David Nobay
Creative Chairman
Droga5 Australia

Seminars: How Much Has Change Changed?

David Nobay has been known as “Nobby” since his first school days in the UK.

In 2008, Nobby was ranked Australia’s most awarded creative director by Campaign Brief Magazine. In January of the same year, he was invited by David Droga to launch Droga5 Australia; the New York-based agency’s first foray as an international network.

He began his career as a junior copywriter in London at the tender age of 19, and a year later became the youngest Creative Group Head in the Ogilvy & Mather Direct network. After stints in Hong Kong and San Francisco, David launched his own agency, Wells Nobay McDowall, in Melbourne and led it to become one of the most awarded integrated agencies of the 90s in Australia.

He moved to New York in 2000 to join a new Bozell team as Deputy Executive Creative Director, alongside Tony Granger. Within two years, the agency was ranked the third most awarded agency worldwide at Cannes Lions. He was also ranked in Archive Magazine’s top ten most published copywriters of the last millennium.

Along with Tony Granger, he left Bozell a few years later to join Saatchi & Saatchi, where he was Executive Creative Director of their Australian agency. Most recently, under Nobby’s creative stewardship, the Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney office was ranked Agency of the Year for an unprecedented three years in a row, as well as both AWARD Network and Agency of the Year, Creative Magazine Hotshop of the Year, and Gong’s TV Agency of the Year twice in a row. He also sat on the Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide Creative Board.

During his career, Nobby has been recognised by D&AD, Art Directors Club, New York Festivals, the London Festivals, the Clio Awards, Cannes Lions and The One Show for a myriad of international clients, including Toyota, Lexus, Lion Nathan, Milk, NY Times, Sony, Fox Sports, Intel and Datek Online.

He has been invited to judge Cannes Lions twice, Young Guns, The One Show, the Clio Awards, D&AD, the ANDY Awards and the Art Directors Club. In 2008 he was announced chairman of judges for Australian AWARD.