LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 19, 2024--
Making Science, a leading digital acceleration company specialising in data, artificial intelligence, and proprietary ad tech technologies, has announced the appointment of Nick Waters as CEO for the UK, Northern and Central Europe. Based in London, with extensive experience in business leadership and the technology market, Waters will be responsible for driving the company’s growth and expansion across Europe.
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Due to take up the role in February 2025, Waters brings over 20 years of experience in international media, digital, and advertising. He joins Making Science from Ebiquity Plc, where he was Group Chief Executive Officer. Before that, he spent 10 years at Dentsu Aegis Network – latterly as Executive Chairman UK & Ireland, and 12 years at Mindshare, rising to regional CEO of Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
Commenting on Waters’ appointment, José Antonio Martínez Aguilar, Founder and Global CEO of Making Science, said, “We’re thrilled to have Nick on board as a driving force for the UK, Northern and Central European regions at a time of significant growth as an independent agency. His experience will be crucial for strategically advancing the continued development of Making Science in these markets.
“Waters’ appointment comes as the industry is experiencing a dynamic shift, prompting talent from the traditional big six agencies to explore new opportunities at independent agencies, such as Making Science. Offering agility, innovation, and client-centric focus, independent agencies are increasingly recognised as the preferred choice for brands seeking to provide cutting-edge solutions and drive unparalleled performance.”
Waters commented, “Making Science is an incredibly exciting digital acceleration company, and this is a tremendous opportunity to join José and his team as the business enters the next phase of its global growth journey.
As a company built for today’s and tomorrow’s marketing world backed by a brilliant team applying data science and artificial intelligence, Making Science turbo-charges competitive advantage for brands and I look forward to being involved.”
Waters’ appointment follows the announcement of Marcus Cooper as Business Director, UK, Brad Beiter as SVP of Customer Management, and José Luis Pulpón, (ex Google) as Managing Director for Making Science, Spain. These strategic hires play a vital role in Making Science’s global expansion to ensure the delivery of cutting-edge digital transformation solutions for its clients across industries.
About Making Science
Making Science is a digital acceleration company that currently has more than 1,200 employees and a presence and technological development in 15 markets: Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia, France, Italy, UK, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, Georgia and USA. As a consulting partner of Local Planet, the world's largest network of independent media agencies, Making Science offers digital marketing, Adtech and Martech, cloud technologies and software, and cybersecurity services globally, through delivery hubs that drive job creation and the availability of highly skilled technology talent.
Making Science is composed of 4 business lines: the Global Digital Agency with Technology, with 360 digital advertising services that integrate strategic planning, creative, data and technology; the Cloud, Software and Cybersecurity business, with cloud-based solutions that deploy data intelligence and a specialised cybersecurity team; the Artificial Intelligence and SaaS division, with more than 400 engineers and data scientists for the development of platforms and digital solutions with AI technology applied to marketing; and the Making Science Investment area, with Ventis and TMQ, as a line of business diversification and implementation of the capabilities of all areas of Making Science.
In addition, the company participates in various ESG initiatives, including the Climate Pledge, the United Nations Global Compact and the Pledge1% initiative, supporting non-profit organisations in its community with a strong commitment to making a positive impact on the future.
Nick Waters (Photo: Business Wire)
LONDON (AP) — With banners, bullhorns, toy tractors and an angry message, British farmers descended on Parliament on Tuesday to protest a hike in inheritance tax that they say will deal a “hammer blow” to struggling family farms.
U.K. farmers are rarely as militant as their European neighbors, and Britain has not seen large-scale protests like those that have snarled cities in France and other European countries. Now, though, farmers say they will step up their action if the government doesn’t listen.
“Everyone’s mad,” said Olly Harrison, co-organizer of a protest that aims to flood the street outside Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office with farmers. He said many famers “want to take to the streets and block roads and go full French.”
