Kathleen Saxton

Kathleen spent the first nine years of her career in media sales roles at Sky Television, Capital Radio, Emap Advertising and Carlton Screen, selling ideas and airtime to the major London agencies and blue chip clients. In 2000, she joined the much celebrated planning agency PHD, as Business Development Director, working with the legendary founding partners, and spent four helping to develop the business and learning the new rules of operational management. In 2004, Kathleen joined Saatchi and Saatchi as their board Marketing Director, completing her full 360 degree journey in the industry, as part of the dynamic but tough change management team developing and broadening Saatchi’s offerings to clients to reflect the needs of today.

Towards the end of 2005 Kathleen joined Fru Hazlitt at Virgin Radio as Director of Strategy and Planning where she led the valuation of the national licences, directed future business and platform strategy and managed the research, legal and planning teams.

In 2007, after a long-term flirtation with the idea of professional headhunting, Kathleen became a founding partner and shareholder at Grace Blue, bringing her lateral and diverse experience to the team. Grace Blue quickly became a profitable and successful headhunting firm.

In late 2009, it was clear the world was changing at a pace never experienced before. Clients were frustrated by historical headhunting practices and ambitious talent was looking for a more personal and intimate service. With the combination of the digital explosion, economic meltdown and changing talent demands a whole new approach to finding leaders was required.

Kathleen set up The Lighthouse Company with a vision to create the modern headhunting firm that clients have been asking for. Their aim is to pioneer consistently in the area of true senior talent representation – offering a highly personal, bespoke “agent representation” model to the true leaders of today and delivering exceptional and insightful headhunting, built on trust, candour, authenticity and lateral thought to their clients.

Today, with offices in London and New York, The Lighthouse Company represents some of the most talented individuals globally and ensure they connect to and flourish within visionary, brave and ambitious clients. They work with all the six major advertising networks, hyper growth businesses such as Vevo, Linked In, Facebook and EA and Media, Creative, PR, Research, Management Consultancy, Film, Hospitality, Gaming, Mobile, Data, Apps, and Content businesses – all at C suite level.

In 2013 following a joint venture with Stillwell Partners, Kathleen was instrumental in bringing Advertising Week to Europe for the very first time. The inaugural event was an explosive success attracting 14,000 delegates and uniting the entire advertising industry for a week of thought leadership and celebration all in iconic venues across London.