Services - Consulting
i

Views of Cumbria by photographer Jon Sparks: Looking over Little Langdale with mist in the valley of the River Brathay. Loughrigg Fell in middle distance, High Pike and Red Screes on the skyline.

Kevin Roberts Bio

Kevin Roberts, Founder Red Rose ConsultingKevin Roberts, founder Red Rose Consulting

Kevin Roberts is an international business leader, founder, consultant and educator. His company Red Rose Consulting counsels business leaders and employees on creative thinking, marketing, and leadership.

A CEO for over 30 years, Kevin has an uncompromisingly positive and inspirational leadership style, with an ability to generate ideas and emotional connections that accelerate extraordinary value. Kevin’s latest book 64 Shots: Leadership in a Crazy World (2016) offers frameworks and solutions for winning in a business world that has become volatile, complex, uncertain, and ambiguous.

Born and educated in Lancaster in the north of England, Kevin Roberts started his career in the late 1960s with iconic London fashion house Mary Quant. He became a senior marketing executive for Gillette and Procter & Gamble in Europe and the Middle East. At 32, he became CEO of Pepsi-Cola Middle East; and later Pepsi’s CEO in Canada, over-taking Coke in the ‘Cola Wars.’ In 1989, Kevin moved to Auckland, New Zealand, to become Chief Operating Officer with Lion Nathan, growing the company to become Australasia’s leading brewer.

From 1997 to 2014 Kevin was New York-based CEO Worldwide at Saatchi & Saatchi, one of the world’s leading creative organizations, with responsibility for the effectiveness of several of the world’s leading advertising budgets including for clients Toyota and Procter & Gamble. He retired as Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi in 2016. For 16 years Kevin was a member of the Management Board of Publicis Groupe, the Paris-based global communications group active in 108 countries and employing 80,000 professionals, as it grew from the world’s seventh largest communications group to the third.

Kevin advises national organizations and global brands across commerce, media and sport. He has honorary appointments and doctorates at a number of universities. He is Honorary Professor of Creative Leadership at Lancaster University (England), Honorary Professor of Innovation and Creativity at the University of Auckland Business School (New Zealand), and Honorary Professor of Leadership and Innovation at the University of Victoria School of Business (Canada). He is a Resident Expert for Oxford University’s Foundry Lev8 Accelerator Programme.

With academic colleagues, he wrote Peak Performance: Business Lessons from the World’s Top Sporting Organizations, an inspiration-driven business theory and practice. In 2004, he wrote Lovemarks: the Future Beyond Brands, a ground-breaking business book published in 18 languages, showing how emotion can inspire businesses and brands to deliver sustainable value. Lovemarks was named one of the ten Ideas of the Decade by Advertising Age in 2009. His 2005 book Sisomo (for sight, sound, and motion) explored the future of the screen age.  And in 2006, The Lovemarks Effect, Winning in the Consumer Revolution was published.

In 2013, Kevin, a New Zealand citizen, was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for services to business and the community.

He is a former director of the New Zealand Rugby Union and former Chairman of USA Rugby. He also served on the Board of New Zealand Football and as a Trustee for a Team New Zealand America’s Cup challenge.  Currently he sits on the Boards of UK grocer Booths and The Herdy Company (UK homeware and accessories retailer).

Kevin shares his thinking every week on krconnect.

Kevin has homes in Carefree Arizona, New Jersey, Auckland, and Grasmere in the English Lakes District.

Contact Kevin at kevin.roberts@redrose.consulting.

  • 2017

    Appointed Independent Director of E.H. Booth & Co. Ltd.

    Appointed Chair of The Herdy Company.

  • 2016

    Retires from  Saatchi & Saatchi.

    Author of 64 Shots: Leadership in a Crazy World.

  • 2015

    Appointed Honorary Professor of Leadership and Innovation at the University of Victoria (B.C.) Peter B. Gustavson School of Business.

  • 2014

    Ongoing appointment Honorary Professor – Institute for the Contemporary Arts at Lancaster University.

  • 2013

    Named a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for services to business and the community.

  • 2011

    Inducted (the first non-Latin American) into FIAP (Festival Iberoamericano de Publicidad) Hall of Fame.

  • 2010

    Lovemarks named one of the Top Ten Ideas of the Decade, by AdAge.

  • 2009

    Awarded Honorary Doctorate in Laws by Lancaster University for “contributions made to the field of creativity and innovation in business and education”.

    Awarded Honorary Doctorate in Letters by the International University in Geneva as testimonial to “life-long contributions and commitment to innovative business thinking”.

    Appointed Honorary Professor of Creative Leadership at Lancaster University, UK.

  • 2008

    Appointed Honorary Professor of Innovation and Creativity, University of Auckland Business School, NZ

    Author of Diesel: XXX Years of Diesel Communication (Rizzoli, 2008).

  • 2008-2014

    Director. Board of Telecom New Zealand.

  • 2007

    Appointed Profesor Honorario de la Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC) [Honorary Professor of the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences].

  • 2006

    Author of The Lovemarks Effect – Winning in the Consumer Revolution (powerHouse Books, 2006).

  • 2006-2014

    Chairman of the USA Rugby Board.

  • 2005

    Author of sisomo – The Future on Screen (powerHouse Books, 2005).

  • 2004-2006

    Board Member of New Zealand Football.

  • 2004

    Appointed as Sponsor Governor of Lancaster Royal Grammar School.

    Appointed as private sector ambassador to the New Zealand/United States Council.

    Author of Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands (powerHouse Books, 2004) Lovemarks is translated into 17 languages worldwide.

    Awarded the New Yorker for New York Award by the Citizens for NYC, a non-profit organization.

  • 2003-2007

    Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the Waikato Management School, University of Waikato. www.management.ac.nz

  • 2000-2003

    NZ America’s Cup Board of Trustees.

  • 2001-2009

    Inaugural CEO in Residence at The Judge Business School, Cambridge University’s business school in the UK.

  • 2000

    Co-author of Peak Performing Organizations – Lessons for Business from the World’s Leading Sports Organizations (Harper Collins, London 2000).

    Member of the Management Board, Publicis Groupe.

  • 1997-2000

    Director New Zealand Rugby Football Union.
    Trustee of the Turn Your Life Around Trust (TYLA) in West Auckland, New Zealand.
  • 1998

    Awarded Honorary Doctorate by the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand “in recognition of achievements as an inspirational business leader and for contribution to sport in New Zealand.”

    Named by Frohlinger’s Marketing Report as the Outstanding Advertising Agency Executive of 1998 (USA).

  • 1997

    Saatchi & Saatchi Chief Executive Officer Worldwide (Saatchi & Saatchi since became part of Publicis Groupe S.A., the world’s largest communications group).

  • 1995

    Founder, Red Rose Consulting.

  • 1989-96

    Lion Nathan, Director and Chief Operating Officer.

  • 1987-89

    Pepsi Cola, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada.

  • 1983-86

    Pepsi Cola, Chief Executive Officer, Middle East.

  • 1975-82

    Procter & Gamble, Group Marketing Manager, Export and Special Operations, Middle East/Africa.

  • 1972-1975

    Gillette, International New Products Manager, Europe.

  • 1969-1972

    Mary Quant Cosmetics, Brand Manager, United Kingdom.

  • 1960's

    Educated Lancaster Royal Grammar School, England.

  • 1949

    Born Lancaster, England.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR
NEWSLETTER

To stay updated with the latest workshops & speeches

Subscribe Now