Quick Facts
Biography
Felix Velarde is a British entrepreneur who founded one of the first web design agencies, Hyperinteractive, in 1994. Three years later Velarde co-founded Head-Space, one of the first open creative galleries on the web, listed in 2011 as having been one of the world's ten most influential websites.
In 1997 he launched Head New Media with Creative Director Jason Holland, selling part of it to become the digital arm of Interpublic's Lowe & Partners (now MullenLowe Profero) in 1998. In the same year Velarde launched specialist Interactive Television agency Head End (a play on the television broadcast term HeadEnd), which produced the first Interactive Television commercials for Tesco and Unilever.
In 1996 Velarde was a founder of an innovative strategy company, Underwired which led the growth of the discipline of eCRM building on the pioneering CRM work of Oracle's Mei Lin Fung et al. Having left Head New Media in 2001 he became Underwired's CEO, selling it to Hasgrove PLC in 2009. In 2012 he arranged an MBO and was Underwired's Chairman until selling his stake in 2014.
Velarde was also CEO of an agency roll-up The Conversation Group between 2013 and 2016. He is a Non-Executive Director of several agencies and start-ups and is Chairman of MomentumABM, a marketing agency servicing nine of the world's top ten IT firms.
Non-Commercial Work
While at Head New Media, Velarde and Holland sponsored a non-commercial online creative community, Head-Space, which incubated prominent community websites including Urban75 and John Lundberg et al.'s Circlemakers.org. Employees at Head New Media were given one day a week to work on Head-Space (the founders of Urban75 and Circlemakers both worked at Head New Media in the 1990s), but contributors came from all over the world. Featured in the travelling exhibition Digital Archaeology since 2010, Head-Space is recognised as a digital artefact of considerable historic and cultural relevance, which Forbes Magazine described as a germinal precursor to YouTube and one of the world's ten most influential websites.
From 2006-2008 Velarde was a sponsor of the UK's prototype personal carbon trading system, CarbonDAQ, a project being led by leading Left-leaning think tank the Royal Society of Arts, of which he is a Fellow.
In 2015 Velarde became a member of Innovation For Jobs (i4j) Leadership Forum, a Silicon Valley-based think tank chaired by co-founder of the Internet Vint Cerf, and David Nordfors. Other participants include former CEO of SRI International Curtis Carlson, Lord Jim Knight, Robin Farmanfarmaian and Steve Denning.
Since 2016 he has been on the Organizing Team of the People-Centered Internet project chaired by Vint Cerf and co-founded by Mei Lin Fung (who invented CRM while at Oracle), which aims to ensure that the Internet's roll-out to developing and emerging countries is guided by principles of People-centered development rather than commercial focus. The organization works closely with IEEE, World Economic Forum, World Bank Group, The White House and others.
Industry and Teaching
Velarde is a Fellow of the Institute of Direct & Digital Marketing, and is an educator, speaker, writer and widely published commentator on digital marketing and marketing industry development issues. Until 2015 he was an Adjunct Professor lecturing on Hult International Business School's MBA and Masters in International Marketing programs. In 2013 Velarde was a contributing author to two books on marketing strategy including Multichannel Marketing Ecosystems. He has been an Awards Judge for the Direct Marketing Association, New York Festivals, British Interactive Media Association and Drum Awards for Digital Industries. Velarde has given keynote speeches on the topics of business management and M&A and has organized three conferences in the UK and USA on agency M&A.
Personal life
Velarde attended Richmond upon Thames College. He is a qualified glider (sailplane) pilot at Cotswold Gliding Club, and a member of London's Groucho Club. In 2016 Velarde gave the second talk of the festival at Burning Man's Center Camp stage on the subject of "Practicing Serendipity, and Just Saying Yes."
Awards
- Marketing Design Award for Best Use of the Internet 1996
- MacUser Maxine for Best Online Community 1996
- Cannes CyberLion for Best Online Community (Head-Space with Jason Holland) 1999
- BIMA Award for Best Use of Email 2006
- Direct Marketing Association Golds 2006, 2007
- Cream Top 100 Innovators 2010
- UK Top 100 Digerati 2013
Profiles
Velarde has been profiled in the following articles: