Brandtech, the World’s #1 Gen AI Marketing Company, names three country heads to accelerate Gen AI leadership amid huge demand for AI transformation from brands
Former Huge Global CEO Lisa De Bonis joins to run Brandtech UK, Jeff Matisoff named Brandtech North American lead and Julie Hardy to head Brandtech France
New York, February 26, 2026:
“When we launched in 2015 stating that we believed you could do all marketing better, faster and cheaper using AI and technology, we said there were two key ingredients to success: Talent & Technology. Today, our Pencil platform is the world’s #1 Gen AI marketing platform, and the only one that has made 5 million ads since it was created in 2018. So, we have the best technology,” says Brandtech Founder & CEO David Jones.
“This move is about further uplevelling our talent – while we already have a disproportionate share of the world’s top talent, we are seeing unprecedented demand from our clients for Gen AI at scale. Lisa, Jeff and Julie will obsessively focus on how we can help our client partners drive their growth by delivering that. I am delighted to welcome Lisa to Brandtech. She’s a huge talent, no pun intended, and I could not be happier to appoint Julie and Jeff who have each played significant roles in the Group’s success to date. It’s a once in a generation opportunity for brands and clients and we are excited to be leading the disruption!”
In the UK, Lisa De Bonis, the former Global CEO of Huge, is joining the Group as Brandtech UK Managing Partner and CEO. Before her 4-year stint at the helm of Huge, De Bonis was Managing Director of Accenture Interactive across UK and Europe and has previously held senior roles at Havas, Mother and Omnicom.
Jeff Matisoff, who joined the Group in 2021 from WPP where he was Global President of the dedicated integrated creative+ media IBM agency Eightbar, and who has done a brilliant job working alongside Nick Emery and the leadership team acquiring and transforming Jellyfish, will be Brandtech North America Managing Partner & CEO, running Brandtech’s largest market.
In France, Brandtech Partner Julie Hardy, who has been one of the true stars of the company for the last nine years since joining from her role as CEO of TBWA’s Digital Art Network Paris and who leads beauty, fashion and luxury for the Group, will add the role of Brandtech France Managing Partner & CEO.
The Brandtech Managing Partner and CEO roles are all newly created, De Bonis, Hardy and Matisoff will oversee all activity in their respective regions, reporting to the Brandtech managing trio of David Jones, Angela Tangas (Oliver CEO and Brandtech CSO) and Nick Emery (Jellyfish CEO and Brandtech COO.)
Brandtech, was launched in 2015 and is the only group in the world launched with AI as its founding mission. Today, it’s the lead Gen AI partner for many of the world’s largest global advertisers working with 8 out of the top ten and 60 out of the top 100.
The trio steps up at an exciting moment for the Group, which launched one of the first-ever 100% Gen AI TVCs for this year’s Super Bowl. The spot for NetApp was made in less than three weeks. It is another example of Brandtech helping the world’s largest advertisers transform their marketing to be AI-first amid what Jones sees as the greatest creative revolution in history as AI empowers brand storytelling.
Lisa de Bonis said: “Anyone who is in the market knows that Brandtech is in a league of its own when it comes to Gen AI marketing. I’m super excited to be joining Angela, Nick, David and the team and even more so about helping the world’s largest advertisers transform their marketing to be AI-first.”
Julie Hardy said: “It’s pretty incredible to see our vision of 10 years ago come to fruition. And in the last 18 months we’ve seen a huge shift as brands move out of pilot purgatory and into rolling out Gen AI content studios at scale. I’m excited to lead that in France and for our global luxury, fashion and beauty clients.”
Jeff Matisoff said: “North America is our largest market so it’s a real honor to be taking the helm. This is going to be an exceptional year for AI marketing – from agents – we have already built a completely agentic version of our Pencil Gen AI platform – to Share of Model or how to influence what the LLM’s say about your brand, to creating one of the first ever Gen AI Superbowl spots for NetApp. I look forward to leading the charge as we help our clients turn AI into a competitive advantage and outperform their competition.”
The new roles begin immediately.