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.

Ollie Richardson Group Commercial Director

Ollie’s career began in the technical services department of his student union in London which led to a summer job in production with The Mean Fiddler Group during the mid-90’s. Ollie joined DB Systems and for 18 years he led the commercial team building the business. He led the management team in the sale of the business to a private equity investor and post transaction served the board for 18 months before leaving in 2017.

Ollie joined Aztec Event Services to open their Barcelona office offering commercial support to the UK board before joining Blitz in 2019. Ollie is now responsible for Blitz’s commercial strategy and brand in addition to driving further growth to the business with new and existing clients.

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.

Miles Poulton Client Services Director

Miles has worked in the events industry for over 25 years and has gained valuable knowledge and experience with stage lighting, sound, production management and event management. Having worked for Blitz for over 11 years in various roles including Account Manager, Miles has always focused on relationship management and has been pivotal in the development of Blitz’s corporate and blue-chip client base.

As Client Services Director, Miles is now responsible for leading a team of Account Directors at Blitz’s head office in Elstree. He ensures a high level of service is delivered to Blitz’s varied and growing portfolio of clients.

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.

Jason Sorabji Group Production Director

Jason has been in the Audio-Visual industry since a very young age, starting out in IT before moving to Sound Production. After studying Music Technology and Computer Science at University he initially went into designing shows for Theatre and Cruise Ships in the US, before getting involved in the video aspects with the same companies. Upon moving back to the UK he moved into freelance Corporate Work, Project Management and Consulting, producing events within the UK and Europe.

Jason previously headed up Blitz’s operation at ExCeL London, and now leads the team of Project Managers and Co-Ordinators at Blitz’s head office, using his creative, technical and managerial skillset to oversee the delivery of all Blitz events across the company.

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.