Biography

I live in Berkshire and Alderney, and have a wife and four grown up children, three of whom are language teachers. Must admit to being crazy about sport – playing competitive golf and watching cricket, rugby and football (in that order). I graduated from Oxford University – but it was a while ago.

Prior to founding AAI, I worked in ad agencies (including my own) for two decades, in UK, Europe and Asia. AAI has consulted for advertisers (mostly large global players), and worked with marketing communications agencies for the last 23 years. The business has taken me to 38 countries.

2011 is launch year for “Making Better Decisions, Better” – which is a book, and also courses, seminars, board games, mentoring, and so on. The book isn’t only about decisions and problem solving in business and advertising. There is plenty about military matters, government, betting, career choice, refereeing, selecting sports teams, medicine, the emergency services and dating sites.

Simon Francis

When I was younger, and even more bumptious and over eager than now, I was tutored by a sage, silver haired Account Director who had survived all that the industry could throw at him. He had not just survived on the same account for twenty years, but thrived. I asked him about how he made decisions on the steady flow of crisis and emergencies that daily flooded over our team. He thought, rolled a pencil between his fingers, and said “Simon, the secret is to decide when to do nothing, and then when you’ve decided to do nothing, to do nothing brilliantly”. He also prescribed calling clients every Friday and every Monday to ask what there plans fro the weekend were, and whether they’d had a nice weekend to gain a strong personal relationship. Most decisions were actually made on these calls after 5.30pm on a Friday and before 9.30am on a Monday…I really look forward to David’s book, his brand of wisdom, and the collected works of others.

Biography

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