Apparel Summit of the Americas

September 27 - 29 | San Pedro Sula, Honduras

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

SIMON MAINWARING is the founder of We First, a leading brand consultancy that provides purpose-driven strategy, content, and training that empowers companies to lead business, shape culture, and better our world. We First consulting shows companies how to define, frame and share the story of their good work in ways that build their brand reputation, customer community, and social impact. We First training includes keynote speeches, corporate workshops, and an annual Brand Leadership Summit that shows how companies combine purposeful storytelling and social technologies to inspire their employees and customers to build their business and positive impact with them.

Simon is a member of the Executive Committee of Sustainable Brands, the Steering Committee of the Business Alliance for the Future, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London and the World Business Academy in the U.S. He was interim CMO at TOMS, helping lead the popular apparel company’s innovative marketing strategies.

He contributes to The Guardian, Forbes, and Huffington Post on branding and social technology.

Simon’s book, We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World (Palgrave Macmillan) is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon bestseller. It was named an Amazon Top Ten Business Book, 800CEORead Top Five Marketing Book, and strategy+business named it the Best Business Marketing Book of the Year. It has been translated into Russian, Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean.

Simon was included in Trust Across America’s, ‘Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior for 2012,’ #4 on The Guardian’s, ‘Twitter List: The 30 Most Influential Sustainability Voices in America for 2013’ and #15 on SustMeme’s CSR Top 500 Influencers for 2013, GlobalCEO’s Top CSR Leaders for 2014, YPO’s Real Leaders, ‘100 Visionary Leaders’ for 2015, and Statsocial’s 2015 Top 100 Social Media Power Influencers, and the 2016 United Nation Foundation’s ‘Global Influencers to Follow.’ He has been featured in BBC World News, TIME, The Guardian, Advertising Age, Adweek, Inc., AMA, Fast Company, GOOD Magazine, Mashable and on the cover of the National Speaker’s Magazine. He contributes to The Guardian, Forbes, and Huffington Post on branding, purpose and social media.

Simon is a sought after international speaker with engagements including the Cannes International Advertising Festival, Royal Society of Arts, SXSW, TEDxSF, Promaxbda, Conscious Capitalism, Sustainable Brands, Social Good Summit, National Speakers Association, and National Press Club, as well as brands such as Google, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Samsung, Gucci, VW Group, NHL, and Patagonia. He has conducted corporate culture and purpose workshops for Richard Branson on Branson’s famed global leadership retreat: Necker Island.
He was voted a Top5 Marketing Speaker by SPEAKING.com five years in a row.

Prior to starting We First Simon spent 18 years as an award-winning writer, Creative Director, and Worldwide Creative Director at many of the world’s top creative advertising agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Wieden & Kennedy, and Ogilvy working on brands such a Nike, Coca-Cola, Toyota, and Motorola, as well as consulting on dozens of F500 brands for leading advertising, production, and digital companies. He was the writer on the U.S. launch of the first three generations of the Toyota Prius, the largest national service campaign for the Entertainment Industry Foundation that brought together all four major TV networks for the first time in U.S. television history, and numerous award-winning campaigns for Nike. He has received over 60 awards at major advertising festivals including the Cannes Advertising Festival (Europe), the One Show (U.S.), the Clio’s (U.S.), the Kelly Awards (U.S), British Design & Art Direction Awards (U.K.), and AWARD (Australia), among others.

Simon studied Law and Fine Arts (1st Class Honors) at St. Paul’s College, Sydney University, and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters.