Paul Bainsfair

Paul Bainsfair became Director General of the Institute of Practitioners in
Advertising (IPA) at the end of July 2011. Paul is a Fellow of the IPA and also a
graduate of IPA Stage 5 (Professor Peter Doyle). His 36 years of agency
experience began at Saatchi & Saatchi where he started as an account executive
and rose to being its CEO within ten years. After successfully steering the agency
through the early 90s recession and with the agency at the top of the new
business league table, he left to co-found Bainsfair Sharkey Trott with John
Sharkey and Dave Trott. Widely recognised as one of London’s most successful
independent agencies during the 1990s, BST was eventually sold to Omnicom
and merged with TBWA in 2000. He then became President TBWA Europe. This
included a merger and acquisition programme; direct responsibility for 35 offices
and 3,000 staff; and TBWA being named Best Global Network in 2003 and 2006.
In January 2009 he joined Iris, the UK’s largest independent integrated agency,
first as Partner and CEO of Iris Europe and then as Chairman of Iris Worldwide.
Paul studied advertising at Watford College and is a graduate of Omnicom’s
Harvard Faculty Leadership Programme. He describes himself as an adman and
a farmer. He is married to Sophie and has three children, Bruno, Ted and Phoebe.
They live in Holland Park and Wiltshire.