Meet Omnicom Production's UK CEO

In September last year, Joanna Cotton stepped in to lead Omnicom Production UK’s production capabilities at a moment of reinvention. Across the holding company, global CEO Sergio Lopez had been assembling a unified production organism, bringing together teams and studios into a cohesive architecture designed for today’s content‑driven world.

Cotton calls the move “a huge signal that intends to meaningfully bridge creative and performance outcomes.” More than a reorganisation, it was a declaration of intent: production would no longer be a back-office function but the connective tissue between bold ideas and tangible results. Guided by Lopez’s principle of 'Craft That Works' — where cultural insight and brand storytelling meet effectiveness — the UK operation has been positioned to transform ideas into content experiences that perform and endure.

Since taking on the role, Cotton has focused on aligning creative and production disciplines within this unified framework. “No one person can do it all,” she says. “The key is understanding how to get the best out of people and know your own strengths and weaknesses.” That emphasis on collaboration and mutual understanding, she adds, is essential to unlocking the best ideas. “A great concept becomes stronger when production is part of developing it, not just executing it.”

Cotton’s approach to leadership is intentionally hands-on. She runs a monthly open office for teams across the business, staying close to the day-to-day. “I don’t operate out of an ivory tower,” she says. “I’m very much one of the team.”

Away from work, she carves out thinking time through long runs, winter walks, and horse riding. “Sometimes letting your brain rest gives you the clarity you need."

Looking ahead, Cotton sees the role of production expanding as automation and AI continue to reshape workflows. She sees these tools as a way to improve efficiency and free teams to focus on craft. Her ambition for Omnicom Production UK is to be recognised as a partner that delivers measurable results for clients while combining scale with creative excellence.

Creative Salon discussed all this and more with Cotton.

You’ve built your career across a range of production and content businesses during a period of huge industry change. Looking back, what connects those roles, and what has most shaped the leader you are today?

Production and content are very much born from the same place: creating work, moments, and memories that drive behavioural change and business impact. Creating work that connects consumers to brands, products, and services, be it through a pure production lens or a wider content experience lens, the end goal remains the same — it’s just that how you get there can vary a little.

What has shaped me as a leader? There’s no single thing. It’s the people around me, because no one can do it all. You have to know how to get the best out of people, understand your own strengths and weaknesses, and draw inspiration from the brilliance around you. Listening and learning never stops. Being incredibly client-centric, understanding how to shape companies to serve their needs. Thinking big, drawing from other industries, as it’s easy to get trapped in micro details. I take inspiration from leaders outside our world; getting too inwardly focused is dangerous in my opinion.

Being open to newness, accepting failure as part of the course, a relentless desire to excel, and a natural curiosity — all of it shapes how I lead. Accepting that change is the only constant, while recognising that some things remain the same: originality, insight, bravery, transparency. A focus on talent. An obsession for clients. A lens to the future. Tapping into culture. And tech? Increasingly, it’s our friend.

You’ve worked across different kinds of organisations — from entrepreneurial setups to global networks. What has that variety taught you about how production and creativity work best together?

They are very much bedfellows. A great concept is only great if it’s made in a way that doesn’t just bring it to life, but makes the original idea even better than originally conceived. Regardless of the size of the agency, creative and production are best when they’re ideated together. Some of the best work I’ve seen is made when teams can rally around a client challenge to create the best work possible — when brilliant production teams can help shape or support the ideation phase, and when brilliant ECDs can extend their talent and reach meaningfully into the production stages.

Today, with the need to create more for less, across a huge marketing ecosystem and ever-more complex media plans, the interconnectivity between creative and production is key. Great production teams need to know how to unlock great ideas and adapt for more and more channels and markets, thousands of variants, and a huge range of audiences.

What drew you to Omnicom Production, and what felt compelling about stepping into the UK CEO role at this point in your career?

The vision.

A totally new content experience model, powered by the fusion of incredible talent and ever evolving tech. The sheer scale of the operational change within Omnicom — bringing production into one entity was a huge draw for me. It signalled the intention of the (now biggest hold co.) to meaningfully bridge creative and performance outcomes. And at a scale never seen before. I’ve always been ambitious and found change management fascinating.

The level of change Omnicom and Omnicom Production were driving excited and excites me. I very much see this as a pivotal moment in my career as we create something incredibly powerful for our clients.

