Meet the team

Mike Phillipson Managing Director

Starting his career at Saatchi and Saatchi, Mike Phillipson has gathered a wealth of multi-channel experience, including heading up a start-up business, which grew within three years to achieve annual billings of £56m. In addition, he has held leadership roles at the 24-hour bank, First Direct and at the homewares retailer, Habitat, together with running businesses in the events, leisure and communications sectors in the UK and across Europe.

Graham Pope Group Commercial Director

Graham joined Blitz in 2006 and was a part owner of the business before GES acquired Blitz in 2014. Prior to Blitz, Graham held various new business and commercial roles across the manufacturing, distribution and service sectors. In his capacity of Group Commercial Director, Graham is instrumental in setting the strategy and client proposition. Customer centric and results driven in his approach, Graham believes that long-terms relationships are the key to success.

Mark Watson Creative Director

Mark is a creative leader and hands-on visual designer specialising in hybrid brand, digital, environment and live event roles. With an entrepreneurial spirit and an eye for innovation, Mark approaches every brief as a design challenge; to produce sophisticated and engaging concepts by combining strategic thinking, creative ideation and visual design with an insightful understanding of trends, techniques and technology. Mark has spent the last 9 years with Blitz, supporting the development and growth of our creative services and now leads a strong creative team who specialise in presentation design, motion graphics, 3D design, interactive, digital and print.

Carol Gibbs Director of Venues

Starting her career with the BBC, Carol worked in TV production for 6 years before moving to AirTV as Facilities Manager. Whilst there, AirTV were awarded the MTV Europe contract and Carol took on the internal role of Account Manager for the channel. Carol then became a Director of Astonics, working with the live events graphics company for 12 years before the company was acquired by Blitz. Carol remained as Director of Graphics until March 2017 when she moved to her current role as Director of Venues, responsible for the management of the Blitz on-site teams at ExCeL London, Manchester Central, Olympia London and The NEC.

John Steele Technical Director

Prior to joining Blitz, Steele specialised in providing engineering support, planning and technical solutions for large-scale, multi-camera mobile broadcasts. Steele brings more than twenty-five years of experience working at the highest level. During this time he has engineered and managed in every area of the video industry, including corporate presentations, concert tours and international sports coverage. Steele is responsible for running the Blitz technical teams, including video, sound, lighting and set and staging, as well as the project management team.

Ali Sumar Operations Director

Ali joined Blitz in 2007 as a Project Co-ordinator with a degree in Business Information Systems. Ali has since progressed and held various roles throughout the organisation. With a key focus on the details and a logical problem solving approach, Ali has naturally been drawn to the Operational side of the business. In his current role, he oversees Operations across the six Blitz sites and together with the Operations team, constantly strives to realise efficiencies and optimise processes.