Dean Crutchfield
VP, Director of Marketing Wolff-Olins

Born in England and now based in New York City, Dean always had a passion for communications and started young in the field of marketing and branding at the age of 22, whilst a lecturer of Marketing, at Hull University, where he gained first hand experience on exposing its theories and practices, at the Humberside Business School and School of Fine Arts. He has since worked with some of the world's most recognized brand consultancies, including Michael Peters, Landor, Luxon Carr? and currently with Wolff Olins, where he has spent the last 4 years and presides on its executive leadership team.

Dean fell in love with the idea of moving to New York City at the age of 12 while watching Hitchcock's, North by North West. At the age of 36, Dean realized his dream and moved across the pond, to New York City, where he met his wife, Amy, who owns a creative and executive recruitment consultancy in Manhattan, specializing in the Branding, Innovation and Design industries; there is still a debate as to who recruited who.

Dean has a love for brands. He has spoken around the world espousing on the value of brands for well-known institutions including the Zell Institute (Israel), The Estonia Business School, Miami Ad School, J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Wharton School of Finance and a speaker with Omnicom's 2005 Partnership Tour. He has earned a reputation for possessing an exuberantly honed presentation style, which has delighted many blue chip and Fortune 500 companies. He has published articles on the power of branding and the convergence of new media as seen in BrandWeek, AdWeek, MediaWeek and expert quotes for publications, recently including The Deal, Newsday and Advertising Age.

Dean believes that being "liked" as a brand is not enough and that we must shape brands people can truly love. Equally important to him, due to commercial significance of brands and their importance to the long-term asset value of a business, he believes there is a need to improve the dialogue between marketing and finance for mutual benefit.

Dean's international experience with major brands around the world has led him to develop a strong belief that brand is not marketing. With this belief, Dean continues to urge the use of creativity and innovation to push boundaries and bust categories with brave thinking that can create new ways and better ways for brands that can help build a better world.