TIM SMYTH

Group CEO, TBWA East Africa

Over the last 2 decades, as the founder and CEO of Flame Tree Enterprises, Tim has grown its holdings in, and partnership with, marketing services agencies in Asia and Africa. He has extensive experience in agency start-up and senior management across the diverse fields of Advertising, Branding, Strategy and Insights.  He has recently partnered with the global advertising group, TBWA, to grow its presence across the 6 countries of East Africa – and is currently the Group CEO for the region.
To say that he is deeply ingrained in all things mobile – is somewhat of an understatement. In the last 4 years, while being based in Kenya, he performed leadership roles as CEO for Ogilvy Africa managing their 26 agencies across Sub-Saharan Africa – and a key part of that role was winning the Airtel business and launching their rebrand across Africa. Prior to that as the Managing Director of Millward Brown East Africa, was responsible for setting up the East and West Africa operations in which they handled the accounts for almost all the major telecom operators in Africa.  From 1992 to 2007, he founded and ran his own agency group of 6 companies in South East Asia and in that role he worked as internal advisor and consultant to a major global mobile operator to create and launch a new brand, drive marketing strategy and develop product and services rollout plans across 16 countries in Asia, Africa and South America.