Thomas Crampton

As Global Managing Director of Social@Ogilvy at Ogilvy & Mather, Thomas Crampton oversees a team of more than 700 social media specialists across more than 40 territories. Probably the largest global team of its kind, Social@Ogilvy helps companies understand, strategize and execute within social media.This is not a team of generalists. Built on Ogilvy & Mather’s well-known heritage of brand planning and cutting edge creativity, Social@Ogilvy taps deep areas of expertise, such as CRM and shopper marketing. The team has won awards recognizing everything from niche digital innovation to the highest creative accolades in the industry, including Clios, Effies and Cannes Lions.Thomas joined Ogilvy in 2009 to launch the social media team in Asia, growing it in less than five years from himself and an intern to more than 250 people across 23 cities in 19 Asian territories.Thomas is a frequent keynote speaker and moderator at high profile conferences around the world, from the World Economic Forum in Davos to Le Web in Paris, Cannes Lions and DLD in Munich.He has lectured at numerous universities, including Stanford University, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Hong Kong University, Keio University in Japan and the National University of Singapore.

Prior to joining Ogilvy, Mr. Crampton spent 18 years as a globetrotting newspaper correspondent, mainly for the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times, reporting from five continents and dozens of countries.

While at the International Herald Tribune, Mr. Crampton launched the newspaper’s first blog; wrote a weekly column about Asia; was a Paris-based feature writer on media and technology; covered the 2004 US presidential election for The New York Times; reported on the 1997 Asian financial crisis from Thailand; the SARS outbreak from Hong Kong; the civil wars in Sudan and Sri Lanka; Taiwan’s 1998 earthquake; US hurricanes; wrote a daily column on the Cannes Film Festival and many more topics.

Currently on the board of the The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong, Mr. Crampton has served as president of that club as well as president of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand and on the board of the New York-based Overseas Press Club.

In addition to publisher’s awards from The New York Times and citations from Amnesty International for his articles and photography, Mr. Crampton has served as a judge for numerous journalism awards and worked to promote freedom of expression and the training of journalists.

He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2005, attended Davos numerous times, served on Global Agenda Councils and helped judge nominees for the forum’s Technology Pioneers. Thomas has served as judge for numerous journalism awards, including the Society of Publishers in Asia editorial awards, the Southeast Asian Education Ministers Organization.

He is co-founder of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Charity Fund that has raised more than US$14 million to support the higher education of disadvantaged children from the Po Leung Kuk. Check out our amazing scholarship winners (now up to 137 awardees) here!

Mr. Crampton was educated in the United States at the University of Virginia, in Ireland at Trinity College, Dublin and in France at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Dover College in Kent and Episcopal High School in Virginia. He speaks English, French, Thai and is learning Mandarin Chinese.