Today, the LBB & Friends Beach, in partnership with MCA, announces the guests who will be joining us for the event’s third day of panel talks.
On Wednesday 19th June at 12:30pm at the Plage & Restaurant Croisette Beach, global production leaders, will be hosted by Matt Cooper to discuss the future of strategic content production in a panel titled How Much Is Too Much? Strategic Production. Matt will be joined by Dave Rolfe, global head of production at WPP and Hogarth, Zak Tucker, CEO and president at Harbor, Claire Young, CEO of Girl&Bear, Sergio Lopez, CEO at Omnicom Production and Matt Blitz, EVP, Executive Director of Agency Production at FCB.
Read on to find out more information about the session and the panellists joining us or you can view the full LBB & MCA ‘Better Together’ content programme for the LBB & Friends Beach at Cannes
here.
PANEL SYNOPSIS
How Much Is Too Much? Strategic Production
The proliferation of platforms and audiences coupled with the rise of AI-driven content creation has led to an unprecedented demand for brand content. However, this abundance risks diluting strategic focus and efficiency. Our panel will delve into strategies for ensuring that production efforts remain purposeful and impactful amidst this content-rich landscape.
Throughout the week, we will be bringing people from across the ad industry to explore how collective efforts can drive better business practices, sponsored by our friends at MCA. You can view the full LBB & MCA ‘Better Together’ content programme for the LBB & Friends Beach at Cannes here.
PANELLISTS
Dave Rolfe, global head of production, WPP and Hogarth
Dave Rolfe, WPP and Hogarth’s global head of production, has been a leader in the production industry for over twenty years. Having put down roots as an independent producer in the Pacific Northwest in the ‘90s, leadership roles followed with top-tier global creative agencies, and with Facebook, where he worked as head of production for global business marketing.
Prior to Facebook, Dave was global EVP, director of integrated production at BBDO for eight years. He played a central role in BBDO’s creative success ranging from social and innovation, to branded content and Super Bowl spots. Before that he was partner and global director of integrated production at CP+B for 12 years, helping them win Agency of the Decade in 2010.
Over his tenure at BBDO, CP+B, Facebook and WPP agencies, Rolfe has won numerous industry awards and Cannes Lions’ Grand Prix, Titanium & Gold lions for brands such as AT&T, Facebook, Burger King, GE, Mars, Bacardi, Lowe’s, Fed Ex, Microsoft, Anheuser-Bush, Domino's, Pepsi, VW, Ikea, Coke, MINI, as well as Monica Lewinsky cyber bullying effort and Sandy Hook Promise.
Dave has served on numerous juries, including the ‘24 Chair on the Film Craft Jury at Clios, the Moving Image Craft jury for The One Show and the Immortal Awards lead jury. Dave served on the Cannes Lions Festival twice including the inaugural Entertainment jury in 2016. He’s also been a speaker at Cannes on several occasions, as well as other global media and marketing forums.
Now in his current role, Dave is responsible for executing production strategies and partnerships to elevate creative and making excellence across WPP, its agencies and clients. A core function is attracting and nurturing the best production talent from across the industry to build a best-in-class production community that offers integrated and innovative solutions for clients.
Claire Young, CEO, Girl&Bear
Claire has over 20 years of experience working in production roles at some of the UK’s most renowned agencies including Exposure, Mother and JWT to name a few. In 2016, Claire joined VCCP as head of production and creative services, transforming the departments to enable much more integration across the creative teams and producers, making for a much smoother process from both an agency and client point of view. Claire launched VCCP’s global content creation studio Girl&Bear in 2021, born from a huge desire to create a dedicated home for the makers of VCCP. Girl&Bear focuses on ‘Craft without Compromise’ to eliminate the tradeoff clients are asked to make;- choosing between craft and scale. Girl&Bear has over 200+ makers across the world, expanding its presence in Prague at the beginning of 2024. They like to think of themselves as the ‘Makers of Everything’.
Zak Tucker, CEO and president, Harbor
Zak Tucker is the co-founder and CEO of Harbor, commands a top-tier, global production, and post-production studio that serves the feature film, episodic, and advertising industries. With over two decades of strategic disruption, he played a pivotal role in creating the industry's first end-to-end, cross-genre, independent production studio. Operating globally in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and London, Harbor is dedicated to talent, technical innovation, and the preservation of artistic vision. Under his leadership, Harbor has become synonymous with artistry and innovation, earning a reputation for delivering award-winning talent, service excellence, and technical innovation within a collaborative culture.
Starting his career as an editor for commercials and documentaries, Zak soon progressed to directing. He launched Swēte Post in 2000, which he grew successfully until the 2012 launch of HARBOR in Soho, NY. By 2022, Zak had built Harbor from a staff of four and a footprint of 400 square feet, offering just two services, into a staff of 200 and a campus of 200,000 square feet globally, offering the full range of production and post-production services with studios located in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and London.
Zak’s skill, insight, business acumen, and holistic understanding of the creative community, have helped establish HARBOR’s reputation for delivering award-winning talent, service excellence, and technical innovation in a collaborative culture, as well as improving its financial performance year after year.
