Chaka Sobhani

Chaka Sobhani is Global Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide and Chief Creative Officer Leo Burnett UK and Fallon UK.

Before joining the ad industry, Chaka spent over a decade as an award winning film-maker and in television. She set up ITV’s first in-house creative agency, during which time the network regained the no.1 position in the UK, created its most successful global formats and content in shows like the X Factor and Downton Abbey, and won the prestigious Channel of the Year for the first time as well as numerous BAFTA’s, Golden Globes and the prestigious Rose D’Or.

Chaka then spent a number of years at leading independent agency Mother, running a number of key accounts and building their content ability, before joining Leo Burnett. She has worked on countless brands including McDonald’s, Google, Coca Cola, Kellogg’s, Samsung, Boots, Škoda, AXA, Co-op, Tui, Premier Inn, Sky, P&G, General Motors, Stella Artois, Agent Provocateur, The Design Museum and Adidas.

Highly awarded amongst all the major honours, she has been privileged to serve as jury member and President numerous times at the world’s greatest awards shows including Cannes, D&AD, One Show, the Andy’s, Art Directors Club, Eurobest, Clios, LIA’s, the IPA and the British Arrows.

She has featured in Campaigns Top 10 Creative Leaders consistently for the past 5 years, as well as Adweek’s Creative 100 and the Creative Pools Top 100 Influencer list. She is also a regular speaker at Cannes, AdWeek, the One Show Exec Summit, D&AD, The Big TV Festival, Google Rare, the IPA, Creative Equals and Facebook’s International Women’s Day.

She also mentors for WACL and the Dots as well as being exec sponsor for Publicis Embrace and Viva La Women, as well as being a founding supporter of D&AD’s New Blood Shift, The One Club Boot Camp, Creative Equals and Free the Work.

Chaka sits on the External Affairs Committee for the Design Museum as well as on the board of the British Arrows, Creative Circle, Facebook EMEA Creative Council, Snapchat Global Creative Council and the One Club International Board.