John Hegarty

Founder, Creative
Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH)

John Hegarty has been central to the global advertising scene over six decades working with brands such as Levi's, Audi, Boddingtons, Lynx, British Airways and Johnnie Walker.

He was a founding partner of Saatchi and Saatchi in 1970. He then helped start in 1973 the London office of TBWA as Creative Director.

He founded Bartle Bogle Hegarty in 1982 with John Bartle and Nigel Bogle. The Agency now has offices in London, New York, Singapore, Stockholm, Shanghai, Mumbai and Los Angeles.

John’s creative awards are numerous. He has been given the D&AD President's Award for outstanding achievement and in 2014 was admitted to the US AAF Hall of Fame. He was also invited to be an Honorary Fellow of The Marketing Society in the UK in recognition of his contribution to outstanding communication campaigns.

In 1996, John was appointed as a Trustee for The Design Museum, London and has been on the Board of Trustees ever since.

John was awarded a Knighthood by the Queen in 2007 and was the recipient of the first Lion of St Mark award at the Cannes Festival of Creativity in 2011. In 2013 he was the honorary President of the Film Jury at the festival in its 60th year.

John wrote his first book ‘Hegarty on Advertising – Turning Intelligence into Magic’ in 2011 and his latest book "Hegarty on Creativity - there are no rules" was published last year.

In 2014 John helped set up The Garage Soho, an early stage investor company that believes in building brands, not just businesses.

In 2015, working with Aardman Animations, he created the first global goals cinema campaign for the UN’s Global Goals initiative; Project Everyone.