James is currently the National Strategy Director for Bohemia.
Previously he was National Head of Strategy for Wavemaker AUNZ. Wavemaker was formed in late 2017 from the merger of Maxus and MEC, for whom James had worked in Australia for 4 years. James’s role encompasses a combination of client work (e.g. Vodafone, Nestle and NSW Govt) and helping build and reinforce Wavemaker’s planning product across 5 thriving offices in Australia and New Zealand. James also plays an active role in the global strategy community, working on the company’s planning processes, approaches to strategy and thought leadership initiatives. That, plus getting stuck into any pitch he can lay his hands on!
Prior to his move to Sydney, James worked for MEC in EMEA in a regional planning role across clients such as Michelin and J&J. As part of his role James was responsible for helping build MEC’s approach to planning and understanding the purchase journey, something that has become a hallmark of MEC around the world. It’s this attempt to understand how people make decisions between and about brands that really makes James tick. Getting to the heart of human decision making is something he’s really passionate about and one of his thought pieces on the subject won a WPP Atticus Award in 2014. Prior to joining MEC, James tried a few areas of our industry before settling on strategy as his calling.
He was a pretty amateur New Business Manager for a start-up and a decent enough account manager at other large agencies in London. Whilst working in start-up land, James discovered the joy of strategy, and has never looked back.
