Laurence Parkes

Vice President // Global Head of Customer Experience Transformation // Head of Growth Markets

London, England, United Kingdom

About

Creating business value is disarmingly simple. You must empathise with people. By understanding people deeply you will be able to identify services that will impact people's lives and create stories that will inspire them to think and act differently. As the lines between products and marketing blur, the future belongs to agencies and individuals that can use this understanding to combine service/ product design with storytelling across ecosystems.

Experience

  • President (interim) at BIMA (British Interactive Media Association)
    Feb 2024 - Present · 2 yrs 5 mos

    Working (for about 6 months) with our Chair, MD and the current/ future members to transform BIMA for the next 40 years and beyond.

  • VP // Head of Strategy & Transformation // Head of Growth Markets at frog
    Jan 2023 - Present · 3 yrs 6 mos

    I have 2 roles in frog London: Firstly, I lead the 170-strong Strategy & Transformation team. We combine the expertise of agency strategists with the brilliance of transformation consultants. Secondly, I focus on growing frog’s business in some strategic territories, across the British Isles, Middle East and India.

  • Rufus Leonard (7 yrs 10 mos)
    • Chief Executive Officer
      Jul 2019 - Jan 2023 · 3 yrs 7 mos

      In my first year as CEO, we achieved the best commercial results in the company's history, delivering £12m revenue and 10% margin. Then Covid hit and our fortunes took a terrible turn. Despite losing a third of our people, we managed to steer the ship to regain growth and profitability in 2021. As a result of this turnaround, in June 2022, after 32 years of independence, we sold to Capgemini. By Jan 2023, we had successfully integrated with frog, the global creative consultancy. I had an amazing time on the Rufus Leonard rollercoaster. I'm now looking forward to continuing all our great work on even bigger and better projects in frog.

    • Chief Strategy Officer
      Apr 2015 - Jul 2019 · 4 yrs 4 mos

      Helped reposition Rufus as the Brand Experience Engineers, evolving our offer and launching the Brand Experience Index. As a result we have turned the business around (from loss-making in 2015 to being on track to make £1m profit this year) and won Digital Experience Agency of the Year at the UKDX awards in July 2019.

  • Co-chair at Alliance of Independent Agencies
    Sep 2020 - Sep 2022 · 2 yrs 1 mo

  • Founder and Chair of BIMA Digital Leaders Network at BIMA (British Interactive Media Association)
    Sep 2020 - Sep 2022 · 2 yrs 1 mo