CB Hot Suit Takes: Gayle While, CEO, Havas Host
CB Hot Suit Takes is our new Q&A series for extremely busy CEOs and senior leaders across the industry ~ covering careers, creativity, challenges and the song that sums it all up. Next in the hot seat is Gayle While, CEO, Havas Host.
1. What made you get into advertising?
Smash Martians. Growing up, I was mesmerised by how these cackling aliens would light up our living room, making everyone smile. I wasn’t analysing the craft of the work, I just loved the way it made people feel. It was the first time I realised advertising wasn’t just about selling; its real power was emotional. That drew me in and gave me the belief that great work can reach far beyond the screen by making people feel something.
2. Which piece of work are you most proud of, and why?
I’m incredibly proud of our IKEA New Zealand launch from the end of last year. It connected with Kiwis in a way that felt genuinely relevant and its authenticity drove the kind of response you can’t manufacture. It was a big, complex campaign, with activations across the country, collaborations with local artists, media partners and an IKEA client team who were truly in the detail with us. But what stays with me most is the heart the Havas Host team poured into it. You can feel their care and pride all through the work.
3. What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role right now?
The biggest challenge I face right now is keeping and attracting creative talent.
Our industry is having a real identity crisis: AI is reshaping workflows faster than workplace culture can keep up, and at the same time there’s been a noticeable dip in the volume of truly big, career‑defining creative work from across the globe to inspire people. For emerging talent, that can make our industry feel less magnetic; for experienced talent, it can feel destabilising.
As an industry we’ve got to cut through that noise to create an environment where people feel inspired by the possibilities of new AI tools and see them as a creative accelerant rather than to be threatened by them, and where we’re producing work ambitious enough to remind people why they fell in love with creativity in the first place. We also need to give the talent we do have the space and conviction to do career‑defining work, then they won’t just stay, they’ll help to shape the next era of the industry.
4. What’s the most recent thing you’ve learned – professionally or personally?
You can’t control the pace of the world, but you can control how you show up in it.
And we all know that showing up with kindness, and conviction tends to move things forward faster than you think.
5. What song best sums up your career so far?
Beautifully Unconventional by Wolf Alice.
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