Daniel Gilbert

Founder & Global CEO Brainlabs

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Daniel Gilbert founded Brainlabs in his parents’ attic in 2012, aged twenty-six, having just walked out of a job at Google. The premise was that advertising had become a mathematical discipline while agencies were still staffed and run as creative ones — auction-based media buying and automation had changed what the work actually was, and the industry had not noticed. He staffed the first team with mathematicians and scientists drawn from his own Oxford cohort rather than with advertising people, and built the agency around experimentation and measurement. Fourteen years on, Brainlabs employs more than a thousand people across five continents, manages upwards of $1.5 billion in media spend for over 250 client brands, and has taken two rounds of private equity backing, from Livingbridge in 2019 and Falfurrias Capital Partners in 2023, using the first to fund eight acquisitions and an expansion into the United States. Gilbert remains Global CEO above a layer of regional chief executives. He is one of the more visible agency principals in the UK — ranked the world’s most influential PPC expert by PPC Hero in 2018, an EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist the same year, and a persistent public advocate for automation, for gender equality in the industry and for treating employee happiness as a real business measure.

Career Highlights

• Founded Brainlabs in 2012 and grew it from two people to more than 1,000 across five continents.
• Brainlabs now manages $1.5 billion or more in media spend for 250+ client brands.
• Ranked #1 in PPC Hero’s “Most Influential PPC Experts in the World” (2018) and named among the most influential people in digital by Econsultancy the same year.
• Finalist, EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award, London (2018).
• Brainlabs took first place on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Tech Track, and has been named AdWeek’s Breakthrough Agency of the Year with multiple AdAge honours.
• Sold a minority stake to Livingbridge in 2019 and completed eight acquisitions under that partnership before moving to Falfurrias Capital Partners as investment partner in 2023.
• At Google, managed a roughly $40 million advertiser portfolio including Thomas Cook and Virgin.
• Regular contributor to Campaign, Econsultancy, Search Engine Land and City AM.

Professional Journey

Gilbert read linguistics at the University of Oxford and had no intention of going into advertising. By his own account he applied to around fifty graduate schemes without success before landing a job at Google — a detail worth keeping because the agency he later built was explicitly designed around hiring for analytical ability rather than for industry pedigree, which is the policy of someone who was himself rejected fifty times by conventional filters.

At Google he worked as an advertising consultant, managing a portfolio of roughly $40 million in advertiser spend that ran from small businesses up to multinationals including Thomas Cook and Virgin. The work was advising those clients on paid-search strategy and conversion-rate optimisation, which meant seeing, at scale and from inside the auction, how the economics of online advertising actually functioned. What he concluded was that the mechanics had already become computational — bids set by algorithms against auctions clearing in milliseconds — while the agencies buying that inventory were still organised around account management and creative judgement. The arbitrage was obvious and nobody was taking it.

In 2012, at twenty-six, he quit and started Brainlabs from his parents’ attic. The founding hires were the thesis made concrete: mathematicians and scientists, several of them fellow Oxford graduates, rather than experienced media buyers. The agency’s proposition was to make marketing scientific — run experiments, measure outcomes, automate what could be automated — and Gilbert has been consistent since in saying he would rather be judged on client outcomes than on creative awards.

Growth was fast. By 2019 Brainlabs had around 240 staff and had taken first place on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Tech Track, an unusual placing for an agency rather than a software company. That year Gilbert sold a minority stake to Livingbridge, the private equity firm, explicitly to fund acquisitions. Eight followed over the next four years, taking the agency into the United States and turning a London performance-marketing shop into a global media business. AdWeek named it Breakthrough Agency of the Year; AdAge recognised it repeatedly for achievement and growth. In 2023 Falfurrias Capital Partners replaced Livingbridge as the firm’s investment partner.

The company Gilbert now runs is materially different from the one he founded. Brainlabs has more than a thousand employees across five continents, regional hubs with in-market strategists, upwards of $1.5 billion in managed media spend and over 250 client brands, and a leadership structure with separate chief executives for the UK and North America reporting into him as Global CEO. His own role has moved from operator to the person holding the original thesis in place across an organisation large enough to drift from it.

Alongside the operating job he has kept a substantial public profile. PPC Hero ranked him the world’s most influential PPC expert in 2018; Econsultancy named him among the most influential people in digital in the same year; he was a London finalist for EY Entrepreneur of the Year. He writes regularly for Campaign, Econsultancy, Search Engine Land and City AM, describes himself as a techno-optimist and an advocate for automation, and has used the platform to argue publicly for gender equality in advertising and for treating worker happiness as something a business should actually measure.

Education

University of Oxford

Linguistics. Gilbert read linguistics at Oxford; no source reviewed states the degree level or year of graduation, and none is asserted here.