Chris Clarke
Founder/CEO, Pure Growth Partners
Chris Clarke is a serial entrepreneur with a unique mix of vision, creativity and the ability to operate a global business. With a history of building ground breaking and successful companies, Chris is always leading the way into new fields. He has a track record of 3 for 3 with successful start-ups. Chris’s strengths lie in setting a vision, then using his ability in creating strategic frameworks to implement that vision.
At the age of 23, he founded Pure Creative, which quickly expanded into seven offices and became one of Asia's hottest creative agencies with a blue-chip client base that included Mars Inc., Procter & Gamble, Australian Tourist Commission and Coca-Cola. In late 1999, Chris sold Pure Creative to Bcom3 (Leo Burnett - D'Arcy).
He then founded Virtual Communities in 1999, an Internet company whose board he still sits on today. Its sole purpose was to bridge the gap between information rich and poor, working in partnership with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, The Catholic and Anglican Churches.
In 2002, Chris founded Nitro in Shanghai, a creative & digital agency with offices in Melbourne, London, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, and New York. His clients include Mars, Footlocker, Volvo, Kraft, and Nike. Nitro was the “most awarded” agency in the history of Cannes advertising Festival 2009 by winning 3 Grand Prix and 5 Gold Lions.
In 2009, Chris merged with Sapient Group to create SapientNitro; the biggest independent and a top 10 global advertising & digital network, with 35 offices around the world & 8,500 employees.
In addition to his award-winning creative work, Chris is an active philanthropist who has founded charities including a "Celebration of Life," a charity benefiting children helping to rebuild the Royal Children's Hospital; as well involvement in an orphanage in China, Cancer Schmancer, Mind Up & Millennium Promise.