Debbie Ellison, EMEA CEO

Over the past year, Debbie Ellison has strengthened Croud’s EMEA business by turning intelligence into clearer decisions, stronger client partnerships and measurable commercial growth. Her leadership focused on three priorities: deepening existing relationships, embedding faster intelligence-led decision-making and developing a more inclusive leadership pipeline.

Debbie established Return on Intelligence as a practical operating model, aligning teams around clients’ commercial ambitions and ensuring that data, technology, media and talent translated into meaningful action. This approach helped the agency expand retained relationships, improve client satisfaction and strengthen its new-business performance. She also led the shift from AI experimentation to everyday application, prioritising adoption and impact over novelty. By embedding technology and proprietary intelligence across planning, pitches and activation, Debbie enabled teams to work more efficiently and provide clients with faster, clearer recommendations. Alongside commercial transformation, Debbie championed inclusive leadership through mentoring, development programmes and active support for emerging and underrepresented talent. Her influence extended across the wider industry through thought leadership, events and awards judging, where she promoted a more outcome-focused model of agency value. Overall, Debbie has built a stronger, more progressive EMEA business - combining commercial performance, practical innovation and inclusive leadership to demonstrate what an independent agency can achieve in the AI era.