meet the team behind
ekstastic advertising
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Mike has over 14 years of branding, advertising, content creation experience across TV, Online, Radio, Print and OOH. He has an MSc from London School of Economics and Political Science in Media Regulation and Policy and a BA (Hons) in Film & TV Production from Westminster University. Worked on productions such as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and You Are What You Eat. Mike founded Ekstasy Ltd 14 years ago. He is passionate about building disruptive brands who add real value to the lives of their customers, both b2b and b2c. He has headed up campaigns for the likes of Samsung, LloydsDirect Pharmacy, Starling Bank, Sumup, Amazon, Klarna, L&T and others.
Matt has over 9 years of Creative and Ad Directing experience. Responsible for leading the creative projects for advertising campaigns for Starling Bank, SumUp, Samsung, Yale, Amazon, Oracle, Klarna, RS Components, Smoothwall, Seagate, Verifone and Ingenico. Matt heads up the creative teams and manages the development of concepts and sees them through production to delivery, to see the creative continuity is never broken. Matt has an exceptional eye for understanding the true emotional value of a brand and how it connects with its audience. He is also an experienced actor and editor.
Antonella is a marketing powerhouse. She was Vice President of Marketing for Visa for 18 years and directly responsible for all sponsorships across Europe and repositioning of Visa as the logical and emotional payment of choice across daily spending. She launched Europe’s first mobile payment app in Partnership with Samsung for London 2012 Olympics. She currently also is an advisor to multiple startups and Women in Tech, which is on a mission to close the funding gap for female led ventures. Her interest in the intersection of loyalty, data and payments led her to launch and grow the Card-Linked-Offers business, in partnership with Edo Interactive, a US venture-backed start-up. Her passion is to support businesses that can make the world a “better place” to live in.
Iain is a highly awarded, multi-disciplinary creative leader with a proven track record of driving brand and business success in both agencies and in-house creative studios, across B2C and B2B sectors. His most recent role was Creative Director for B2B fintech brand Visa Acceptance Solutions, creating a brand launch for this global payments business. Before that, Iain was International CD for Peloton where he helped create a new brand TOV, advocacy and acquisition campaigns, and content strategy for one of world’s fastest growing tech brands. Prior to Peloton, Iain was ECD at social agency Tommy across London, LA and Singapore, creating campaigns for brands including Netflix, Adobe, Amazon Prime, Tottenham Hotspur F.C. Monster Energy and William Grant. Iain has been recognised at almost every major awards including: Cannes, D&AD, Epicas, Lovies, Campaign, Drum, Caples and DMAs. He likes to work closely and collaboratively with stakeholders to create strategic positionings and global campaigns that are as effective as they are beautifully crafted.
Abigail holds a first-class honours degree from Oxford University in Philosophy and Theology. She held the role of Artistic Co-ordinator at Condé Nast and became the Personal Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Darius Sanai. Abigail has assisted with strategy implementation for UHNWI’s at Quartet Consulting London. She has trained in design with Manuel Gonzalez at Burberry and has published numerous articles for LUX magazine, covering major luxury brands including Richard Mille and Louis Vuitton. Abigail also took on the role of Editorial Assistant at LUX magazine. In addition to her work as the Artistic Director for both The Oxford Review of Books and Anthroposphere, she has also worked as the Creative Lead for Tedx Oxford, the Oxford Forum for International Development and Oxford Women in Business. Abigail was the Section Editor for Arts and Culture at The Oxford Student and the Cherwell, and her contributions won her the ISIS Artist of the Year award.
Parker is a senior-level undergraduate student at the University of California Santa Cruz pursuing a bachelor's degree in business management economics. He is an enthusiastic and tenacious individual with broad-ranging interests, and a passion for solving problems and optimizing situations. Parker is well versed in web3 and very excited about the space’s potential and its opportunity to grow. Some previous work experiences include a consultant at 180 degrees consulting, manager of a google ads account, and social media marketing among other things.
Allen (1945 - 2022), was a legendary ad man from NYC who had over 300 multi-million Pound TV Commercials and Integrated Ad campaigns under his belt and had over 40 years of experience. Who was famous for making brands such as Xerox, Honda, Virgin Atlantic, Comedy Central, and other household names in the United States. He was an advertising hall-of-famer and had won over 22 Clios. Some of the most well-known campaigns include Super Bowl ads for Xerox - "Monks", "The Car That Sells Itself" for Honda, "If you see something, say something" a global anti-terrorism campaign", "Take us for all we have got" for Virgin Atlantic and "You'll laugh your ass off" for Comedy Central. He was working with Ekstasy on selected ad campaigns to bring some of his characteristic all-time classic Allen signature humour to the ads. He will be sorely missed!
