JP Donnelly began his career at Peter Owens Advertising & Marketing in 1985. He then moved to the United States where he worked in Edelman Public Relations, and Young & Rubicam Advertising. In 1990 he returned to work with McConnells Advertising. In 1992 he took leave of absence and completed an MBA at the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, UCD. He returned to Dimension, a sister company of McConnells Advertising and was shortly appointed Managing Director.
After 5 years he was appointed Managing Director of Ogilvy & Mather, where he has been responsible for the merger of Wilson Hartnell and Bell Advertising under the Ogilvy banner. In 2002 he was appointed Chief Executive of the Ogilvy Ireland Group, which now includes OgilvyOne Worldwide (CRM), Wilson Hartnell PR (Public Relations) and Ogilvy & Mather (Advertising), as well as responsibilities with Enterprise IG (Corporate and Brand Identity) and Mindshare (Media Planning and Buying).
JP is a former Secretary/Manager of the Irish Universities Rugby Union, and former founder and Treasurer of the Students European Rugby Championship, he was Chairman of the Marketing Institute of Ireland in 2002/3, and is currently board member of the Craft Council of Ireland, the Royal Victoria Eye & Ear Hospital, Mediaforum.ie and the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business. He is also President of the School's Alumni for 2003-2005.
Jim Condren is Finance Director and Secretary of the Ogilvy Ireland Group and subsidiaries Ogilvy & Mather, OgilvyOne Worldwide and Wilson Hartnell Public Relations.
Jim started his career with Deloitte & Co where he trained as a chartered accountant before specialising in corporate auditing and taxation. On leaving Deloitte he moved to Ogilvy and Mather Ltd as Financial Controller.
Subsequently he was appointed Finance Director of Ogilvy & Mather before taking on the role of Group Finance Director and Secretary to the Ogilvy Ireland Group.
Jim is a B. Comm. graduate of UCD and is a member of the Institute Of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI).
Dave Smyth, Managing Director, OgilvyOne Worldwide
Dave Smyth has been with OgilvyOne since May 2004. Dave has helped build the agency's promotional marketing function, bringing in both agency and client experience. Previously a Director at Dimension, he has vast experience in the sales promotion industry and sits on the Board of the APMC.
Dave has worked on a selection of major brands including Budweiser, Nokia, Cheestrings, Easi Singles, Coca Cola and Diet Coke, Jameson and Paddy Whiskey, eircom, Flora, Dove and Lucozade. Dave's client side experience comes from his time at Irish Life and Warner Bros.
A business studies graduate, Olive has a background in strategic marketing with experience on both client and agency side of the business.
She spent 5 years as Marketing Communications Manager in Bank of Ireland and Norwich Union International. While at Bank of Ireland, Olive led the brand re-positioning project and was also heavily involved in developing the bank's CRM strategy.
Her experience on brands also stems from her agency career where she worked with clients such as Colgate Palmolive, Guinness, Nissan and Heinz.
Olive joined OgilvyOne as Account Director in May 2001 and was appointed Managing Director for OgilvyOne in September 2002. Since then OgilvyOne has developed its services to include interactive and brand activation. Today it is one of Ireland's biggest below-the-line agencies with 25 staff and a client list that includes Irish Life, Kerry Foods, VIVAS Health and GSK.
Brian Bell, Managing Director, Wilson Hartnell Public Relations
Brian Bell is managing director of WHPR, specialising in financial and corporate communications and media relations.
Brian has wide experience in dealing with business, personal finance and news journalists. He has worked on numerous public flotations, acquisitions, MBOs and take privates, most recently on behalf of Precinct Investments, Quinn Group, Smurfit, Fyffes, Riverdeep and the independent directors of Alphyra.
His current clients include: ACCBank, Fyffes, Grosvenor, Smurfit Kappa Group, McCann FitzGerald, Babcock & Brown Capital, Precinct Investments, the Quinn Group, UniPhar and eircom.
Prior to joining the firm in 1989, Brian spent 10 years as a business journalist with the Irish Press Group of national newspapers, where he was financial editor. He was also a regular contributor to RTE, the BBC in London and Belfast and the ‘Independent’ and ‘Daily Mail’ newspapers in London. The holder of a diploma in journalism from the College of Commerce, Rathmines, Dublin, during the year 2000 he completed the Irish Management Institute’s Directors’ and Senior Managers’ Programme.
