I joined Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam as Head of Planning in the balmy summer of 2009 when there was only one decent restaurant in town, fireworks were legal, hipsters, juice bars, and Uber hadn’t yet arrived, the canals still froze over in the winter, the squatters hadn’t been evicted, cowboy boots with leggings and a skirt were still a thing (if you know you know), and bar staff still spoke to you in Dutch. 

In that time I've served under four successive management administrations, led strategy on eighteen pitch wins, built strategies for booking.com, Corona, Facebook, Heineken, Instagram, and Milka, put strategy back at the heart of the creative process, hired some of the most dangerous strategic minds in the business, helped the agency build an unparalleled expertise in tech and platform businesses, reintroduced comms planning, got an education in creativity, and made friends for life.

But as good ol’ Will Shakespeare wrote

There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune:
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries
On such a full sea are we now afloat, 
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

And when AMV BBDO and the opportunity to work alongside some of the most badass people in the business came knocking, it was clear that on such a full sea we had now found ourselves afloat. 

So my wife and I are closing our Amsterdam chapters (a combined total of thirty-five years), packing up and relocating our lives to London where I’ll be taking up the role of Chief Strategy Officer and we’ll both be enjoying room temperature beer.

I will be forever grateful to have had the privilege of participating in the human experiment known as Wieden+Kennedy. I still marvel that I was ever given the chance. But know that I leave much improved on the self that walked in through its doors that summer of 2009. 

Time to take the current. Time to be as scared and giddy with excitement again as I was thirteen and a half years ago. Time for some big city energy.

* Now the monkey is out of the sleeve