Celia aims to make Ekstasy a thought leader in the creative space by building a community of senior industry leaders brought together by unique events. She is a recent Marketing graduate from the top university in Marketing in the UK, with experience in project management and financial advisory. She has worked with IBM for the development of a marketing campaign for their e-learning platform, and has managed the planning and execution of a fundraising charity event, reaching 100% of the fundraising target. Celia has experience in auditing and tax through her internships at Mazars, in which she worked with fashion and automotive companies. She developed her financial understanding and commercial awareness which, combined with her creative thinking developed through her degrees, has given her a holistic approach to business.
Bringing a rare blend of strategic vision, analytical know-how and commercial nous, Janet tackles business challenges with creativity and tenacity. After graduating in Mathematics, her career has spanned Consumer and B2B marketing, both in the UK and with global clients, working with blue-chips that include Diageo, Unilever, Jaguar, Landrover, Unicef, Emirates Airline and Lloyds Banking Group. Handed 2 awards for Outstanding Industry Contribution and named in both the Data IQ 100 and the Top Twenty Women in Data & Technology in 2019, she is widely recognised for pioneering data strategy and customer engagement initiatives. After spells in leadership roles at Wunderman and the Havas group, and ventures bringing together customer and digital marketing disciplines, Janet now works with clients to help them improve and scale their multi-channel customer experience capabilities.
John advises Ekstasy on international growth strategy. He is currently the CEO of Screenvision Cinema Network. He has over 30 years of media and agency experience. John has served as the CEO of Olson, Inc. and COO of Dentsu Network West at Dentsu Inc. And has also been the President of Global Media Sales at Clear Channel Communications, Inc. and Global Media Group of Time Warner Inc.
Sam is an experienced blockchain developer with a thorough knowledge of both the technicalities of NFTs and key trends within Web3. His most recent project was the development of a charity NFT marketplace which was recently launched to the public. Sam is also extremely well versed in the metaverse and what innovations blockchain enables for it. These include dynamic NFTs which react to real-world data, composable NFTs, and token economies, that each allow for advertisers to engage in never-before-seen ways with their target audiences. Furthermore, Sam has had professional experience launching decentralised identifiers (DIDs) during his time at Vodafone, which are paramount for advertisers to determine user authenticity in the decentralised realm. Aside from his deep technical knowledge, Sam is an avid user within the NFT and metaverse space, and so can identify key success factors such as NFT utility and community incentives.
Kieron has a passion for building and nurturing relationships with exciting innovative brands. He studied business management and this is where his initial interest in the world of entrepreneurship, marketing, and sales began. His sales background within residential and commercial property led to his natural transition as the creative account executive at Ekstasy. He is excited to help Ekstasy grow and ignite new relationships with brands.
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Russ Eisenman’s career has been focused on telling very human brand stories for some of the most innovative technology companies in Silicon Valley. At Airbnb, he built the brand architecture for the thousands of small businesses aiming to scale their hosting management companies in the marketplace. As the Global Director of Marketing for Uber Freight, he grew the supply chain marketplace from a big bet to a transformational enterprise for Uber. He was also the product marketing leader for JPMorgan Chase where he launched the Chase Mobile app to become the most respected mobile banking product in the country. He was also part of the team that had Steve Jobs using Quick Deposit on stage with the first ever iPad launch. Russ spent the first decade of his career as the CMO for Tower Records where he led the entertainment retailer's global marketing. Russ and his family live in Half Moon Bay, where they are most likely paddle boarding the waves of the northern California coast.
Ron is a Creative, a Strategist and a Designer hybrid with experience in digital and traditional advertising. His work runs from a range of advertising to innovations to gaming. With 18+ years of experience Ron has previously worked on through the line campaigns for BBH London, McCann, Havas, Leo, BETC, Ogilvy, Digitas and JWT, where later on he became a Creative Director on the Debenhams account. In a nutshell, Ron believes all that matters is giving talented people the space to be brilliant, pushing himself to do something that hasn’t been done before, and staying as happy as possible. Everything else will fall into place.
7 years’ experience at some of the UK’s top creative agencies including M&C Saatchi, VCCP and adam&eveDDB, developing branding and campaigns for clients including NatWest, Mars and Peroni. Past projects include launching the innovative brand experience The House of Peroni, and one of the world’s top ten most viewed Christmas ads of 2016 ‘Keep Them Busy This Christmas’ for Mars Temptations.
Warwick is our senior level creative designer with a wealth of experience in the film, entertainment & retail sectors with a strong focus on 360° branding. Having previously led the creative design for projects including the Coke Zero & Star Wars collaborative promotion which extended across Europe, Warwick has also brought his expert eye, spirit of fun and creativity to projects for Universal Studios, Illumination Entertainment, King and Paramount Pictures - most notably designing a unique range of merchandise for the ‘Despicable Me’ franchise. With a foundation in Advertising and Art Direction studied at Ogilvy & Matther’s Red & Yellow School of Advertising, Warwick has expanded through agencies and working with blue chip clients to being our creative lead on the SES global brand campaigns - and more.
