Chief Marketing Officer
Luke D’Arcy likes to say: "You have one mouth and two ears. Use them in that ratio." Certainly, his listening skills have paid off.
In February, he was appointed to the position of global Chief Marketing Officer of Momentum, IPG’s Total Brand Experience Agency. Interestingly, this followed his role as Momentum’s global Chief Growth Officer. Luke now leads global sales and marketing activities for the agency. He direct all communications, branding, marketing and new business for the company’s offices in 50+ countries.
Luke believes that “Innovation is everything. Our industry is too often geared around safety, low risk and process. It doesn’t cut through. It does not engender growth and frankly, it doesn’t make for great, fun teams. From brand positioning to PR to events, to growth strategies for clients and prospects, I ensure that I surround myself with bright, innovative and calculated risk takers. Momentum is not somewhere you come to see out the twilight of your career. It’s where you make your mark with unprecedented ideas that defy expectation.”
He has created and delivered a product for global growth at Momentum called the Innovation LAB. He says, “This workshop fuses marketing, strategy, future trends, creative ideation and commercial growth for our clients – obviously taking Momentum Worldwide’s work to the next level in the process. This co-creation workshop has run across North America, South America, Europe and Asia, helping our company deliver game-changing ideas for the likes of Mondelēz, Nestlé, Bradesco, United Airlines, Westfield and Walmart. Every client that has engaged in this experience has boomed in terms of ideas and results.
This is actually Luke’s “second act” at Momentum. He worked at the agency earlier in his career, but left to become a partner at one of the most successful and awarded independent agencies (iris) and then moved on to work alongside Richard Branson at Virgin Group. “But on the whole,” he says, “my career has been rooted in innovation, and pursuing experiences that make more innovation possible. Both of these moves helped shape my business approach, which has led me to instill three mantras in the teams I work with:
- Act now and apologize later (more times than most, you will succeed and no apology will be required).
- Deliver three things in the time it takes most teams to deliver one. One will fail. One will be ok. One will be brilliant. Folks will only EVER remember the thing that worked brilliantly.
- Don’t be afraid of failure.
In addition to his business accomplishments and views on innovation, Luke D’Arcy is an avid athlete from a sporting family. He was honored to represent his country playing rugby for England Students. His father played basketball for Ireland, while his mother was selected as an Olympic swimmer and held numerous British records. Luke is also a qualified shark diver and takes every opportunity to swim with a shark anywhere in the world. He jokes, “New business is all about being ferocious, and willing to figuratively swim with the sharks; may as well make it literal.”