Having completed his degree in History at Queen’s College, Oxford, Simon spent 18 months traveling around Africa and France, where he taught English extremely badly to a series of increasingly bewildered Parisian secretaries, waitresses and unemployed, before finally succumbing to the lure of a career in advertising in 1979.

His first port of call was as a graduate trainee at the now defunct Ayer Barker Hegemann. In 1981, he started at Dewe Rogerson, a financial advertising and PR Agency, becoming a full Board Director in 1984. 

In 1987, JWT recruited him as a Board Director. Until he left in 1994, he ran a wide variety of accounts including a role as co-organiser of Sir Richard Branson’s UK lottery Foundation Bid for the first National Lottery License.

In 1994, he moved to Abbott Mead Vickers as a Senior Board Director  before returning, two years later to JWT as a Managing Partner.  In September 1999, he was asked by Sir Richard Branson to set up the People’s Lottery in order to contest the second License, formally becoming Chief Executive of The People’s Lottery in September.

In 2001, he was made Chairman of HHCL Group, where, in addition to running the advertising agency, he also added digital marketing, design, and event based PR to HHCL’s core offering. At the end of 2002, 49% of HHCL was sold to WPP and Simon rejoined Richard Branson, working on a number of projects, one of which has led to the creation of Virgin Games, of which he is CEO.

Simon will be speaking on Day 2 - Wednesday 23rd May

• 11:45 - 12:30  Success in the Regulating European Marketplace 
• Conference Room 2: Trends, Regulation & Finance Track