After an absence of over two years, Edgars Pētersons has returned to the ranks of DDB Consulting’s strategists. He has now been appointed Strategic Director. During his absence, Edgars has gained experience at the University of Rotterdam where he studied marketing. 10 months outside the life of Latvian advertising provided Edgars with a wonderful opportunity to pause and do something else, i.e. acquire new knowledge, structure his existing know how and parallel to this, turn his attention to those interests that could help him in future: technological development both in terms of hardware and software, design, art and culture, as well as various brainstorm techniques that could help to generate new ideas. In the Netherlands, Edgars began running actively once again which proved to be a great aid to arranging his thoughts returning to his starting point. There was also an increase in the number of books he read – mainly in the field of fiction, because novels proved most useful in helping him to look at things laterally and develop his intuition.

“I’ve increasingly acquired evidence of the important role played by intuition in strategic planning. You can talk about figures, trends, briefs all you want, but this is all raw material with which to ignite the intuition which helps to inspire creatives and deliver an outstanding result. The existing situation as revealed by research is one thing, while a second aspect is the future to which trends point, but intuition allows you take a step to the side and create a new direction which may not be the one that people expect, thus surprising them and prompting them to share their experience. Another admission – there is much greater power in teamwork than in individualism. This is the direction which I’m currently striving to develop and use,” explains Edgars.

His is a passionate devotee of hiking travel. Together with his pal Māris, Edgars once hiked across virtually the whole of Iceland. His next goal will be the Andes Mountains in Peru or Argentina.

His ambitions upon his return to DDB? To develop a powerful team of strategic planner not just on a Latvian scale, but on a broader regional scale. To inspire planners to greater creativity. To create a team feeling within his own department and in collaborating with account managers and creatives.

Welcome back, Edgars!