Boondoggle shows creative ambition with the arrival of Mathieu Cardon, Valerie Vleminckx and Olivier De Laet

After the smooth integration of Havas Creative into Boondoggle, the agency is now moving up a gear. This is necessary now that - in addition to the Havas clients - the Danone group is making its appearance at the Stokerij in Leuven. This growth called for a strengthening of the leadership team, hence the creation of the ECD position filled by Mathieu Cardon and the arrival of a 3rd Business Director, Valerie Vleminckx. She will also be responsible for Boondoggle Marketing and Business Development. Finally, Olivier De Laet, after a few freelance assignments, joins us as creative planner to join Mathieu in giving Boondoggle's DNA of great creation an extra burst of energy. The three join the other creative recruits who came on board last summer: Copywriter Stephen Walckiers, Copywriter Gilles André, AD William Lambiet and Sr Designer Nadia Tweepenninckx.

"In a creative agency, everything revolves around people and their expertise. I am therefore proud that with the addition of Mathieu, Valerie and the confirmation of Olivier, we can further ensure the growth of Boondoggle. They are strong brand builders with a clear can-do mentality and years of experience on the counter," said Stijn Cox, CEO of Boondoggle Havas.

Mathieu Cardon: "What attracted me in Boondoggle is their culture of cooperation with their clients, really involved and with a lot of respect for each other. Their love for - and strong belief in - brand building is also contagious. On top of that, they truly have a multi-disciplinary approach that I feel completely comfortable with with my varied creative and strategic experience."

Valerie Vleminckx: "I have always had a strong passion for brands and what they bring about, both from a branding & communications and product & services perspective. Boondoggle is strongly locally anchored and has assets not only as a strategic-creative agency, now even more fine-tuned thanks to Mathieu, but also from CX. When these areas of expertise work together, you can guarantee even more real brand impact, where it really matters. Few agencies do the same."

Olivier De Laet: "Over the past period, Boondoggle gave me a good first impression of its strengths. It's an agency where people really work together, where there is a good dose of creative ambition but also room to translate the right messages consistently. I'm happy to join them!"

Bio Mathieu Cardon

Happy father of 3, Mathieu Cardon started as a copywriter in 2001. Throughout his career, he liked to switch between independent and network agencies. Convinced that impactful creativity always delivers effectiveness, his work has been recognized at the Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show, AdStars, the Belgian and Euro Effies and the WARC Effective 100 amongst others. As Creative Director of Ogilvy Social.Lab, he helped the agency to win its first Yellow Pencil at D&AD and to become the European Effies Agency of the Year and the 3rd Most Effective Specialist and Digital Agency in the World at the WARC Effective 100. He then moved on to become Regional Creative Director of France, Germany, Switzerland and Poland, and co-headed the launch of an African-European campaign throughout 7 African countries. In 2020, he joined Publicis Groupe BeNe and became its Executive Creative Director.

Bio Valerie Vleminckx

Valerie joined Boondoggle in September 2023 as Business Director for Marketing & Business Development. As a professional brand builder with almost 20 years of experience in communications and marketing, she helps clients to unlock marketing efficiencies and create meaningful impact for brands, people and society by bringing different skills together. Valerie started her career with the launch of VIJFtv and rebranding of VT4 at SBS Belgium. She then joined Communication agency TBWA where she worked for all kinds of industries: from automotive, financial services to FMCG, both government and semi-government related campaigns, charities, B2B as large consumer brands.

As from September 2018, she joined Accenture Belux (former Kunstmaan I Accenture Interactive) as Head of Communicate to lead a team of strategist, digital marketers, creatives and client service through a transformative period becoming Accenture Song. Afterwards she took up the challenge of Chief Growth Officer at Accenture Song where she worked on national and international marketing & business development as the repositioning of Accenture Song. Throughout her career, her work has been recognized by different kind of Awards (Cannes Lions, Effie, Mixx…) but the most beautiful award is running a family of 4 and in her spare time a coffee and lunch bar.

Bio Olivier De Laet

After building on his expertise for 15 years at agencies such as TBWA, Dentsu, Dallas Antwerp & Wunderman Thompson, Olivier has been transmitting his passion for effective marketing and communication to students at AP Hogeschool since 2021. Next to his academic career, he has continued his work as Creative Planner for various agencies to build bridges between brand, media & digital strategy with a strong affinity for creative work. Balancing both roles together with being a happy father of 2, is only possible if you are passionate about each one of them, which he brings to the table for every client, student & his sons.