The managing director of WHPR until 2007 Roddy has spent his entire career in the public relations industry in Ireland. His contribution to the development of that industry over many years was recognised recently by the industry recently when he was elected an Honorary Life Member of the Public Relations Institute.
Roddy began his career with the Irish Tourist Board where he advised a wide variety of tourism related projects on marketing / publicity. He joined WHPR as senior consultant before joining the board of the company where he was deputy managing director for many years.
Over the years he built up the sports side of WHPR's business in which capacity he devised, developed and managed sponsorship programmes such as the Guinness Hurling Championship. He also specialises in advising clients on crisis communications.
He is a former President of the Public Relations Institute and also a former chairman of the Public Relations Consultants Association where he remains on the board.
Gervaise Slowey - Managing Director, Ogilvy & Mather Advertising
Originally from Sligo, Gervaise is a graduate of Dublin City University, with a BBS (Marketing) degree.
She began her career in 1990 with the Irish Trade Board and later with CPC foods (now Unilever) where she worked in brand management on Knorr and Hellmanns.
Gervaise moved into advertising in Germany in 1993 with BBDO Dusseldorf, initially on local German brands, and later as European Account Director of their Masterfoods business across the EU.
She moved to Ogilvy & Mather in Vienna in 1996 as Client Service Director for their Central and Eastern Europe region working in emerging markets including Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Turkey. She helped to build the newly established local agencies in these markets and managed international accounts across the region such as Kodak, Kimberly Clark and Kraft.
In 1998 Gervaise was made European Client Service Director of Ogilvy’s Kraft Coffee business, leading the 360 brand communication in Sweden, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, UK and Ireland.
Gervaise returned to Ireland in 2003 and was made head of the Global Milka, Toblerone and Suchard brands after Ogilvy’s win of this business in 2004.
In October 2006 she was appointed Managing Director of Ogilvy & Mather and a member of the board of the Ogilvy Ireland Group (Ogilvy & Mather, OgilvyOne and WHPR).
Mitch Vetere joined Ogilvy Ireland in 2001 having spent the previous 20 years ‘client’ side with International Computers Ltd, Cadbury Schweppes and Diageo. Mitch joined Ogilvy Ireland as Group Finance Director and moved to Ogilvy EAME HQ in October 2005 as Financial Controller, specifically managing the ‘smaller’ markets.
Mitch is a Fellow with the Chartered Institute Management Accountants and completed an MBA at Ashridge Management College in 1997.
She enjoyed a short stint as non executive board director of Tote Ireland, which she sadly had to resign due to her move to Ogilvy EAME HQ.
Mitch’s interests include reading, travelling, cooking and sports, mainly Horseracing, Soccer and Rugby.
Brian Patterson is Chairman of Vodafone Ireland and is a Board Member of Ogilvy Group (Ireland). He is a founding Partner of Praesta Ireland, where he is mentor/coach to a number of chief executives in the private and public sectors.
Brian spent 19 years with Guinness, culminating in his appointment as Personnel Director, before becoming Director General of the Irish Management Institute in 1982. Five years later he joined Waterford Wedgwood plc, becoming Chief Operating Officer of Waterford Crystal, where he played a pivotal role in that company's difficult turnaround in the late 80s. In 1995 he was appointed Chief Executive of the Wedgwood Group and moved to the UK. It was during this period that he was featured on the BBC2 programme "Back to the Floor". Also during this time, he was Chairman of the Irish National Competitiveness Council, the North Staffordshire Partnership and Common Purpose (Stoke-on-Trent). He left Wedgwood in 2001 to return to Ireland and retired from the Board of Waterford Wedgwood in 2004. He was Chairman of The Irish Times from 2002 to 2007 and of the Irish Financial Services Authority from 2002 to 2008.
Brian has served on the boards of An Post, Waterford Stanley Ltd., St James's Hospital, as a Governor of the National College of Ireland, and as a Trustee Northern Ireland's Centre for Trauma and Transformation, set up to treat the living victims of terrorist violence.
He holds a BA from the National University of Ireland (Economics, English and Philosophy), is a Companion of the Institute of Personnel and Development and a Fellow of the Irish Management Institute. In 1983 he represented Ireland on the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship program in the United States.
Brian is married, with two adult sons. His interests include music, literature, history, sailing and fishing.