What’s your ambition for Omnicom Production in the UK, and how do you want the business to be perceived by agencies, clients and talent?

We’ve already achieved so much in a very short space of time. I really think that the opportunity ahead is huge. Essentially we’re here to create content at scale by combining creativity, data and technology. It sounds simple, but it requires a huge level of focus, commitment and ambition. But the team in the UK know the path that lies ahead and what we need to achieve.

I want clients to see us a force for change — a partner who can drive business performance and increased marketing ROI. I want our competitors to be constantly chasing our coat tails. I want us to lead. I want talent to see us a future facing production company that can unlock powerful brand impact . I want talent to be coming to us as they want to help shape the future of our company, working with brilliant colleagues and some of the most inspiring brands out there.

How would you describe your leadership style?

Strategic. Bold. Visionary, Data driven. I like to move at speed. I like to think big, as it’s too easy to get distracted by the small things. I like to see results, quickly.

I love working with teams and empowering them to help drive the business. With time and experience, you learn that prioritisation, and often saying ‘no,’ is key. In line with that, you have to ensure the team around you truly understands your vision and knows their role in helping deliver it. But it’s not all just about vision. You need to have operational savviness to help efficiently navigate the ever-changing waters we face, to ensure that people can spend time on the things that matter.

I’ve always found internal communication to be a real challenge in most agencies. So I focus on making sure we have the right forums to ensure the teams know where we’re going and understand what’s happening at a broader business level. I really champion openness and transparency - I host a half-day Open Office every month for anyone to ask me literally everything. I really think that honest conversations, and, frankly, people being able to access you freely as a leader, is super important. I don’t operate out of an ivory tower. I am very much one of the team.

What kind of culture do you believe modern production teams need to do their best creative work?

Freedom to experiment. Permission to fail. A relentless desire for brilliance, where every pixel really matters. A culture of togetherness, where teams are well connected and can riff off one another. A culture of sharing and drawing inspiration from lots of different sources.

Whilst not a creative or maker myself, I often find that my best ideas come mid-run, or in the middle of a long winter walk.

I encourage people to work in the way that lets them unlock their potential in the way that makes the most sense for them and their teams.

As production becomes increasingly driven by technology and AI, how do you ensure efficiency doesn’t come at the expense of creative quality and craft?

I see tech and AI as an enabler, not a redactor. If anything, it’s a chance to reduce admin time and free up more hours for creativity. So really, it’s helping boost craft. Lots of our teams see AI as a helpful companion, another person to consult with, to share ideas with. They use it to speed up tasks that are unnecessarily time-consuming, which means they can focus their talent on the things that will really drive craft brilliance.

What do clients value most when it comes to from production networks?

The most common ask from clients today is: “How can you help us create work at a huge scale that delivers on our brand promise, but basically doesn’t cost the earth?” There’s no one singular thing that clients value most. What they want is a partner who can help them solve some of their trickiest marketing problems. CMOs are under enormous amounts of pressure to do more for less — which is, on face value, a fairly terrifying ask. But we know how to solve for that. The impact of data, automation, and AI simply means that we can create more: more work that will have more impact.

The relative impact on creative is that you need to be able to think big, and to understand how ideas and craft can drive the greatest impact across a vast number of formats.

What excites you most about the future of production?

How production can interconnect with media and data to create connected ecosystems - now, that is the exciting bit. This shift from “just making” will start to really help change the future for our clients, by making sense of, and connecting, the complexity of complex media laydowns to powerful customer insight. All interconnected via powerful ideas that ebb and flow in line with the job the work needs to deliver for the brand.

And it’d be remiss of me not to talk about AI. It has already transformed how we make work for some of our biggest brands, as we move to powerful new synthetic production models, new automated design systems, innovative new ecommerce solutions, and more.

Outside of your day-to-day role, what influences or passions help keep you creatively energised and inspired as a leader?

Being outside and stepping away from my laptop. Talking with some of my brilliant friends in other industries and hearing how they’re removing issues. Ultimately, letting my brain rest and focus is critical to ensuring I’m on good form. I often solve some of my earliest issues after a run, or after a day on a horse. Sometimes, letting your brain rest is exactly what gives you the clarity you need.