I'm Group Creative Director across four brands, Liverpool FC Retail Africa, the Old School brand, Springbok Retail, and Locker Room.
Most weeks I'm directing. Film, brand, social, campaign. The other weeks I'm building the operating system and training the team. The system and the people are what let the team direct without me.
For just over a year I've been helping take Old School from a supporter merch organization into a leisure brand within sport and culture. The company now holds the NBA, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Barcelona, Tottenham, LIV Golf's Southern Guards, the Springboks, Orlando Pirates, and Kaizer Chiefs.
None of that happened because I'm “great”, although it would probably be best to say that. It happened because we changed what the agency believed about itself before we changed anything else. We hired for character before craft. We wrote briefs that opened doors the old briefs would have closed. And then we built the systems that let the team compound, so the next campaign was always sharper than the last, without anyone having to work harder to make that true.
I shoot most of the campaigns I lead. I write briefs. I write essays. I've built three custom tools the agency runs on, because building tools is one of the ways a creative leader makes the team faster without making them work harder. But none of that is what I'm here for. I'm here for the gap between where each person on my team started on day one and where they are now. The work that came out under my watch matters. The people who made it matter more. That's the only metric I trust.
AB DE VILLIERS
No Paid Amplification
Most creative direction is performance. The work I'm proudest of came from a different posture.
Leadership isn't having the answer first. It's making the room safe enough for someone else to find an answer by asking the right questions.
The fastest way to lose your best people is to take credit for their work. The more you give away, the more comes back.
What the team produces without me is the only portfolio that matters. Without that, when scaling — I am the bottleneck.
ACROSS THE ROAD
NEIGHBOURS
Two of African football's biggest clubs. The first independent campaign they had ever made together. Pre-production to delivered in a working week.
Work
Selected campaigns and projects. Direction, creative leadership, and craft across sport, music, food, and culture.
Worked On
No right to show campaign/s.