Iva Welker: Czech ad boss who won the first Cannes Grand Prix

Iva Welker heads the VML and Ogilvy agencies in Czechia, part of the global WPP holding: 450 employees and revenue of more than 1.2 billion crowns last year. She never set out to become CEO, but today she runs the strongest communications group on the Czech market.

Her main principle is simple: the biggest failures happen when people stop talking to each other. “It was like that in the age of the fax, and it will be the same with artificial intelligence,” she says. Iva looks like an introvert, but in practice you quickly find her in a circle of colleagues in lively debate: “I’m everywhere, and I like to talk everything through with people.”

The agencies’ office is in the functionalist former Electric Enterprises building on Prague’s Bubenská street, now the WPP Campus. Welker runs two of its seven floors. She calls the 1.2 billion crowns in revenue not the main metric: more important, she says, is steady growth with the right profitability. Her love of numbers dates back to studying macroeconomics at the Prague University of Economics.

Clients and global awards. In Czechia, VML and Ogilvy work with Kaufland, Česká spořitelna, T-Mobile, Nestlé and Budvar. Through an international hub they also serve global giants such as BAT, Ford, Microsoft and Hill’s Pet Nutrition.

Welker knows how to make Prague resonate worldwide: from the Cannes Lions creativity festival she brought home the country’s first-ever Grand Prix, for an outdoor campaign for KitKat that urged people to put their phones down. The statuette stands at reception among dozens of other awards. “It’s like Olympic gold and a great calling card for the whole of Czechia,” Iva says. This year’s follow-up to the campaign won a gold, three silvers and a bronze at Slovenia’s Golden Drum festival.

A career that began by chance. Iva got into advertising almost by accident: 26 years ago, at a student festival, she met Terry Martin, head of the then agency Bates141, and agreed to an internship. She started as an account manager. She then worked at BI Prague Red Cell, and after that at Ogilvy Action, which became the agency Geometry in 2013; there she was already an account director.

She won her promotions herself: she came not with a request but with a ready solution. At Geometry, for example, she proposed becoming client service director — and made it happen. After a series of mergers she took over what is now VML, and this year, in the holding’s reorganization, she was also put in charge of Ogilvy.

Reorganization and consolidation. The holding is merging its agencies into four divisions, responding to a consolidation trend that has wiped out even well-known brands such as DDB and MullenLowe among competitors. Ogilvy and VML remain independent brands with their own business and identity, but gain access to each other’s expertise: Ogilvy to data, events and experience projects, VML to PR, social media and influencer marketing. Welker brings the network’s international experience back to Czechia.

She rose to the top in a largely male environment, but does not see any special “female approach” behind her success.

By the Around Prague newsroom