John McDonald
Chief Marketing Officer | HSBC
“I am delighted to chair the Campaign Global Agency of the Year Awards because I appreciate and know the valuable role that agencies play in building brands and also supporting their clients. I look forward to seeing the entries and learning more about the work of the best agencies from around the world.”
Prior to joining HSBC as Chief Marketing Officer in October 2025, John spent more than two decades at the intersection of creativity, commerce, and brands, working and living across multiple countries and industries.
He began his career at Ogilvy London before moving to the U.S., where he spent 16 years with some of the world’s leading brands. He led creative and commercially impactful marketing transformations for British Airways and Mastercard as well as stints with both Publicis Groupe and WPP. Alongside his corporate and agency career, John also co-founded xCheck, a travel software start-up acquired by a San Francisco–based unicorn in 2021. Most recently, John served as Group CMO at UBS in Zurich where he led the brand integration of Credit Suisse into UBS and conceived and launched the enterprise-wide Banking is our Craft brand platform.
(Things you won’t learn about John from LinkedIn or ChatGPT: he is an undefeated amateur boxer, an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church, and a modestly talented but enthusiastic snowboarder.)