Creative Director and Copywriter with 20+ years of experience, having worked with some of the most respected brands, at top agencies in Sao Paulo and London. I've also worked as a writer at prestigious magazines in Brazil, having published articles on Men's Health Brasil, Top Magazine, Top Destinations and Época São Paulo.
Gergely has been heavily involved in Augmented and Virtual Reality for the past decade. As one of the founders of Appshaker, he created a live interactive platform to broadcast National Geographic AR Show that went viral globally back in 2011. As a consultant for AR Works, he oversaw the build of dozens of AR and VR applications for mobile devices. Recently, he coordinated the build and launch of the AR platform, Shindig Studio, as well as the AR application behind the children’s book entitled “Head in the Clouds”. Currently, he has just launched a new virtual reality business called “Qb”, that creates a walk in, gear free VR experience ideal for education, entertainment, destination marketing, and gaming. At Ekstasy he is overseeing the development and launch of major AR and VR campaigns, mobile apps and websites.
Phil is a solid all round Senior Designer and a great guy to work with who is both creative and efficient. Over the years Phil has worked on full scale OOH campaigns, keynote presentations and more for some amazing clients like Samsung, Fullers, Oasis, Man U, Chelsea, BAT just to name a few! Besides OOH, he has also worked on anything from pharma print and digital collateral to pitch visuals.
Chiara Milani was very young when she started working back in 2009. She first trained as an assistant and then became a script supervisor and has worked with some of the most important and well known Italian directors. She has in the last few years also focused on writing scripts for videos, shorts and commercials. She has a deep passion and a talent for daily life storytelling and manages to dig thoroughly into every little aspect of it, though always focusing on the silver lining.
Jenniffer Salazar is an experienced content producer with a BA (Hons) in Television and Radio Production from the University of Westminster. Since 2007, she’s been working for world class broadcasters delivering promotional content across platforms for Broadcast On-Air, Online and Mobile. Having started her career in scheduling for UKTV channels and Cartoon network she moved onto working for a range of departments from post production, TV sales and marketing but she always felt better suited the fast paced environment of production. Jenniffer’s speciality is within project management in creative teams whose work has been seen around the world with BBC Creative, Sky creative, NBC Universal, Red Bee, Disney, BDA and Ericsson. Her recent highlights have included working on promos for Doctor Who.
Suki has over 20 years of film direction experience. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a BA (Hons) in Media Production before training in post production at the BBC. After being asked by London Music Week in 1998 to create their MTV campaign, Suki never looked back has been directing Commercials for clients such as BT, Toyota, Dell Computers, Mazda, Holland & Barrett, The Outlet, Staples, The Police Service, Landrover, Saab, HSBC, Barclays and Diageo. Suki directed his debut feature film EMULSION, a Psychological Noir, which has won several international awards. Suki has a varied style, blending eye catching images and strong performances with years of experience to bring ideas and scripts to life.
Joel is a 3D generalist with over 10 years of experience in creating full animations from scratch, including storyboard, concept, ideas, 3D contents till the final rendering. He is able to dive into fine details without losing track of the general scope and marketing purpose of a project. He delivers high-quality work even on tight deadlines. Joel is comfortable heading up small or large animation or design teams. He has worked on projects for brands such as Nestle, Y&R, Baxter, Sindex, bibi, BioMed and others.
Ben is a digital storyteller and a technical evangelist. He has a deep passion for film making and an obsession for detail. Ben has worked across all sectors including corporate, drama, live broadcast and feature films. As well as technically running productions, Ben is a respected camera operator, remote aerial cinematographer and guest lectures MA cinematography. Live Event Credits include: Crossfit, Riverford, Event Riders Masters, Goffs, World Match Racing Tour, M32 World Series, Extreme Sailing Series. In the past couple of years he has delivered live events in France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Norway, America, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Madera, Russia, China. In a previous life Ben worked internationally as a Program and Project Manager, so understands what it takes to deliver on time and on budget. Truth be told he is a bit of a geek and relishes challenging and complex shoots. Recent clients (non live) – Renault F1, Garrard, DJI, Grand Designs.
Conceptualised and delivered campaigns for Nars, Away, Revlon, Toyota, OnePlus, Victoria Secret’s and others. Director level Digital Creative Strategist with over 12 years of experience in influencer marketing. A proven track record of repositioning, revitalizing, and making brands relevant in the digital/social space. Working for globally recognized brands spanning music, fashion, technology, B2B, D2C, CPG, beauty, celebrity, and lifestyle, on both the client and agency side.