I AM A FREELANCE EVENTS AND BRAND EXPERIENCE SPECIALIST.

I can be hired for a wide range of roles, including as a Project Director, Senior Producer or Content Producer. I am also regularly hired to offer production, creative and strategic advice for shorter-term assignments such as pitches or scoping.

Biography

After being rejected by Leicester City FC as a teenager, I moved to London to seek my fortune.

Originally working in film Art Departments (and some lovely pubs), I went on to be an Art Director for films, commercials and music videos. I was Graphic Designer on Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and worked under Production Designer Eve Mavrakis on Tube Tales (1999) as well as designing videos for such late nineties greats as Westlife and Steps.

After winning a pitch to design the GQ Men of the Year Awards in 2001, I moved into event design and later production at Timebased. As Head of Events at Timebased for five years, I oversaw the company’s key client accounts of Condé Nast, Selfridges and L’Oreal.

In 2006, I set-up a dedicated event division of award-winning brand architects FreeState called Clean Slate. Clean Slate offered a new agency model with a focus on open accounting and strong environmental credentials, showing its clients how much money it was making whilst offering creative, sustainable solutions and production processes. Clients included MTV, Channel 4, Ford, BAA, French Connection, Sony, SpinVox, Virgin Megastores and The Guardian.

A freelance Creative, Producer and Project Director from 2010 to 2014, I worked globally for some of London’s leading brand experience agencies such as RPM, BD Network, FreeState, Ogilvy, Slice, Innovision, Jack Morton and J. Walter Thompson. Some project highlights include designing and building a multi-million pound brand experience for Sky at the O2, project directing a complex victory parade for Chelsea FC to celebrate their first ever Champion’s League win, building a series of football pitches for NGO’s around the world with Chevrolet and Manchester United or working with the Olympic Committee of Rio 2016 at Casa Brasil during the London games.

After leading the team on the Shell #MakeTheFuture Brazil project as a freelancer, I joined J. Walter Thompson full-time as a member of the board in 2014. Over the next few years JWT Live won over 60 industry awards, working on some memorable projects. The honours included 14 golds and the Grand Prix at both the Event Awards and the EVCOM Awards for Shell #MakeTheFuture Brazil. In 2016, HSBC's 'A Living River' won 20 awards including a Yellow Pencil at the D&AD Awards, Golds for 'Brand Experience' and 'Use of Technology' at the EVCOM Live Awards. The project also saw JWT Live winning the Platinum Grand Prix at the EVCOM Live Awards for the second year running. In 2017 JWT Live won 15 awards with Shell’s GravityLight project including a White Pencil at D&AD Impact, two Golds at the Clio Awards and three Bronze Lions at Cannes as well as 2 Golds at the EVCOM and Drum Event Awards.

I moved to Norway in 2018 where I worked as Chief Creative Officer for event agency Playroom, part of the Fremantle Group. Working across Scandinavia I have extended my experience in content creation, strategic corporate events and conferences, as well as many digital and hybrid events. Clients include the Møller Mobility Group, The Norwegian Shipowners Association, Torvald Klaveness, Wallenius Wilhelmsen, Tietoevry and Ruter. Also during the last few years I helped to launch Nordlink, a new undersea power connection between Norway and Germany, as well as hosting Elon Musk and President Zelenskyy at the world’s leading energy conference, ONS.

In 2023 I left Playroom to work in a freelance capacity, working globally both remotely and on-site. My first project after this switch was working as Production Manager for The Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla in London for Identity. I have since produced projects for agencies such as Wasserman, Wonder, Initiative, TBA and Jack Morton. Highlights include the launch of the new Mini Electric, an activation for Adidas at Sole DXB in Dubai and a teaser campaign for the launch of Erland Haaland’s new Nike football boots in Norway.

For much of 2024 I worked extensively for UK agency Wonder, helping them to deliver two flagship B2B conferences and exhibitions for Google - Google Marketing Live in Dublin and the Google Cloud Summit in London.

TESTIMONIALS

“Tom's a rare blend of creative and production brilliance. After meeting him through a short freelance contract, I spent a while convincing him to join the team full time. During our time together, we won nearly 70 odd awards across three projects. I'd have him back at any business, at any time. He conceived some brilliant ideas, made friends with everyone, impressed clients while instilling confidence and is a very generous guy on top of it all. Sorely missed in the team! Can't recommend highly enough.” Jonathan Terry, Head of Live, Wunderman Thompson

"What a night. I must say I am enjoying this morning but also feeling rather guilty that we are taking all the plaudits on your behalf. Feedback has been incredibly positive. Eileen Ginger, the Whitbread buyer, who has been in this industry for some 35 years, and as such been to many, many launches and similar events. “This is the best, and most enjoyable event I have ever been to”. Our GM Dan Townsend; “Blown away! Collectively you have raised the bar for Treasure Wine Estate events by several yards. I cannot fault anything - setting, running order/time allocation, the Royal Opera House presence (not overblown and ostentatious), wine choices and customer attendance”. I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed working with you. I had complete trust and faith in your work… someone pointed out perhaps wait until after the event to say that… but of course you didn’t disappoint with last night’s performance!" Penfolds

"To be frank, I'm not sure we could have completed the job with any other producer. Who else could find a never before used east London venue, that had a warehouse feel but wasn't too grimy, was easy to get to and included room for five live bands and a dancing sheep show... and put it all together in less than a week? This is just one of the many examples of how Tom finds creative solutions whatever the problem. By the way, if you are one of those naysayers that thinks creativity comes at the expense of delivery, fear not. Tom is so genuinely passionate about his work making a difference that delivery is a matter of pride." Borkowski

"Just a quick note on the extraordinary job you and the team did in both concept and creation of the booth for CTIA in Las Vegas. I was approached by numerous attendees who were raving about our booth including the head of a marketing services firm who stated that "...SpinVox was the talk of the show Wednesday night amongst the marketeers at CTIA..." I personally have been attending CTIA for the past 15 years and have never seen such a response....job well done!” SpinVox

“I have worked with Tom on two occasions in the past two years and have found him to be the perfect fit in terms of creativity, expert knowledge and being the consummate team player. In his most recent role as a pitch team production consultant, Tom made the difference when it came to producing not just a great idea, but a 100% deliverable great idea.” Ogilvy

"Great pub.” Tom Cruise