Meet the speakers: Will Harris

I first met Will Harris when he was head of marketing at O2, having led the company’s re-branding exercise after it split from BT. Will’s career in the mobile telecoms industry goes back much further, however, to his pioneering work on the creation of the Orange brand.

As may be expected of someone who’s worked in both marketing and politics, Will’s wasn’t able to confine his bio to just 160 characters! Here’s how he described himself:

“I’d like to think it was all planned: in at the start of Orange running the advertising account for the first five years of that brand; then VP of marketing for Genie, the mobile internet company; next creator of the O2 brand as Marketing Director for three years; then marketing director of the Conservative party…for 9 months; and now CEO of the bank, a fast growing creative agency. The truth is however much I try to plan my career, it’s more a question of stringing interesting challenges together to make them look sequential, and…planned.”

You can hear more about Will’s experiences, including his recent work for Hutchison 3G, at MEX on 6/7 September 2005 when he chairs the panel entitled: ‘Understanding the customer‘ on Day One.