Organizers have urged protesters not to bring farm machinery into central London on Tuesday. Instead, children on toy tractors will lead a march around Parliament Square after a rally addressed by speakers including former “Top Gear” TV host and celebrity farmer Jeremy Clarkson. Another 1,800 farmers held a “mass lobby” of lawmakers nearby organized by the National Farmers’ Union.
“The human impact of this policy is simply not acceptable, it’s wrong," NFU President Tom Bradshaw told farmers gathered for the mass lobby. “It’s kicking the legs out from under British food security."
Volatile weather exacerbated by climate change, global instability and the upheaval caused by Britain’s 2020 departure from the European Union have all added to the burden on U.K. farmers. Many feel the Labour Party government’s tax change, part of an effort to raise billions of pounds to fund public services, is the last straw.
“Four out of the last five years, we’ve lost money,” said Harrison, who grows cereal crops on his family farm near Liverpool in northwest England. “The only thing that’s kept me going is doing it for my kids. And maybe a little bit of appreciation on the land allows you to keep borrowing, to keep going. But now that’s just disappeared overnight.”
The flashpoint is the government’s decision in its budget last month to scrap a tax break dating from the 1990s that exempts agricultural property from inheritance tax. From April 2026, farms worth more than 1 million pounds ($1.3 million) face a 20% tax when the owner dies and they are passed on to the next generation. That is half the 40% inheritance tax rate levied on other land and property in the U.K.
Starmer’s center-left government says the “vast majority” of farms -– about 75% -- will not be affected, and various loopholes mean that a farming couple can pass on an estate worth up to 3 million pounds ($3.9 million) to their children free of tax.
Supporters of the tax say it will recoup money from wealthy people who have bought up agricultural land as an investment, driving up the cost of farmland in the process.
“It’s become the most effective way for the super rich to avoid paying their inheritance tax,” Environment Secretary Steve Reed wrote in the Daily Telegraph, adding that high land prices were “robbing young farmers of the dream of owning their own farm.”
But the famers’ union says more than 60% of working farms could face a tax hit. And while farms may be worth a lot on paper, profits are often small. Government figures show that income for most types of farms fell in the year to the end of February 2024, in some cases by more than 70%. Average farm income ranged from about 17,000 pounds ($21,000) for grazing livestock farms to 143,000 pounds ($180,000) for specialist poultry farms.
The last decade has been turbulent for British farmers. Many farmers backed Brexit as a chance to get out of the EU’s complex and much-criticized Common Agricultural Policy. Since then, the U.K. has brought in changes such as paying farmers to restore nature and promote biodiversity, as well as for producing food.
Some farmers have welcomed those moves, but many feel goodwill was squandered through missteps by successive governments, a failure of subsidies to keep up with inflation, and new trade deals with countries including Australia and New Zealand that have opened the door to cheap imports.
National Farmers’ Union Deputy President David Exwood said the tax hike was “the final straw in a succession of tough choices and difficult situations that farmers have had to deal with.”
The government has “completely blown their trust with the industry,” he said.
The government insists it will not reconsider the inheritance tax, and its political opponents see an opportunity. The main opposition Conservative Party -– which was in government for 14 years until July -- and the hard-right populist party Reform U.K. are both championing the farmers. Some far-right groups also have backed Tuesday’s protest, though the organizers are not affiliated with them.
Harrison says the demonstration is intended as “a show of unity to the government” and an attempt to inform the public “that farmers are food producers, not tax-dodging millionaires.”
“It’s every single sector, whether you’re a landowner or a tenant, whether you’re beef, dairy, milk, cereals, veg, lettuce -- you name it, everyone has had a hammer blow from this," he said. “Every farmer is losing.”
Britain's Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, center, speaks with religious leaders during a breakfast roundtable meeting for faith leaders as part of Inter Faith Week at 10 Downing Street, in London, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Airbus in Broughton, North Wales, Friday Nov. 15, 2024. (Danny Lawson/Pool via AP)
