Andrew Robertson

The Creative Shift

Summary

Businesses need new ideas to thrive. I believe they have the people who can generate them.

However, all too often the very things that make companies really successful; predictability, operational brilliance, executional excellence, process compliance etc conspire to suppress that creativity.

I don’t want companies to change who they are – it's why they are as successful as they are.

I’m recommending instead that they apply the same discipline to engineering the conditions that will allow them to unlock their people’s ideas when and where they need them.

The book explains why it’s important, what the barriers are, but more importantly what they can do to add it to their operating system.

As John Cleese said “Creativity is not a talent. It’s a way of operating.”

BIOGRAPHY

Andrew Robertson is Chairman of BBDO Worldwide.  He served as president and CEO for two decades, during which BBDO was recognized in the Effie Awards Index as the world’s most effective network five times and as “Network of the Decade” at the Cannes Lions Awards.  Inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 2022, he was named one of the one hundred most influential leaders in marketing, media, and tech alongside industry giants like Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, and Jeff Bezos. 

He has taught guest classes at New York University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest University.  He has also appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg News, and The Today Show and is a chairman emeritus of the Advertising Council.  As of September 2025, USA Today best-selling author of The Creative Shift.   He lives in New York City.