Name Felix Velarde | ||
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EP4: Agency Growth Planning | Felix Velarde
Felix Velarde founded one of the world's first web design agencies, Hyperinteractive, in 1994, and was co-founder of Head-Space, one of the first open creative galleries on the web. Forbes and Management Today included Head-Space in their lists of the world's ten most influential websites, a pre-cursor to YouTube. Velarde is currently on the central organising team of Vint Cerf's People-Centered Internet initiative.
Contents
- EP4 Agency Growth Planning Felix Velarde
- Gigi felix velarde ballet workshop wmv
- Non Commercial Work
- Industry and Teaching
- Personal life
- Awards
- Profiles
- References
An early specialist web design agency, Hyperinteractive created the first graphical websites for brands including Snickers and Allied Domecq, and created the first interactive awards productions for the Cannes Advertising Festival and D&AD. In 1997 he launched Head New Media with Creative Director Jason Holland, which became the digital arm of the world's fourth-largest advertising network, Interpublic's Lowe & Partners (now MullenLowe Profero) in 1998. <Head> was the world's most awarded digital agency in 1999. An offshoot, Interactive Television agency Head End, produced the first Interactive Television commercials for Tesco and Unilever and built the wapTV developer community for Sky.
In 1996 Velarde was a founder of an innovative strategy company, Underwired which led the growth of the discipline of eCRM building on the pioneering CRM work of Oracle's Mei Lin Fung et al. Having left Head New Media in 2001 he became Underwired's CEO, selling it to Hasgrove PLC in 2009. In 2012 he arranged an MBO and was Underwired's Chairman until selling his stake in 2014.
Velarde was also CEO of an agency roll-up The Conversation Group between 2013 and 2016. He is a Non-Executive Director of several agencies and start-ups and chairman of MomentumABM, which pioneered Account-Based Marketing.
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Non-Commercial Work
While at Head New Media, Velarde and Holland sponsored a non-commercial online creative community, Head-Space, which incubated prominent community websites including Urban75 and John Lundberg et al.'s Circlemakers.org. Employees at Head New Media were given one day a week to work on Head-Space (the founders of Urban75 and Circlemakers both worked at Head New Media in the 1990s), but contributors came from all over the world. Featured in the travelling exhibition Digital Archaeology since 2010, Head-Space is recognised as a digital artefact of considerable historic and cultural relevance, which Forbes Magazine described as a germinal precursor to YouTube and one of the world's ten most influential websites.
From 2006-2008 Velarde was a sponsor of the UK's prototype personal carbon trading system, CarbonDAQ, a project being led by leading Left-leaning think tank the Royal Society of Arts, of which he is a Fellow.
In 2015 Velarde became a member of Innovation For Jobs (i4j) Leadership Forum, a Silicon Valley-based think tank chaired by co-founder of the Internet Vint Cerf, and David Nordfors. Other participants include former CEO of SRI International Curtis Carlson, Lord Jim Knight, Robin Farmanfarmaian and Steve Denning.
Since 2016 he has been on the Organizing Team of the People-Centered Internet project chaired by Vint Cerf and co-founded by Mei Lin Fung (who invented CRM while at Oracle), which aims to ensure that the Internet's roll-out to developing and emerging countries is guided by principles of People-centered development rather than commercial focus. The organization works closely with IEEE, World Economic Forum, World Bank Group, The White House and others.
Industry and Teaching
Velarde is a Fellow of the Institute of Direct & Digital Marketing, and is an educator, speaker, writer and widely published commentator on digital marketing and marketing industry development issues. Until 2015 he was an Adjunct Professor lecturing on Hult International Business School's MBA and Masters in International Marketing programs. In 2013 Velarde was a contributing author to two books on marketing strategy including Multichannel Marketing Ecosystems. He has been an Awards Judge for the Direct Marketing Association, New York Festivals, British Interactive Media Association and Drum Awards for Digital Industries. Velarde has given keynote speeches on the topics of business management and M&A and has organized three conferences in the UK and USA on agency M&A.
Personal life
Velarde attended Richmond upon Thames College. He is a qualified glider (sailplane) pilot at Cotswold Gliding Club, and a member of London's Groucho Club. In 2016 Velarde gave the second talk of the festival at Burning Man's Center Camp stage on the subject of "Practicing Serendipity, and Just Saying Yes."
Awards
Profiles
Velarde has been profiled in the following articles: