Bob Gallagher Creative Director
A wealth of experience through agency and in-house
I’m a Creative Director with over 20 years’ experience leading in-house studios and creative teams across financial services, sport, entertainment and global consumer brands. Throughout my career, I’ve built and scaled multidisciplinary creative teams, led brand and product creative strategy, and delivered high-impact work across acquisition, CRM, performance marketing, digital platforms, content, social and live experiences.
A consistent theme in my roles has been running creative studios as internal agencies—partnering closely with acquisition, marketing and product teams to translate insight into effective creative, optimise output through testing and iteration, and raise creative standards across the business. I’ve led designers, copywriters, motion designers and digital specialists, with a strong focus on talent development, studio culture and building efficient, scalable creative processes.
My experience within regulated financial environments has also required a clear understanding of brand governance and the ability to articulate complex ideas simply and effectively, both internally and externally. I’m comfortable working with senior stakeholders, aligning creative output to brand and commercial strategy, and managing external agency relationships where appropriate.
Working with Bob is easy and inspiring. He has a rare ability to balance big-picture strategy with hands-on creative, and he consistently raises the standard of the work. He brings clarity, confidence and taste to everything he does, delivering modern, premium creative that not only looks great, but genuinely performs.
Bob is calm and assured when leading complex projects, even when things change or timelines get tight. He brings people together, keeps everyone aligned, and always pushes the thinking in the right direction. Teams enjoy working with him, and partners trust him.
He also has a great eye on what’s coming next, using new trends and technology in a smart, considered way to help brands stay relevant and competitive. Bob is a Creative Director you can rely on to deliver real impact, at scale.
Hannah Hill, Head of Brand and Sponsorship - Axi
Experience is everything
December
2021
Creative Director
axi
Lead the global creative direction across all brand and product touchpoints, driving the ongoing evolution of Axi’s creative strategy to deliver consistency, innovation and measurable commercial impact across international markets.
Partnered closely with the Head of Select and Chief Commercial Officer to deliver the end-to-end launch of Axi Select from initial concept through to market-leading execution. Led a collaborative discovery phase to define product positioning, value proposition, and audience segmentation, translating strategic objectives into a clear creative vision. Oversaw the full creative lifecycle across marketing and product UI, ensuring alignment between brand, user experience, and commercial goals. This integrated, cross-functional approach enabled a cohesive launch that accelerated adoption and established Axi Select as a category-leading product within the industry.
Introduced an online campaign creation and optimisation platform, enabling scalable production and real-time performance analysis of marketing assets. Leveraged detailed creative-level insights including colour, layout, messaging, imagery and format performance to inform data-led decision making. Established a structured A/B testing programme to validate findings and continuously optimise creative effectiveness. This transformed a previously ‘one size fits all’ performance and brand-led creative approach into a unified global strategy, contributing to a 30% increase in newly traded clients.
Built and scaled a fully integrated global creative department from the ground up, managing marketing campaigns, podcasts, live events and product UI across teams based in the UK, Cyprus, Poland, Manila and Canada.
Developed and implemented a centralised creative ecosystem, anchored by a global Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform accessible across all departments. Integrated an advanced online templating system enabling teams to self-serve the creation of on-brand assets. This significantly reduced reliance on central creative resources, improving operational efficiency by 25%, accelerating time-to-market by 15%, and increasing overall marketing productivity by 20%, while maintaining brand consistency at scale.
Oversee high-profile joint ventures with sponsorship partners Manchester City, Girona and Bahia. Delivering integrated creative solutions that strengthen brand equity, reach and engagement.
Present creative vision, strategy and concepts to C-suite executives and senior leadership, aligning creative output with broader business objectives and growth priorities.
April
2015
Head of Design
The Creative Place
Hands on Head of Design to a team of 7 designers
Lead multichannel design projects from initial concepts through to completion
Work closely with internal teams for companies such as BBC, Bosch and Siemens on marketing and advertising campaigns
Lead pitches with account managers to help generate new business and build on existing relationships
Work with internal and external print and production teams to come up with new and exciting results
Regularly looking at new technologies to help innovative new ideas/solutions
May
2014
Creative Manager
Gravity Matrix
Responsible for creative work, conceptual ideas, briefing and quality control within a busy design studio
Managing a mixture of artworkers, designers and web designers
Creating sustainable advertising campaigns, marketing collateral, websites, motion graphics and exhibition stands
A key figure in creating and presenting pitches to blue chip clients
Organise, prepare and oversee client photoshoots
Tasked with keeping the creative team up-to-date with all new tech, trends and software
September
2010
International Senior Creative Manager
UFC (Zuffa)
Led all design needs and acted as brand guardian for all areas outside of North America
Managed remote design teams around the world to produce on brand materials for local markets
Liaised with licensees and sponsors to help get the best results from ongoing and new partnerships
Collaborated and directed external agencies to produce engaging successful fan events
Worked with the online store to help push sales and promote upcoming collections