Most recently in his agency career, Lorenzo worked in Publicis Groupe across all four pillars of media, health, communications and PublicisSapient. He used his experience of developing new technologies and understanding their impacts to advise senior business leaders, and convince them to adopt bold strategies for growth. He was responsible for innovation services and proactive identification of opportunities for clients to develop new businesses. He developed a portfolio of services for client executives responsible for innovation and R&D, covering culture, process and diversity. He designed and delivered a substantial three-year innovation programme for a global pharmaceutical company. He was also an evangelist for global innovation and start-up capabilities across Publicis Groupe.
Prior to this role, Lorenzo was Chief Technology Officer at DigitasLBi, promoting a multidisciplinary approach to delivering projects for clients including Virgin Atlantic and Barratt Homes, and creating the agency’s mobile development capability with clients including LloydsTSB, BT, E.ON and M&S.
Before being part of Publicis Groupe, he ran UK strategy at global agency Framfab where he developed a quantitative international user research methodology in studies involving over 4,000 participants for mobile operators Vodafone and Orange. Framfab merged with LBIcon to form LBi in 2006. At LBi, Lorenzo ran product development, creating a data and insight platform used in 90 clients. His start in digital was in 1992, when he co-founded Oyster Partners — a leader in the first wave of UK digital agencies — at which he ran engineering and then strategy. At Oyster he created British Airways’ first Web presence, Unilever’s first intranet platform and the interactive exhibits in the V&A’s largest single programme, the British Galleries 1500–1900. He was also responsible for at the UK’s largest ever single production run — 1.5 million units — of a CD-ROM, for the Financial Times Rich List.
Lorenzo is a participant in the start-up world. He has been an adviser and/or seed investor for over twenty start-ups in fields including financial services, media and advertising, professional services automation, immersive experiences, gaming and electric vehicles. In the course of this, he designed, built and refined the human-machine interface for an electric conversion of a BMW Mini, and obtained a licence from the Gambling Commission. He is a juror for Cannes Lions, DMA awards, WARC awards and the CES innovation awards.
Examples of current topics for speaking and writing and workshops: conversation, delegation and emotion; the future of immersive experiences; the future of television; where does innovation come from?
He lives in London with his wife and two children.