Notable feature projects include Oscar-nominated films such as Focus Features’ "The Holdovers," A24's "The Lighthouse," Sony’s "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," Netflix’s "El Conde," Paramount’s "Arrival," and Netflix’s "The Irishman." Additionally, projects include Lucasfilm’s "Solo: A Star Wars Story," and Netflix’s "Bardo: A False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths." High end feature films including Neon Pictures’ "Immaculate," Amazon Studios’ "Idea of You," Lionsgate’s "Borderlands," Paramount Pictures’ "Mean Girls," and "Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage," directed by Andy Serkis for Marvel and Sony and Warner Bros.’ "Ocean’s 8," directed by Gary Ross.
Recent episodic projects credits include Amazon’s "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," Paramount+’s "Star Trek: Discovery," AppleTV+’s "Lisey’s Story," created by Pablo Larraín, Netflix’s "Halston," created by Daniel Minahan and Sharr White, and Showtime’s "Billions," created by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, and Andrew Ross Sorkin.
Harbor’s advertising brand clients encompass Proctor & Gamble, Kellogg’s, INFINITI, GM, American Express, Nike, Gap, Gucci, Estee Lauder, Ralph Lauren, Mercedes, Toyota, Walmart, Citibank, Eliquis, Humira, and Sanofi.
Sergio Lopez, CEO, Omnicom Production
Sergio Lopez leads the overall vision and strategy at Omnicom Production collaborating closely with group production teams to enhance the world-class suite of tools and technology-driven platforms. Sergio excels in fostering talent and developing advanced skillsets delivering creative, effective, and efficient cutting-edge solutions to clients.
Lopez has spearheaded innovative models that synergize creativity, data, and content, catalyzing sustained growth and the integration of production operations and studios. His initiatives significantly fuelling the agency's creative achievements and spurring the organic expansion of production and content capabilities at scale.
A global executive, Sergio's career spans multiple continents, having worked with Fortune 500 companies in leading network agencies from regional to global headquarters in London, New York, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Chicago, Dubai, Moscow, Dusseldorf, Paris, Madrid, and various other international cities.
His pioneering approach to brand-consumer engagement has garnered him over 500 industry accolades. As a renowned thought leader in creative production, Sergio is a frequent contributor to industry panels and events and is regularly published in global industry and business media, where he advocates for innovative production models.
Matt Blitz, EVP, Executive Director of Agency Production, FCB
Matt Blitz is EVP, Executive Director of Agency Production of FCB Chicago, overseeing all agency producers and the Broadcast Business team at FCB’s largest office, working in collaboration with all of FCB’s creative leaders to elevate the creative craft across over 50 brands. Matt is also responsible for growing FCB Chicago’s relationship with the major production houses and driving the office’s collaboration and connectivity with 456 Studios, FCB’s fully integrated global in-house content creation studio, to create multichannel content and deliver best-in-class brand experiences.
Matt joined FCB from DDB Chicago where he was Head of Production, responsible for leading the entire production department with 30+ direct reports including all producers, business affairs teams, and traffic. He took on this role following four years as SVP/Executive Producer, where he led production efforts for DDB Chicago’s key clients and built teams to execute work at the highest level across the board. His future thinking mentality and strong recruiting efforts gave him the framework to restructure the department to allow the agency to execute client work at the highest level across all platforms, making the DDB production department more capable and diverse then it had ever been before.
Prior to DDB, Matt spent 15 years at Leo Burnett, where he quickly flourished while working on multiple Fortune-500 brands, overseeing day-to-day production efforts, and managing producers across all disciplines to execute work across multiple platforms.
Throughout his career, Matt and his teams have picked up over 400 creative awards across the board at Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show, Clios, London International Awards, and the Art Directors Club, for some of the world’s largest brands including Mars, Samsung, Esurance, United Healthcare, Miller Lite and Coors Lite. Of this award-winning work, Matt is particularly proud his work on the Skittles “Broadway the Rainbow” campaign, and Samsung “Ostrich”, which is now a DePaul University case study to help teach students about how to benchmark creative.
As well as executing production to an incredibly high standard, Matt also excels as a “creative” producer, leveraging his years of experience in Hollywood. After graduating from Columbia College in Chicago with a B.A. in Marketing, Matt packed up and headed west to California. In Los Angeles, he found a place for himself as a Production Assistant on a HBO film, and quickly rose to the rank of 2nd Assistant Director, then working as an Assistant Director on several films and multiple TV series, giving him a sense of production not often found in the advertising industry. After six years in LA, Matt decided to head back to his roots in Chicago and pursue a career in advertising, which is when he took a position as a producer at Leo Burnett, ushering in the beginning of his stellar production career.
Matt is passionate about working closely with his creative teams and producers to accomplish the best work possible, and enjoys mentoring and growing young talent to help them become future industry leaders. It’s this mentoring that Matt believes is one of the most satisfying aspects of his career, and he attributes a large part of his success to the producers he has helped become some of the most respected in the industry.
