Executive Creative Director & Creative Coach
Executive Creative Director
& Creative Coach
I’m a Scottish creative with over 20 years of international experience shaping brands from London, Dubai, San Francisco, and New York. As Executive Creative Director at FutureBrand London and part of the leadership team, I set the creative vision, embed new design principles, expand digital and AI capabilities, and inspire global teams to deliver award-winning work that is as commercially impactful as it is creatively ambitious. Before that, I spent nine years at Wolff Olins as Creative Director and Coach, leading global transformation projects while building and nurturing a thriving design community. My career began at Browns, where six formative years instilled in me the value of ideas, craft, rigour, and resilience.
As a Creative Director, I’m passionate about working with ambitious leaders to help their businesses become great brands in the world. I thrive on creating radical, category-defining work that represents something meaningful—both for the people who interact with it and the people who bring it to life. I believe the best creativity comes from true partnership with clients, pushing the quality of ideas and execution to new heights. At the heart of my design philosophy is the balance of ideas and craft: big-picture strategy and bold concepts brought to life with precision, detail, and discipline. Across my career, I’ve honed the ability to connect vision with execution, building inclusive, high-performing teams that deliver work with real impact.
I’m a Scottish creative with over 20 years of international experience shaping brands from London, Dubai, San Francisco, and New York. As Executive Creative Director at FutureBrand London and part of the leadership team, I set the creative vision, embed new design principles, expand digital and AI capabilities, and inspire global teams to deliver award-winning work that is as commercially impactful as it is creatively ambitious. Before that, I spent nine years at Wolff Olins as Creative Director and Coach, leading global transformation projects while building and nurturing a thriving design community. My career began at Browns, where six formative years instilled in me the value of ideas, craft, rigour, and resilience.
As a Creative Director, I’m passionate about working with ambitious leaders to help their businesses become great brands in the world. I thrive on creating radical, category-defining work that represents something meaningful—both for the people who interact with it and the people who bring it to life. I believe the best creativity comes from true partnership with clients, pushing the quality of ideas and execution to new heights. At the heart of my design philosophy is the balance of ideas and craft: big-picture strategy and bold concepts brought to life with precision, detail, and discipline. Across my career, I’ve honed the ability to connect vision with execution, building inclusive, high-performing teams that deliver work with real impact.
Selected clients
Selected clients
Some nice words from clients and colleagues
Some nice words from clients
and colleagues
”Stephen’s creativity is exceptional with a great sense of design and style. He understands the client’s needs and comes up with unique and well-conceived designs. His work on the branding and website design of Dar and its other affiliated companies was remarkably impressive“
Rita Zeinoun
Head of Brand & Marketing / Dar Al-Handasah
”Stephen’s creativity is exceptional with a great sense of design and style. He understands the client’s needs and comes up with unique and well-conceived designs. His work on the branding and website design of Dar and its other affiliated companies was remarkably impressive“
Rita Zeinoun
Head of Brand & Marketing / Dar Al-Handasah
”Stephen is the perfect creative partner to clients and client service teams – empathetic and pragmatic, intuitively able to push the client's ambition to the right level while staying in alignment with the business reality and practicalities both agency and client-side“
Danielle Zezulinski
Head of Programme Management / Wolff Olins, London
”Stephen grew to become a real leader of the design community at Wolff Olins, someone who is really passionate about nurturing young creative talent and building a thriving team. Always a reassuring presence with clients, he pushes the work with a lot of care and dedication“
Richard Housten
Managing Director / Wolff Olins, London
”Stephen's commitment to craft, rigour and game-changing creativity is what makes him such a valuable and exceptional partner to clients and colleagues alike. He has incredibly high standards and is always looking to push the quality and ambition of the work. He is hugely collaborative, full of energy and is tireless in his focus on forming happy, high-performing teams“
Liam Hamill
Global Principle / Wolff Olins
”Stephen is a very strong and diligent Creative Director. The work he developed for ZIP by Premier Inn was thorough, engaging, thought-provoking and truly delivered on the brief“
Beatrice Vears
Head of Brand & Marketing / Premier Inn
”I had the pleasure of working with Stephen when he was the creative director on our account as we rebranded BounceX to Wunderkind. I couldn't have more great things to say about him. He instantly captured the spirit of what we were trying to bring to life and delivered with an incredible attention to detail. He's a natural storyteller and a joy to collaborate with. I'd recommend him to any employers or prospective clients in a heartbeat“
Kris Mobayenis
VP of Acquisition & Lifecycle / HowlVP
Stephen McGilvray
Executive Creative Director