Cannes 2019

As industry conferences go, its hard to beat having one in the South of France, so this years trip was lots of fun as usual. There were the usual celebrity sightings.,

Here’s Star Rainn, the star of the American version of “The Office”

Here’s Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, interviewing one of my co-workers Vita Harris (second from right). Vita was pretty terrified at the prospect of being interviewed by Sheryl, but she did great.

Yes, it was on a beach! I wasn’t interviewed by a celebrity or on a beach, but I was invited to a panel held on a boat, which funnily enough also included the head of Guinness and Baileys at Diageo, who currently lives in Dublin and knows all my old pals at Diageo! He’s the one second from the left.

I, as you can see, was not under the shaded umbrella, and while there’s probably not much sympathy for folks whose job it is to be interviewed in the South of France on a boat, one hour under the sun was pretty hot! By the way, the reason we don’t have shoes on, is you’re not allowed wear shoes on any of the boats (there’s a lot of meetings on boats!).

You always bump into people you know in Cannes, but this year, I bumped into someone I didn’t know, Chris, who realized that I was the father of the boy who brought his daughter, Sachi, to Prom!! He was there as a photographer for the conference organizers, and was on the FCB boat. Small world!

The biggest surprise of Cannes this year was how well FCB did, our best year every, and how well FCB Chicago did, our second best year. Here’s all the FCB Chicago crew celebrating after one of the award ceremonies. The winners are the ones holding the gold lions.

Away from all the buzz of the conference, celebrities and awards, one nice new thing this year in Cannes, was my early morning jogs. At 6am its pretty peaceful, and you feel pretty lucky that this is what a work trip looks like.