Who

Roberts is the self-promoting, globetrotting CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi.

Backstory

Born in Lancaster, England—his dad was an orderly at a psychiatric hospital—Roberts talked his way into a job at British fashion house Mary Quant before moving on to marketing positions at Gillette and Procter & Gamble in Europe and the Middle East. At 32, he was named CEO of Pepsi's Middle East operations, and later headed up Pepsi's operations in Canada. In 1989 he decamped to New Zealand, lured by the chance to become CEO of Lion Nathan, the country's top beverage company. (He quickly shed his British accent in favor of a Kiwi one.) Eight years later Roberts was back in North America, and on the agency side for the first time in his career, when he was named CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi.

Of note

Roberts' appointment at Saatchi in 1997 came as a surprise considering he'd never worked at an ad agency before. But the once venerated British firm had fallen on hard times after nearly going bankrupt in the mid-1990s when the Saatchi brothers ran the company—they were ousted in 1994—and with the house that Saatchi built foundering, the brash, unorthodox Roberts seemed like a potential savior. He managed to get things on an even footing, boosting revenues and fortifying the agency's cred within the industry. (In 2002 Ad Age named Saatchi & Saatchi agency of the year.) Today Saatchi is the fifth-largest agency in the world, with 153 offices in 83 countries and clients like Proctor & Gamble, General Mills, and Wendy's. It's Gerry Graf, Saatchi's creative chief, who oversees the agency's numerous campaigns; Roberts own claim to fame is his "Lovemarks" theory—the idea that certain brands that provoke extreme loyalty—which he laid out in a 2006 book, The Lovemarks Effect: Winning in the Consumer Revolution.

Drama

In early 2005, Mike Roberts, head of Saatchi's General Mills account, as well as 17 others on the same team—the so-called "Saatchi 17"—stormily quit the agency. They went on to start their own boutique agency within Interpublic, One Seven. Score one for Roberts: Interpublic pulled the plug on One Seven in early 2007.

For the record

Unlike most ad agency CEOs, Roberts maintains an extremely detailed website—saatchikevin.com—devoted to himself. The site includes an Ideas Log, an "unofficial" biography, an official biography, and a blog.

Personal

He's been married to his second wife Rowena ("Ro") Roberts for more than three decades. (They worked together at Mary Quant in London.) They have three children, Ben, Rebecca, and Dan. He has another daughter, Nicola, from a previous marriage. The couple lives in a rather elaborate Tribeca loft—construction on which forced the closure of Hudson Street for an entire night while limestone was lowered through his roof. One particularly noteworthy indulgence: Roberts installed a showerhead made of 300 nozzles carved into the limestone ceiling, to create an "invisible shower curtain of falling water." He also owns homes in New Zealand (where he spends about one week each month) and St. Tropez.

Off hours

A major rugby fan, Roberts once served as the director of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union.