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Philip Thomas, CEO, International Festival of Creativity

Philip Thomas has been a senior executive at Emap, the parent company of Cannes Lions, for the last decade. He began his career as a journalist, working on national and international magazines and newspapers, and editing Empire, the UK's biggest-selling movie magazine for three years before moving into publishing.

As Managing Director of FHM Worldwide, he took the UK edition of the iconic men's magazine from 350,000 to sales exceeding700,000 per month, establishing it as Europe's biggest-selling monthly magazine, and helped to launch editions in countries throughout the world, including France, Turkey, Germany, The Philippines and many others. FHM now has more than30 overseas editions.

In 2000, he was appointed Managing Director of Emap's Australian division, spending three years in Sydney and almost doubling the size of the company, before returning to the UK to run the Automotive division, one of the biggest parts of Emap with 500+ employees.

In November 2006, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Cannes Lions, Eurobest, Dubai Lynx International Advertising Festival and Spikes Asia – the Asian Advertising Festival.

Philip is 49, married with two children, and lives just north of London.