David Droga is the CEO of Accenture Song, the $19bn marketing and creative services arm of consultancy, Accenture.
In every organization, there are two people who know the most about what is really going on: the CEO, and the person in the mailroom. Thankfully, David has had had the privilege of working in both roles and is better for it.
At 18, he began by delivering packages, learning, and keeping secrets at Grey Sydney. But later that year after winning National Student of the Year at the Australian Writers and Art Directors School, is when his creative career began.
He joined OMON Sydney as the agency’s first creative hire; moved to Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore as Executive Creative Director and Regional Creative Director at Saatchi Asia; then moved to London to be Chief Creative Officer at Saatchi’s global headquarters. When Publicis Groupe acquired Saatchi in 2000, he became Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of the Publicis network, which took him to New York in 2005.
In 2006, he opened Droga5—named after the number-coded laundry tag his mother sewed into his clothes to differentiate him from his four brothers at boarding school. With a team of brilliant creatives, strategists and makers, Droga5 hatched some of the most studied and successful campaigns of the last 25 years. Droga5 were named Agency of the year more than 30 times by industry press and global Award shows (Cannes, D&AD, One Show). In 2019, Droga5 was named Agency of the Decade by Adweek and in 2020 Agency of the Decade by Adage.
In 2019, seeing the unbridled necessity of technology to scale, David sold Droga5 to consulting and tech giant Accenture—which was a game-changer for both companies. Just two years later, in September 2021, Droga stepped out of his leadership role at Droga5 to become the global Group CEO at its parent company, Accenture Interactive and under his leadership it entered a new era as Accenture Song. During his tenure, Droga has grown the business from a $12.5 billion company to a $19 billion tech-powered creative giant.
David is an avid art collector, amateur farmer, terrible tennis player, and frustrated environmentalist. He sits on the board of the New Museum, the NY Public Theatre, and NYC Public Radio. In 2017, (with his brother Daniel) he created, funded and launched The Droga Family Foundation, which is now the largest Indigenous scholarship in Australia, in partnership with the Australian Government and the University of Technology, Sydney.
His greatest accomplishment is creating 4 kids who aren’t impressed with anything above.