agencies, helping to fuel client growth and success

Heleana Blackwell is a Senior Strategist with a track record for solving problems across B2B, events, tech, consumer brands and financial services sectors. She has written for WARC and The RSA and Creativebrief and sat on juries for the DMA and the Gerety awards.  She is also a stand-up comedian whose show Attack of the 5ft woman is on Apple TV and has taken a show co-created with her wife to Glastonbury Festival in June 2024.