Philip Thomas
Chairman, Cannes Lions
Leading the world’s biggest creative get-together – and what it takes to win a ‘Lion’
Philip Thomas is chairman of Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which celebrates the achievements of the creative communications industry. Its prestigious awards attract 30,000 entries from over 100 countries. Previously, Philip enjoyed a successful journalism and publishing career, and was editor of Empire and managing director of FHM Worldwide. In this in-depth interview, he explains why businesses that invest in creativity are more successful, discusses plans to create a movement with Facebook and Google to make the internet “a bit kinder”, and looks back on his “extraordinary” time transforming FHM into a global business – before the internet killed the magazine “stone dead”.